cancer – day 347

Still pondering where my writing ended up yesterday, though I don’t have much typing left in my fingers today . . .

I remember when I had the “interview” with Gary about going to Chain part-time and keeping my independent Cielem’el consulting going as well (instead of taking a super-stressful ridiculously high-paying VP job at Manugistics). Gary and I have been friends for many, many years, and he knew about my personal situation with Artie’s death and then my heart condition being diagnosed (did I ever blog about how I died three times one day? Freaky stuff.) Gary was a close friend for many years, and so by the time we were having this conversation (in 2005, I think), it was not exactly a typical job interview.

Towards the end, he did ask the stereotypical closing question though . . . “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I knew the answer, I knew exactly what I would have said had I not been through what I had in my personal life and the recent diagnosis of my heart condition. And instead of saying what I knew both he and I expected me to say, I told him, “you know, Gary, I would be lying to you as my friend if I didn’t tell you that the only thing I really care about in five years is to still be alive.”

Hearing myself say that, I also knew in that moment that there was no way I was taking the $260K high-stress high-travel multi-team-management VP job at Manu. That kind of stress at that point in my life would have been the end of me. So I started working part-time for Chain.