The Passion of Christopher Pierznik

I accepted a new job last week. This was the type of job I had wanted for a decade. Virtually everything I’ve done professionally over the past decade - MBA, Six Sigma, conferences, working late, reading business books, learning new software, networking - has been in pursuit and anticipation of this job. At this stage of my life, considering where I started, this was basically a dream job.

Therefore, it was quite a surprise to myself that, upon first receiving the offer, I requested 24 hours to mull it over. 

Before that point, if you had presented this scenario to me, I would have given a snarky answer like, “I wouldn’t even need 24 seconds to accept that job.” Just more proof that you never how you’re going to react in a situation until it is presented to you.

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I’ve written extensively about regret and one of my biggest regrets is my choice of major in college. I held three part-time jobs as an undergrad and one of them was as an SAT prep instructor, teaching overachieving high school students the tricks of a standardized test. When I took this experience and added it to my being a history major and never wanting to leave the college atmosphere, it seemed like a no-brainer that I would teach in college. I would be the cool professor that had class outside in the spring and talked about a variety of topics with my students, either in the classroom or in the food court. The female students would have a crush on and the male students would want to have a beer with me.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

I enrolled in a graduate program, but I quickly realized that being a professor was not in my future. This epiphany came to me while I sat in a master’s-level history class at Villanova, listening to a classmate extol the virtues of some thick tome that she had read all summer, doing her best to prove she was smarter than everyone else. It wasn’t for me. That was my last day in the program. I had attended six classes (not courses, classes) and never went back.

Instead, I dedicated myself to my current day job in finance. I realized that I wanted to spend my career with spreadsheets, numbers, analysis and reporting. Unfortunately, there is only so much of that work that occurs at a non-profit fundraising organization. There are other needs. Moreover, why would a corporation that had all of those elements hire a guy that majored in history, minored in communications, and worked for a non-profit? I had nothing to offer them. 

That was in 2003.

In the 10 years since then, I received my MBA and moved from non-profit fundraising to two positions in non-profit healthcare, the second of which closely resembled the “proper” finance department on which I had been setting my sites.

However, I was still stuck in the non-profit world and was unable to get out. While interviewing for the job I am now leaving, one person told me, “Once you get into healthcare, you never get out.” I felt like Michael Corleone.

I was close, but I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. It was finance, but it wasn’t a corporation. Also, I hated the location. My first office was in a perfect spot, in downtown Center City Philadelphia. The next was in the historic Old City section (across the street from Independence Hall), but this latest one was on the outskirts of the city, on the edge of North Philly, with nothing around. I wasn’t used to not being able to take a walk at lunch and scoping out the new spots around town. 

As usual, I was finding the small things to complain about rather than being happy with all of the good things. The need for perspective is one of the biggest things I talk about with my therapist. It’s an ongoing battle in my head.

After two years, I began to get the itch to move on. Some may call it being restless, others may call it ambition. I think it’s a combination of the two, along with wanting to finally land that perfect job - a finance position in a large, multinational, Fortune 500 corporation that is located in the downtown section of a major east coast city. 

Jesus, I’m glad my demands weren’t too specific.

Of course, the ironic thing about desperately wanting to leave a job that you coveted only 24 months earlier is that the current job is what got you to this position. In 2010, no for-profit company would even sniff me, MBA or not. Now, after all of the opportunities, learning, and experience I had been granted, I was eager to move on from people that took a chance on me and supplied me with all of those tools.

So I began applying. And interviewing. I was lucky to be interviewed by  some of the most successful companies in American history. I finally received an offer from one of them. This corporation is not only in the Fortune 500, it is in the top 20! The day had arrived! After ten years of trying - clawing up the non-profit ladder, working long hours, pulling all-nighters to finish my capstone, skipping lunch, skipping dinner, working weekends, taking shit from every angle - it was finally paying off! 

“We would like to offer you a position as Senior Analyst of Strategic Planning in the FP&A group. Would you like to accept this position?”

