This, That, and the Other

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 8th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on July 8, 2010 on my old blog.

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Swallowed Up

I just found out that the small company ($60 million, ~400 employees) I’ve worked for over the past two and a half years is being swallowed up by a much larger ($9 billion, 42,000 employees) company.

Over the years I have worked for a lot of different companies while seeking my fame and fortune. My journey has taken me — and my family — all across the continent, from DC to New York to Los Angeles; from Dallas to Philadelphia to Chicago. And, for the past 16 years, to the Boston area. Yes, we moved around a lot. The old joke was that we didn’t take vacations, we relocated.

Did I say “old joke”? I meant “bad joke.”

I’ve had the opportunity to work for companies both large and small and everywhere in between. I’m no stranger to working for a company that has been acquired by another, larger company, and I can tell you from experience that it changes everything, sometimes for the better, but oftentimes not so much.

I might be more enthusiastic were I a younger man in an earlier stage of my career. I’m sure this acquisition will open up a whole host of new opportunities for my youthful colleagues, opportunities that might not otherwise have been available at our small company. But for me, a graybeard who is less than a year away from becoming Medicare eligible, this news creates a bit of angst.

I really don’t expect too much to change at my formerly small company in the short term, probably through the end of this year. But I’m sure that the mega-company that acquired us will take steps to integrate (or absorb) our little group into its huge operational enterprise by early next year. And that will no doubt affect who I will report to and what I’ll be asked to do.

So what are my options? I can sit tight and go with the flow, keeping my fingers crossed that when all the dust settles, I’ll be able to continue to do what I like to do, what I’m good at doing, and continue to contribute in some meaningful way.

Or I can, as my wife has suggested, view this as an opportunity to assess what it is I want to do with the rest of my working life and to see what other opportunities there are that will enable me to leverage my interests, experience, and skills. Oh yes, and to get compensated for my efforts!

Perhaps my wife is right and I should take charge of my life, become a master of my own destiny, and be the proactive author of the next chapter of my working life.

Ah, but that requires introspection and self-appraisal, two of my less refined skills. I tend to be a go with the flow kind of a guy. Like flotsam and jetsam, I let the momentum of the currents carry me along to ultimately light upon whatever shores they may lead me to.

Or not!