From the Depths of My Hard Drive

While looking for a copy of last year’s taxes, I found a Word document I created in 2014. I vaguely recall writing this document as a part of a series of writing challenges created by NPR.

The intended reader is the professional writing society I belonged to at the time. I did quit my affiliation with the society about three months after I wrote the document. But I only sent the document to NPR, not to the people who I thought needed to read it.

Taking a look at their web site today, I can see that nothing has changed. It’s still Hot Mess Central. I have no regrets.

I present to you, “A Letter of Regret:  A Professional Breakup Notice”:

I have been mulling this over for the last six months.  It's just not working anymore.  The time and effort I put in are not longer returning a benefit to me.  While I take care of matters, when I need you, there's nothing for me.

You and I are not in the same place.  I don't search out the big places and names - plus they aren't here anyway and they can't be afforded.  But your focus seems to be on the next new bright shiny thing:  DITA, the cloud, branding, certification, consolidation.  All of it leaves me in the dust.

While I do appreciate the smaller organizations, I am held hostage to you in order to participate where the few of us like me can gather.

Change from within!  Change from within!  Oh, I see what has happened to those before me who dared to say something counter, to even speak the bold truth.  Doors shut, silence.  And ultimately, they walk away.  You can only have the door slammed in your face so many times before you realize your nose is flat and painful, and the only way to stop the pain is to exit.

Therefore I am exiting.  You probably won't even notice that I am gone.  You haven't really noticed or comprehended the numbers that have already left, other than to say we need more publicity, more standards, more money.  I say bullshit.  You need more like me, because there actually are more like me than like you.  We have given up trying to get you to notice because you keep chasing the shiny.  Well, have fun and good luck with that.  I'll be glad to rebuilt my professional soul without you.

I retired in December 2021. I could have sent this letter to my former employer now. I’d just need to remove the reference to DITA and change it to either “The Cloud” or “AWS”.

In the last year, I’ve read several books and articles about change management. In the world of work, nothing seems to change. You can only change yourself. I’m happy with the changes I made in 2014 and 2021. I stepped out of the endless loop built by work; it’s time to concentrate on me.