I went back to my old workplace today, with some coaching on the website I’ve been building for them.
I had butterflies on the train; they were demon, molten flying things with faded patterns on their wings.
I wasn’t looking forward to the trip at all. Disaffected by the current project, and also for personal reasons. Well ok, it’s where I used to work with my ex and after I bailed on our relationship I wasn’t exactly given a blessing from many of our old pals.
And the nine-hour commute wasn’t giving me a great deal of delight, so this patchwork quilt of a doom-laden day was looking pretty frayed and tattered.
Interpretation was the culprit. It was actually remarkably painless. I actually quite enjoyed it, a starkly polarised outcome to the expectation of some torturous hours.
I had an ace up my sleeve. I decided to approach the situation with an air of discovery and affirmation. To make sure I’d made the right decision to defect from being an upward-moving corporation jockey, to the great unknown masquerading as the joyful existence as a freelance writer and ideas guy.
Seeing the same old faces, the same look of bewilderment in many visages, confirmed everything I’d suspected. Once you leave The Man, you rarely return to pay him homage.
It still amazes me how talented people forfeit their birthright – a creative, fulfilled and world-changing working life – in favour of the comfort zone that in reality creates so much anguish, angst and frustration.
Don’t let it happen to you.