Well Hello There

Yes, it's been too long.

And while I can't promise I'll be around more often, I do at least intend to be.  And I do owe an explanation of what's been up the last, oh, 9 months?

First off, I have a new job.  My old job, where I was for about a year, lead into a new job.  The business was closing, or at least transferring half of itself to another company, a major marine chandlery here on the West Coast.  My boss had already moved over, and he was selling half of the company, the repair side, to a new owner.  I was given job offers by the new owner as well as the chandlery.

I decided, for a few reasons, to go with the new chandlery.  For one thing, it's a very large chandlery with multiple locations up and down the coast, and some large warehouses through out the west and mid-west.  While their current internet presence is not a storefront for any but wholesale customers, It Is Coming.  And when it comes, it will be big.  While they mostly cater to the local commercial fishing fleet, their industrial side does also cater to many of the industrial companies that run the west coast.  There just isn't anyone else around, I guess.  I have concerns about the future of the commercial fishing fleet's viability after new USCG regulations come into effect in the next few years.  Overall, it just offered stability that my other option didn't have.  What my other option really offered, that I will miss, was flexibility, face-time with customers, and the ability to learn more about the management side.  I may come to that eventually in my new job, but it's not certain.

I do like my new job, and I like the company I work for.  I do have some flashbacks about my old-old job, and I have some quirks that are a result.  Like leaving notes in 20 different places to remind people I'll be out because a certain ex-boss would accuse me of not telling him.  And, working an extra half hour every day and not charging for it.  Ultimately, because I do not want to end up in a situation like I was in so long ago, I have been trying my utmost to go above and beyond the call of duty.  I was worried about the fact that for the first time in my life I'd be working with mostly all women.  It's been ok.  Everyone has a different personality, but they're all rock-stars at certain things, and you gotta take the good with the bad.

I'm worried that I'm getting further from what I originally thought I'd do in life.  It even came up in my interview.  "Two advanced degrees, you really want to give that up?"  I've been worried about it for awhile. How can I take myself seriously to be doing "only" this, when I originally meant to be doing "all" of that.  I'd mentioned it to R along the way.  He thinks it counts that I'm doing anything related to boats.  And that he's continuing to do what he's doing, and even if I'm not directly involved, I can't fail to be indirectly involved.  I think his feeling is that as long as I'm happy, productive, and fending for myself, he doesn't think I should feel like a failure.  And for now, it seems like he's right.  I look at when I fought for my career as I originally intended it and wonder, was it worth the angst?  The hysterical panic attacks?  The nausea of a Sunday?  I don't know that it was.  Maybe I'm content to let that chapter of serious NAME work close.  Not from a lack of interest.  Maybe the career had fallen into a riptide... where no matter how much I was swimming for the beach, I was getting dragged away.  And maybe it's just time for me to go sideways, and see where we end up.

I don't know that I want to leave the career for ever, but I don't have a way that we feel is comfortable for me to continue as a serious NAME in the future.  While I have background in stability, it is NOT in fishing boat stability. And I know all too well that those loading conditions you write down in the books and send in to ABS/USCG probably have very little bearing on the reality of crab season.  Especially given the general lack of serious education of the fleet's captains.  It's not to say they're not generally wonderful folks, and very knowledgeable, but there's few I'd trust with my life.  Or, say, my stamp, should I ever get one.

As far as a stamp is concerned, I'm not sure if I'll chose to get one.  I suppose in some way it would be optimal to keep that door open.  But at the same time, I'm not certain I'd be comfortable using it.  Who knows.

In the meantime, I do intend to keep working on boats, and using them, and loving them.  In particular, I've been working on a dinghy design on and off for a long time, and I would like to build it sometime.  It's going to have to wait till after we move into the apartment, but that just means I have the meanwhile to noodle the design some more.

All my love...

K