Times they are a changin'

On Wednesday, a day when I was already feeling overwhelmed and annoyed, a 2 sentence email came out saying that we would no longer to be able to work at home. It was actually forwarded to me by my manager from his manager with no discussion and the tag 'FYI'.

To say it was upsetting is an understatement. First - awesome communication, huh? Even Yahoo, who has been in the news about this for months now, is giving employees until June 1st to adjust to the change. I've been working from home for at least one day a week for over 8 years. It's a HUGE change for me. I've based many of my childcare decisions on the ability to work from home, and my big exciting July summer plan is dependant on it. All the talk around the office of my location being shut down? I wasn't all that concerned, because my manager had floated an option for me to work from home mostly, and drive to NJ office once a month for a few days. That is obviously no longer an option.

After the inital shock and panic (and dealing with the people that report to me freaking out) I took a deep breath. Yes. It sucks. But I still have a job. And fortunately, I don't have a bad commute. What this truly means is that we, as a family, need to be more organized. We can't let the kids destroy the living room Sunday and go to bed without picking it up. Mommy won't be home on Monday to organize everything while on conference calls. Dishes can't wait until the morning. We will have to stay on top of laundry instead of letting it pile up and having me push through 8 loads throughout the day. Dinner will need to be thought about the day before, not 3 hours before. And gone are the days when I stay in bed for an extra 30 minutes because all I have to do is pull on a pair of yoga pants.

This also puts the writing on the wall about where my job is headed. I need to really start dealing with getting my resume in order and networking. And decide which direction I want to go in - IT Manager? QA manager? Project Manager? I can go in really any direction, as I have done multiple roles here in the 13 years that I've been with the company - but which did I really like? And of course, what type of firm do I want to work for? I've worked for HUGE public companies, smaller private companies and a start up with less that 100 people. Each one has it's attractiveness - but it's all a process and a lot of work.

And I've totally been in denial that I need to do SOMETHING. This week was the wake up call. Time to dust off the resume and get it going. Blech.