A Crossroads

Well, the 21 day challenge is beginning today. The past few days have been an upside down kind of day and I just couldn't focus on anything, let alone what I was eating, what I was doing with anything.

First off, let me say that I wish I wasn't such a girl and cry when my emotions get the best of me. Boy is that what happened yesterday and I just couldn't shut them off. I still probably could cry about it. Really at the end of the day, it is going to require a decision, a huge decision and I just ask for prayers that, at the end of the day, it is the right decision for me.

I know WTF am I talking about - right.

Well, since I graduated from college in 1997, I have had a job with an Insurance company. Now granted, my job has always evolved and today I am removed from my account degree but I still work for an insurance company. After spending 5 years working in Internal Audit, I transitioned over to the IT world. So for Ameritas, I did a little bit of everything. Troubleshooting computers, working with phone and internet providers, Quality Assurance for a database, working in a contact management system, and the list goes on. I loved what I did, just not the boss I worked for.

Well, transition to my job at NFP. I was hired as an Administrator for our insurance database that allows offices to keep track of their clients, policies, etc. Well, with the recession, my job transitioned to a new department. Instead of being aligned directly with the Insurance Channel, I was moved over to the Technology umbrella. At the end of the day, I was suppose to support the database but was now being required to support about 20 other applications. For the past three years, in this new role, the time that was devoted to the database has become less and less. In a nutshell, every time something came up, the response was J has the bandwidth and the database got shoved a little farther off my table.

This year, my job has just sucked, no sugar coating it. One of the business channels forced their members to use encryption software. Imagine coordinating this new service for 450 offices, which almost all of them have a different email service provider. Sucked. Of course, people are mad about being forced to use it and guess who leads it because they had the bandwidth - yep me. So, now a huge part of my day is spent resetting passwords to open secure emails, opening tickets to determine why an email was caught as Spam, etc. It sucks.

Then, in July, we changed our log in process to be similar to banks, a dual authentication code log in process. Of course, up to this point, we never really enforced if a reps assistant called to reset their reps log in information - now we suddenly are. The people in the field struggle with it and constantly lock themselves out of the password and security questions. And they yell. And they scream. And they hang up. And their mad because they can’t do it for their rep. Guess who also leads this because they have the bandwidth? Yep, me.

So, in four years, I have gone from being a consultant, providing training, working with offices on a database to having my job digress to something I don't need a degree to do and consistently have people yell at me. The light at the end of the table was that at least part of the database was still on my table and there was hope that things would become more involved with it in the next six months. So, yesterday, it was shoved so far that it is just barely clinging to my table.

I spent probably close to an hour and a half in the boss' office on it. Of course, I cried about it, and cried and sniffled some more. It just sucks. The part of my job that I loved best will no doubt fall completely off in the next year. Oh my boss appreciates me and understands that I am capable of much more. But, he doesn't see it changing for what I am doing for the next three months. Then, basically I will get assigned the tasks and jobs he doesn't have time for on a day to day basis. Fanfuckentabulous. So, do I start looking? Do I accept the job for what it is and stick with it and just accept that I am 100% technology? Do I go down kicking & screaming on this database? Am I willing to go back to school so I can understand the technical side of life? Or is this God's way of saying become a teacher? Do I move back to Nebraska because at the end of the day, it was the job that kept me here?

If God could just good just let me see my future in a dream so I know what to do, that would be really great.  So, at this point, I can just ask for Prayers that I make the right choice in the cross-roads.