Flagging loyalties

I asked around at my customer site yesterday about job openings. I'll be sending their HR department my resume as soon as I get a chance to proofread and update it. A former coworker of mine is asking around his new company, too.

I feel a little guilty for doing this, but it's been a rough year and it's not getting better. Facing down another six months of my project is a big deal to me, and knowing that I'll still be a rookie engineer when I get back in field bothers me a lot. I don't feel like I have any room for advancement where I am, and that feeling has been reinforced by the two and a half weeks I've spent in the field doing my "normal" job lately. Without Frank, I can't carry San Diego. I don't have the training to be our defacto Senior Engineer in So Cal, and that's largely due to the project that's been eating all my time for a year. We get a newb on Monday, and I won't even be available to help train him.

I don't want to leave, but I want my job to get better in ways that I don't believe our company is prepared to deliver. A lot of field people have left in the last year and a half. While the grass is always greener on the other side, I think there may actually be better pastures for me in other places.

All the same, accepting a new position would mean another big transition for me and M in the coming year. I have to make sure that I can carry our expenses on any proposed new salary, since he'll be going back to school. I need to make sure I can take the time I planned for our wedding. Whatever I find now has to dovetail into two lives, schedules, and sets of plans for the future.

I am sad and somewhat disappointed by this realization. I wanted to like my job more than I do, despite its demands. And I did, for awhile. If I do leave soon, this will be the shortest time I've spent at a job since my Child Development Center position as a 1st-year at UCSD. A small part of me is holding out for better, and still hopeful that things will turn around in the near future. So... we'll see.