So I’ve hinted a bit on some social media about a change. The change has come. I would have posted more details yesterday, but given that particular date, I didn’t want anyone thinking I was trying to do an April Fool’s Joke.
So the door closing is that as of March 31st, my contract with my largest client is over. This was actually a mutually agreed upon date. In fact, when my manager scheduled a meeting with me in December, I knew it was coming and expected he would want to end things in January or even perhaps December, so honestly, I was quite pleased to have the extra time.
That said, it was obvious to both parties that this was coming. I was spending less and less time on projects for them. This was due to actually a variety of factors. Strangely, a huge part of it was something that I hadn’t planned on: Grand Jury Duty. During the weeks I was on the Grand Jury, between that, the class I was taking and my ED Tech work, I had very little time left over to spend with this client, so they didn’t assign me any real projects at that time. But even besides that they had been using my skills less and less and I had been allocating less time to them. So, the end was inevitable.
And to be honest, I’m actually very excited about this. When I made the decision over two years ago to apply to PA School, it was driven in a huge part because I was tired of IT. I was also tired in part of having to learn new things in IT. Specifically, I didn’t want to learn who to do what I was doing in new ways. For example, the SQL Server world is moving more and more to Azure and other cloud providers. I’m actually in favor of this. But it’s really simply doing much of what I do in a new way. That’s not a challenge that excited me.
If I am to learn new things, I want to learn them in a new domain of knowledge. Becoming an ED Tech and eventually a PA is just that, learning new things in a completely new field. Some of my skills remain the same. One of them is my ability to solve problems. I’m just applying that skill in a new arena. This is exciting.
What’s also exciting is for the first time in over a decade, and ignoring two breaks, really since before the turn of the millennium, that I don’t need to be checking my email almost constantly. For a variety of reasons, most of my IT jobs over the past 3 decades have, if not required me to be available 24/7, at least highly encouraged me to be available 24/7. With my ED work, when I’m done with a shift, I’m truly done. No one is going to call me at home and ask me to log in and do an EKG on a patient. Right now my ED work is officially only part time, but I can pick up shifts, something I’ve been doing a lot. But on the flip side, I’m under zero obligation to pick up shifts if I don’t want to. The fact that I’m not on call and that I can pick up or not pick up when I want to is very liberating. I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile.
Another short-term change is that I don’t have to worry about trying to fit in client meetings with my currently highly variable sleep patterns. Last week for example, because of the shifts I picked up and one regular shift and my client needing meetings, I basically only got about 8 hours of sleep in a 56 hour period. I couldn’t get a solid “night’s” (since I generally sleep during the day because of the ED night shifts I work) sleep. I had to wake up and attend meetings. That’s over with.
And in some ways, there’s no going back. That’s not strictly true. My IT skills are still fresh and relevant and I have enough industry contacts that if I wanted to change course back, I could. But I don’t see happening.
Really the only downside is the change in income. Trust me, IT work pays a lot better than ED Tech work. However, fortunately we’re the point where total income isn’t as big as factor as it once was. Basically I can afford to “follow my dream” and we can still maintain our lifestyle. We’re fortunate that way.
So what’s next? Well later this month the application process for my second round of PA School applications begins. I’m much more hopeful this time around, though we’ll still have to wait and see. Assuming that’s successful, sometime in 2025, I’ll start a two plus year journey of again diving deep into learning with very little free time and I’m looking forward to that.
But in the meantime, I expect to travel a bit more, relax a bit more, work on some more projects around the house. Overall, I expect to simply enjoy life more.
And perhaps even blog a bit more than I have been.