Leaving on a High Note

(By Matt)

Scene from Seinfeld:

Office meeting at Kruger Industrial Smoothing.

Kruger: ...And it gets worse. The team working on the statue in Lafayette Square kind of over-smoothed it. They grounded the head down to about the size of a softball, and that spells trouble.

George: Alright, well why don't we smooth the head down to nothing, stick apumpkin under its arm and change the nameplate to Ichabod Crane?

(Everyone at the meeting breaks out in laughter.)

George (getting up and leaving): Alright! That's it for me. Goodnighteverybody.

later...

Elaine: What was that?

Jerry: Showmanship, George is trying to get out on a high note.

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It seems that when we wish for chance and opportunity, it's a moment in which we foresee better circumstances. With the job for which my last day was yesterday, I hadn't been looking.

Work life was set: I loved what I did. I had the best work environment I've ever experienced (and I've experienced the worst). The commute was 15 minutes, door to door. My clients and coworkers enjoyed working with me. I knew my stuff.

So, why did you leave? An opportunity.

Will you love it? I don't know.

What's the work environment like? There is none, yet.

What about the commute? I don't know where I'll end up working.

Are you an expert at it? No and No.

Are you crazy? Eeeeasy. I'm telling you something.

The reason I left my job relates to one certainty: nothing ever stays the same. The job I left was a slice in linear time and happened to be a high note.

If George Costanza had stayed in the meeting, maybe everyone would get bored. Maybe they would have become hungry for lunch and would not have been primed for the Ichabod Crane joke.

If I had stayed at my job, I could have seen my great coworkers leave, one-by-one. Maybe the office would transfer far from our house. Maybe I would get laid off. In any case, the possibility existed where I'd reach a point where the 'slice in time' would not be as high as it is now. I would always think back to the opportunity that I didn't consider. So, even if this opportunity turns out to be a bust (which I doubt), I will never experience any regret.

I think the most difficult change is the type where you force events rather than letting them lead you. Events that force change allow you to reason that you didn't have a choice and needed to make do. People are comfortable when everything makes sense. I have neither certainty nor comfort when I think about future linear time. It is certain though, that we (me and Aimee) will surely find out.