New Job

Monday, June 21 is my first day in a new job. I don't talk about work much anymore, unless someone really does something funny. Or like the time someone asked me how to save a file to a floppy disk. But, for the most part, it's just work. Life is much more interesting.

Most of you know that I'm a (chemical) engineer, and the work I've been doing for the last 4.5 years has been engineering, but more like mechanical engineering than anything else. There's a reason I didn't major in mechanical engineering. The majority of my work load for the past few years has been more along the lines of finite element analysis and computer modeling. There's a reason I didn't major in that either. Don't get me wrong - I like my job. There's a sense of familiarity that's nice. And, compared to my first job (I didn't major in dirty, thankless, grunt work, either), it's a dream come true. My boss is fabulous, and gives me the freedom to get my work done, and pretty much manage myself. I've got incredible flexibility, and my group is great (especially now since the weird/crazy guy retired). They're all much smarter than I am, so I'm constantly learning from them. My job has its frustrations, but for the most part, I consider myself very lucky.

But it's time for a change. I finished my MBA in the end of 2007, and have some interest in supply chain ever since. I feel like it's a better fit for my personality, especially since the girls were born - I think I have earned an honorary doctorate in supply chain optimization. The job I'm going in to is still technical (product development supply chain as opposed to end product supply chain), so I'm hoping to use all of the stuff I've learned (no one in the new department really has that background), but it will be enough of a change that hopefully, in a few years, I can decide if product supply chain is something I want to go for, or, if I hate it, I'll still be close enough to the technical world to go back. The new job has a lot of plusses. My new department is a majority female, and most of them are working moms. I'll be working for a woman who has 4 young kids of her own. I'll still have the flexibility to do some work from home. I won't travel ... except maybe back to France... And I'll still be at the same campus as Greg, so we can continue to carpool.