I came home yesterday in a really foul mood, and wound up in tears when talking to Bruce about it. Now, first off, let me say I rarely cry. I’m just not that person, I deal with my emotions in many ways, but tears are not usually one of them. Second, for privacy reasons, I’m not going to go into any details about what is upsetting me except to say it is work related, and leave it at that.

However, without getting into details, the nut of the problem is that I’m feeling stuck right now. I’ve been with my company for 5.5 years. Up until 10 months ago, I had my dream job – I mean literally, I loved my job. A year ago things changed, and I wound up with a job I still enjoyed very much, but didn’t love on the same scale. No big deal, I was still pretty happy.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about my fear of giving up what I had to chase something different – well I applied for that new job, but for various reasons (including an announced merger) all hiring for my level and higher is on hold.

So after another announcement today that frustrated me, I came to vent to Bruce. He pointed out to me that I’m feeling stuck (which I kind of knew, but when you’re emotional you sometimes don’t see the truth). And it’s true – I know that with my education and background, I’m not really stuck, but there are factors that make moving on difficult. And in my current position, I am stuck and I don’t see a clear path upwards in my organization any more.

So am I stuck? What would be the worst thing to happen? If I left my current job for something else… what could happen? What if I failed? Well, so what? Failure is part of life. Bruce would still be there for me. I’d move on. Financially, we’d take a hit (this is one of those times I wish we had a lot less debt and a fat emergency fund, but we’re not there right now). But we’d survive. So I guess I’m not really that stuck.

Bruce maintains he feels stuck sometimes too – he has a job he (mostly) likes, and is paid very fairly for his work. But he’s 55 years old and has about 10 years to retirement (less, if I get a job that forces us to relocate). He’s been with his company for 5.5 years too. For him to move on, to start over for less than 10 years, he doesn’t feel it would be worth the trouble – so when things get frustrating, he really feels stuck. I do think he has more right to feel stuck that I do.

So my decision is this – it’s time to start job hunting again. I’ll talk to a couple of head hunters I know, and try to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I’m not sure where I’ll wind up – I don’t really want to go back to finance/accounting/business planning, but I’m not sure I have enough experience to continue to earn my current salary in the entertainment/hospitality industry. At the same time, at my current employer, I’ll continue to work hard earn a promotion or transfer to another department.