This page has gathered a little dust since I’ve last been here. It’s been an extremely busy, but also different kind of summer so far.
I started a new job seven weeks ago, as I mentioned I would back in May. That transition has been more challenging than I perhaps expected it to be. Suddenly, instead of hiding among a more talented team, or playing a minor supporting role in a large company within another large company, I’ve now moved into a key role in a pretty small, lean organization. In other words, there’s no safety net, there’s nowhere to hide, and people will be depending on me.
No pressure. Of course, I’m there for a reason — I bring a specific skill set that was somewhat lacking previously. Still, acclimating to a new environment, albeit one that is supportive, energetic, and friendly, is nevertheless a stress-inducing endeavor. The last few weeks have been a challenge as I’d begun to find my role within the fluid, “chaotic” organization.
The good news is, I’m finally starting to feel like I’ve got my feet under me. Meeting and getting to know the whole team, especially those who would benefit from my expertise, has easily been the most helpful thing both for my confidence and my sanity. I am (probably) the proverbial “dumbest person in the room,” so I anticipate my continued professional growth will be meteoric and swift. All I need to do is make an effort.
Now, my main reason for breaking my (slight) drought on here, though, is that I really want to jot down for posterity several events that occurred during and after my transition. With a week off between jobs, I did some things that I’d been wanting/dreading to do for a long, long time.
Firstly, the moment my cashed-out time off arrived in my direct deposit, I paid off my student loans. All of them. Done. Back in 2012, when I initially started paying them, I assembled a detailed projection spreadsheet, wherein I could adjust payments and see how it affected the next 10+ years of my financial life. Tweaking it often consumed my mind, since I had nothing else to do back then. The financial burden was more significant on my measly entry-level salary, and I wanted it gone as soon as possible, even though I could only afford to maybe improve the payoff date from 2021 to 2020.
Here’s the thing: it didn’t really matter. I paid off my loans over two years early. I saved, maybe, a couple thousand dollars in interest. That’s not insignificant, sure, but over a decade that includes three job changes (read: major raises), it just gets absorbed. But the biggest reason I say this is, once I pulled the trigger and the balance finally, finally read “Paid in full,” I didn’t feel anything. Nothing changed. In fact, my credit score went down because I shaved several years off my average account age. Inside, I felt no satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. It was, just, over.
I am, however, very fortunate to have been able to afford my monthly payments since I graduated and I understand many folks have a far heavier burden than I did, so this sentiment doesn’t apply to everyone. That said, if given the choice to pay my loans faster or build my savings with what I know now, I would choose the latter every time. Patience may cost interest down the line, but having any savings at all in the present is paramount.
Secondly, I bought new clothes. Like, clothes that fit. Yeah, weirdly I didn’t know how to really dress myself for most of my life.
The reason I bring this up, though, is the side-effect of buying new clothes: getting rid of old clothes. I’ve always been way too sentimental, keeping things around beyond their utility. Well, something changed that week — I went fully Marie Kondo on my closets, ripping out old clothes, clothes that didn’t fit, clothes I didn’t want, clothes I’d been hanging on to for sentimental reasons, and threw them into piles with abandon.
It took me mere minutes to thin it all out, discarding most of the clothes I still had from my college days and before, as well as some less aged items that I never really used. Many had awesome memories attached to them, so I thanked them for their service before I let them go. Three massive trash bags were loaded up in my car and taken, without hesitation, to Goodwill. Like paying my student loans, it was a shocking non-event — I pulled them out of my trunk, plopped them in the bins, and walked away. That was it. So many sartorial memories, gone. For a moment I felt some twinges of regret, but those have since passed. I didn’t need these things, so I got rid of them. End of story. My life felt lighter and more organized — more ready to face the challenge my new job would bring. I’m hoping this experience will teach me to be less sentimental, should that impulse to jettison be difficult to find again.
Finally, I’ve been biking. A lot. When I bought my (first!) bicycle back in 2016, I rode quite often, albeit I was “unemployed” for a few months. The next couple working years naturally relegated my riding to weekends, where I’d usually need to psych myself up to get out and make an effort. On beautiful days, it’s easier. In the cold of winter, or the claustrophobic fog of summer, it’s not so much. Last year I started riding to my girlfriend’s place across town for the weekends, but in total that would be a workout of less than 10 miles per week, at best. When the rains came, it stopped entirely. And 2019 had been very rainy, so my riding had been less than consistent.
Flash forward to June: on my first day of work, I noticed a little nook in the office where someone had put their bike. Oh, happy day, that was all I wanted to see! I could, and would, ride to work. And so I did, three days later.
It was hard. San Francisco is not topographically cooperative, though culturally, I would say the opposite. The route from my house to the office is mostly downhill, largely on shared roadways with minimal morning road traffic, and in part on dedicated bikeways. Nevertheless, I often work up a sweat because I don’t know how to not make an effort, especially when the roads are clear and the lights are green.
The ride home was hell. Uphill the whole way, into the wind. I was sweating bullets and freezing at the same time. My legs ached. By the time I hit my 14th mile of the day, I was ready to give up, and that’s not even that much distance, really. But I knew if I kept this up, I’d get in better shape real fast. I spent some time optimizing my routes, through trial and error as well as tools to evaluate paths and hills — in the end there’s no avoiding the climbs, so I might as well not waste energy going higher than needed.
Now it’s the end of July. I’ve ridden to work and back 12 times out of 32 working days, or just under twice a week on average. In other words, since starting, I’ve put 177 miles through my legs instead of paying to ride a cramped and unreliable streetcar. That’s 16% of all of the miles my bike has traveled so far. The best part is I have extrinsic motivation: my commute is much shorter time-wise when riding, and it’s free, save for the infrequent cost of bicycle maintenance. The more difficult ride home is mitigated by the fact that, well, it’s my ride home — I can reach just as fast as I want to. The increased fitness is a bonus, as is the benefit to the environment.
So, in a nutshell, since I’ve left my last job, things have changed, mainly for the better. It’s been a severe adjustment period, both in a good and bad way, but I have confidence I’ll be much better off down the road. That is, assuming I don’t pour all of my new salary into cycling accessories — at this point, it’s a real danger. 🙂