I haven’t written on newstasis in a while because I have had very little inspiration. I left my management job at SST in August and found a job as an IT recruiter. I figured I would try it out and see what it was like and for 7 weeks I was a recruiter. When I took the job I thought that I had found something that I was going to love and make a career out of. I didn’t. I do not have what it takes to be a successful IT recruiter; mainly because I do like it and can’t see myself doing it for much longer than a couple of months.
But there was a lesson in the whole process and now that I am back with SST I’m able to see things more clearly.
I am a pathological optimist. Rachel would say that I have a tendency to dream and I would agree with her. Often times my dreams taint my judgement and I make decisions that are based on the happy-blissful feeling I get when I’m thinking about all the things that are possible vs. the slightly muted or dull feeling that is associated with the acceptance of how things actually are. The end result is that I agree to things that are, in hindsight, not suited for me. IT recruiting is another example of this tendency.
I knew even before I started doing it that the fit was wrong – Rachel knew, my friends knew, my family knew – but such was my decision to leave SST and try something new. They all supported me because that’s what you do with someone who dreams the ridiculous dream.
At 35 I’m not sure I should even attempt to change this aspect of my personality because I don’t see it to be a flaw. In fact, I think people could benefit from being a little more optimistic about the future. I would say that being hopeful for the possibility for change is a requirement for things to get better; at the very least, it’s a requirement for seeing things in a different and better way. This seeing things as better and believing that they can be this way is the first step in make your world the way you want it to be. Even if this means taking on jobs that you don’t like after 7 week.
Hey, I could have been right and found my happiness as an IT recruiter.