On Thursday, November 3rd, I arrived at work at 3M and found a 1/2 hour meeting scheduled with my boss. The subject, “1 on 1 Job Priorities”. I got a bad feeling about it and immediately started looking at her calendar. She had several other 1/2 meetings that morning, all marked “private”. I knew the ax was going to fall. We’d been having layoffs every quarter for a couple of years. Sure enough, when I walked into her office at 10:30, HR was sitting there too. After 10 years at 3M, I was going to be unemployed. I did get a great separation package. Between that and savings, I could keep myself going for several months if need be, but my plan was to be working sooner rather than later.

Fast forward to today. I have accepted an offer from Black Diamond Equipment. I’m very excited about this prospect as they quickly moved to the top of my list as I went through the interview process there. I will be developing C# applications for internal use. My first day will be December 5.

So, what about Mojo Sofware Worx, the consulting company that I started? I’ll keep that for side work. I do have one project with it that I should soon be starting on. I’m just waiting for all the details on it.

So, from layoff to employed, one month and two days. There will be new challenges at the new job, but I’m excited about them. Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone to grow. After 10 years of comfort at 3M, it’s time for new growth.