O.Q. -- It's the New Tedious

Last year, the running joke around these parts was how tedious I am to work with, a la someone with whom I use to work. ("Tedious good or tedious bad," you ask? That depends on who you are. If you like someone who's detail-oriented and on top of things, that's good. If you aren't good at details and staying on top of things and my doing so makes you feel or perhaps even look incompetent, that's bad. For you, anyway. But I stray...)

This year, the running joke is becoming, "I'm not tedious. I'm... (long pause for dramatic effect) over-qualified. O.Q.: It's the neeeeeeew tedious."

Seriously, though, this is the challenge. I feel like Goldilocks in all of this job searching stuff--only in my case, I'm the porridge, the chair, and the bed. I'm either too hot/too cold, too big/too small, too hard/too soft. All I want to be is "just right."

Sure, I'd like a regular 9-to-5 job with a commute and benefits simply because living from project to project and without health insurance is a sure recipe for shortening anyone's lifespan by a good 20 years. But those aren't the only reasons I want to bill hours, punch a clock, plow through email and voicemail, sit in meetings, handhold those who need handholding and be grateful for those who don't, curse bad drivers in the morning and again at night, and pack my own lunch.

I want to make a contribution. I want to be collaborative. I want to see something tangible for my efforts at the end of a day, a week, a month, a year. As it is now, I give the parts of projects I've been asked to do back to my clients and never really know what the outcome is unless I call them when I follow up to see what they need from me next.

2006 was the year of the Butternut Squash. I'd like 2007 to be the year of the Porridge, Chair, and Bed--just right.