By the time I started the sixth job of my professional career the Dot Com boom was well underway and I had already been studying independently to become part of it. But it was a rapidly evolving thing with lots of emerging technology incubation and cultivation as speed and efficiency of computing hardware improvements continued at breakneck pace and web-related software standards advanced, were refined and released for use. It was as intimidating as it was exciting and I needed a little help getting and staying ahead of the curve. My new boss at my new job understood this and made sure I was getting all the training I needed to absorb and apply learning to work tasks. She had no space for me on the same floor with the rest of the crew and I ended up in a workspace nestled among the company's logistics staff where I learned a lot about that stuff just by listening to them talk to each other and to clients on their phones. The workspace was well illuminated by sunlight and as the new decade began I quickly became productive for the company and my boss seemed pleased with my work, delighted I wasn't freaking out about having to work on a different floor apart from the team to produce high quality results. She also made sure we all had some good, high-spirited fun together, taking us on play outings around the city.
So I wasn't feeling left out of the loop or neglected by the boss when eight months later I sheepishly submitted my resignation. It was the hardest resignation of my professional life because she was so good to her team but I had finally accepted a job offer with a Dot Com startup company situated on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. It took a long time to compose the resignation letter to assure my boss that the decision to move on had absolutely nothing to do with dissatisfaction in my current position and I held nothing back about true motivations for moving on. Being no dummy, she understood completely and assured me there were no hard feelings and thanked me for my dedication and high productivity while I had worked for her, complimenting the quality of everything I produced while working there. I worked out the remaining two weeks on the job as enthusiastically as I had from day one and after willingly completing professional obligation to transition my work information and tasks to my replacement, I focused on escaping the Hard Gray Edge. The next day was moving day and I was all too eager to get on with it. A lot had to be done.
A few weeks prior to moving day, the Dot Com startup company I would soon be working for had provided an old fashioned perk immediately upon my acceptance of their generous job offer: an all expenses paid (round-trip flight, hotel, meals, rental car and fuel for it) to spend three days secure housing before my first day on the job. I didn't expect this and made no demands for it. They just did it and it made relocation to my new digs 725 miles west and north as pleasant as I could ever imagine a relocation could be. I found an excellent house to rent one block from trailhead into a large regional park and easy driving distance to every kind of retail resource I would ever need. Three weeks after returning home from that house hunting trip, the moving van arrived, the crew immediately began packing up everything in the apartment and loading it into the trailer. Staying out of their way enjoying gin and tonics out on the balcony as they worked, I had company of the feathered kind closely–if not less excitedly–watching the moving crew do their thing. All the activity was making her nervous.
It was a scorching hot day in late July when the moving crew arrived at the apartment to pack and load up my stuff. They were all friendly, fast and efficient. Nothing they carefully packed and moved to the new house was broken or lost. I tipped them all generously after setting the last box down in the garage of my new dwelling and waved good bye, hopefully as pleased as I was with the outcome of their hard work. I was even able to include the gratuity I paid the movers on my miscellaneous moving expenses which my new employer paid without protest even though I offered to pay it myself. He had insisted on covering that final bit of expense too and cautioned me to make sure nothing was lost or damaged during the move so he could help me get compensation from the moving company if they balked at all paying for such stuff. But that wasn't necessary at all and I quickly, joyously settled in to begin this new phase of life living and working on the Front Range. Sitting down for a gin and tonic and supper on the back deck of the house, a superb thunderstorm brewed up and exploded out over the eastern plains, putting on an excellent light show as I enjoyed drinks and first meal cooked in the kitchen of my new digs as a long, hard day of transition ended.
