We're recovered and just when I think....

So it's been five days since the marathon and I'm already 100% recovered. It's been a sort of light week for training, but that's a good thing because just when I think my life couldn't get more hectic, more stressful, more crazy, I get a call Monday afternoon by a guy at work that puts my life into absolute mayhem.

Ok, let me back up a little bit to last week. As you may or may not know, I work for Westinghouse Electric Company (we design, service, and build nuclear power plants) as a Quality Engineer. I've worked in this position now for about 3 1/2 years, and have enjoyed every second of it. I've been to San Francisco, Austin, Miami, Lake Tahoe....you name it, chances are this job has taken me there. Life on the road was fantastic but it was time for a change. A friend who works in another part of Westinghouse came to me a week and a half ago saying that there was a job that opened up in his group. I figured what the heck. I'm not really looking for a new job, but I figured I'd give it a shot. So last week before we left for Big Sur I met with the hiring manager for an interview. Interviews are always interesting. You know they ask you those silly questions like "What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses". "Give me five reasons for why we should hire you". ....you know stuff like that. I went into the interview very confident knowing that I still had a job if I didn't get it, and most importantly I still had a job that I liked very much. Getting this job was a long shot I thought. I was interviewing for a Project Manager / Project Engineer job, and thought at first that it was way out of my league. So the interview went well, we left for Big Sur and that wen't well, and what do you know as we boarded our plane for our return flight to Pittsburgh my phone rang. Yep you guessed it, it was the manager I interviewed with telling me that he'd like to make me an offer to join his group!

I was shocked, somewhat stunned, and had to tell him that the flight attendant was making me get off the phone because we were backing out the plane. I told him to give me a day or two to think about it, and I'd get back to him. Let me tell you, I've flown a lot and that flight home was the longest flight ever.

Once we got home I had some serious decisions to make. When we got home Monday night and finally made it to bed, I swear I don't even think I got a solid hour of sleep in. This was one of those life changing decisions that I had to make, and had less than 48 hours to make.

All I could think about at work the next day, was "What am I to do". I had talked to my parents, co-workers, other managers, and my wife, and they all said it sounded like a good move. The more I thought about it, it began to seem like a no brainer. Humans in general have a hard time adapting to change. Just the thought of change is sometimes terrifying.

So Tuesday after work I had to burn off some of this stress. I ran a very easy run after work and headed directly to the pool. Usually when I swim I think about Ironman, drafting off of the imaginary guy in front of me, but never work. Triathlon is my special time, and all of the sudden it was filled with work thoughts. I had to make a decision, and I had to decide fast!

Tuesday night was another sleepless night, thoughts of the new job once again filled my head, but I had made a decision. Wednesday I decided to tell my current boss the news. I really respect my current boss, and the guy is incredibly intelligent, and he reacted as I would have expected. He was very excited for me, for my career, and for the new opportunity to succeed at a new challenge. He even told me that if things don't work out, there is always a home back where I came from. When he said this, my stress level went from 10 to 0.

As I reflect on the week, and what happened, I tend to attribute a lot of my success to the sport of triathlon. Triathlon teaches you to be the best you can be. Triathlon teaches you what it takes to never give up. If you never give up, keep dreaming big, keep working hard, life will take you down a path of forever happiness and endless success.

posted by Chad Holderbaum @ 8:22 PM Comments: 2