#1876 feeling my age

There are a couple of times a year that I reflect on my life: at the start of a new year and on my birthday.

Today just happens to be my birthday. It is also the day we get a new regional manager at my work. He is a good guy, super smart, and I think he will do well. The thing is that I remember when he started at Granite. I was in the subcontract department and he was a new engineer fresh out of college. Now he is the boss. This afternoon was right about the time that I thought, "Holy crap. I've been here awhile."

It doesn't really have anything to do with my age, but the fact that I have been at the company long enough to see such progression in people's careers.

There used to be a woman who worked with me who has since retired. For as long as I knew her, she did the same job. There were some changes to the scope of her work description, but in general, she was the Queen of Accounts Payable. I always wondered if she ever got tired of doing the same thing. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. There's enough variety in the day-to-day to keep it interesting, but in the end, the work is the same.

That's where I am with my job. I've been doing the same job (with interesting twists here and there) for around 15 years . I have developed a system that works for me and gets things done. My bosses are happy because they don't have to worry much about the plant accounting stuff getting done because they know I will take care of it. It's nice to have their confidence and I appreciate their faith in me.

I guess my thought pattern tonight is, what now? I still have at least 12 - 15 years of work life ahead of me before I can retire. Do I stay where I am? It's not exactly like I can do my job in my sleep, but I am pretty comfortable. Am I complacent? If I stay there through the rest of my work life, I will have put in over 30 years with this company. Sheesh. The thought of leaving and trying something new is kind of scary because I do have 20 years with Granite. To start over somewhere else would be so strange.

I'm not saying I want to start over somewhere else. It's healthy to think about change though, isn't it?

It's probably just my birthday reflection (and a little vodka) doing the talking. (Not much vodka; I'm just having a cocktail and thinking through my fingers on the interwebs.)

There are really only two jobs that I'm pretty sure I would leave my current job to do: working for the Utah Jazz or working in the travel industry. I haven't done anything to look for work in either of those fields.

I'm pretty sure that Granite will want me to leave before I choose to leave them. I'll be that crotchety old lady in the corner who people will say, "Oh, that's just Sandy. She's been here forever. Just give her what she wants and everything will be fine."

Oh well...enough of my rambling thoughts. I'm sure everyone thinks about "what if" every now and then, right? I suppose tonight was just my night.