“Can you give me 24 hours?”

What the hell is wrong with me. Why didn’t I say yes immediately? 

I can’t say for sure, but two reasons come to mind.

First, the location. Like all of the other positions for which I had interviewed over the past year, it was located in a remote suburb, on a huge, sprawling campus where thousands of employees flocked every morning. Every extracurricular activity - gym, cafeteria, dry cleaning - was under one roof. I didn’t want that. I wanted my ideal job to be in a city, in a skyscraper overlooking other buildings packed tightly together, close to hot restaurants and clubs and a subway stop. I wanted the Gordon Gekko office. 

This is ridiculous. Location of a job is important, but considering not taking a job for which you’ve pined for nearly a decade because it’s not in a city is insane. In fact, the idea of working in a skyscraper is antiquated and actually dying! In a cruel twist of irony, every one of my (now) four positions has exponentially improved my career while also taking me farther and farther away from my dream downtown location. I needed perspective. Back when I went to work two blocks from City Hall, I was struggling to pay bills and feared I would never be promoted, always relegated to that same job until one day they found me dead at my desk. Now, in less than 10 years I had more than doubled my salary and managed to get into finance with an extremely successful corporation and I was complaining that there were too many trees around? 

I’m an idiot.

There’s no such thing as the dream job. There are almost dream jobs and I’m confident that this is one of them, but it’s not perfect. And I was nitpicking minor issues after having been denied the major benefits for so long.

In truth, this nitpicking also obscured the second, and far more substantial, reason for even considering turning the job down: I was scared. For all this time, I had longed for a position that would push and challenge me, but I had always done so from a position of comfort. I could be a big fish in a small pond, more educated than most of those around me, always complaining about being underemployed while simultaneously enjoying the ability to coast from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. 

Now I was being thrown into a completely new environment - new corporation, new industry, new structure (shareholders instead of simply stakeholders), even a new state. Everything I had known would now be going away and I would have to finally prove myself in the realm in which I had been outside observer trying to break through.

Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

So I was scared. But, after only a few hours, I knew I had to accept the job, not only because it had (ostensibly) everything I had always wanted, but for the simple fact that I was scared. Sometimes you need to pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and dive in. I could have stayed in my current job for the next 30 years, going through the motions while talking about how great I would be in a multinational corporation. Or I could stop talking about doing it and actually do it. 

Talking about it is easy, doing it is terrifying. And I had been taking the easy way out for too long, even if I didn’t realize it. Perhaps I had been waiting for a dream job because I knew that it would never materialize. It’s easier to find something wrong with an opportunity and decide to forego it rather than focus on the right things and take a chance. if you wait for the perfect opportunity, you’ll be waiting forever. If you never try, you never fail. 

Of course, you also never succeed.

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So, at the end of April, I will be starting the new gig and I’m sure I’ll be a ball of nervous excitement and energy, constantly alternating between wanting to jump for joy and shit my pants.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

I had ambivalent feelings when I signed my letter of resignation last week, because I will miss the people and the relaxed vibe of this place, and knowing the ins and outs that come with being somewhere for a few years. I’ll miss the lady at the front desk and knowing I can sneak in the back door without anyone seeing me and being allowed to basically do what I want, when I want. But it’s time for me to move on.

Nothing great is achieved by standing still. It’s time for me to walk through that proverbial door, even if I have no clue what’s waiting for me on the other side.

In other words, ”And even though it felt warm and safe, I knew it had to end.”

Here’s to new challenges!

Christopher Pierznik’s first novel, Sacrifice Fly, is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. He is also the author of The Hip-Hop 10. A former feature contributor and managing editor ofIHateJJRedick, he has also written for XXL, PleaseDon’t Stare, Amusing My Bouche, Reading & Writing is for Dumb People, and others. He works in finance and spends his evenings changing diapers, washing baby bottles, and drinking craft beer. He once applied to be a cast member on The Real World, but was rejected. You can like his Facebook page here or follow him on Twitter here.