Groove or Rut?

Am I in a groove, or am I in a rut? It’s a question I ask myself every few years.

In college or high school, it’s hard for most people to fall into too much of a rut. The constant flux of new classes and new people always refreshed the environment. In the workplace this doesn’t always happen, so it’s easy to fall into an unbreakable pattern.

I personally feat “the rut”, the ditch has been worn down as the result of never straying from one’s “groove”. The comfort of a groove can become a rut, much the same way that slow erosion caused the Colorado River to grow into the Grand Canyon. My fear is that I will become trapped at the bottom of the canyon formed inadvertently by my once comfortable groove.

I was in a professional groove last year, recently moved from test development to a new sales engineering job. Since February 2001 I’ve traveled about 120,000 miles demonstrating new products, speaking at conferences and otherwise refining the technical junk associated with pushing software into the developer market.

That job is fine when I’m doing it … I’m just not allowed to do it as much lately. Budget cutbacks have made our president question trade show participation, travel isn’t as well funded as it once was, and a lot of our new sales are being made overseas. So I’ve been doing a lot of firefighting lately, which is a bit stressful most days. After months of doing nothing but responding to push-button management, I am ready for a change.

My groove has started to wear down, growing deeper and deeper. I am planning my escape before it becomes a rut, carefully placing my ladders on the side walls.

I first started to feel the effects of “the rut” in my second year of graduate school. Six straight years of college had started to create my first rut … same university, same house, same field of study, same friends. Things weren’t bad, but it had been a while since I experienced so much consistency in my life. That rut turned into a slight case of burnout, which I resolved by getting a job.

My fear of over-specialization has kept me flexible. I’ve moved about in the company over the past six years, going from project work to testing to sales. Now I’m planning to do more documentation and training. This allows me a chance to work on a long term project, rather than fixing the problem of the moment.

This switch isn’t going to be sudden. This is a moment where I use my oft neglected subtlety. I have to make sure I switch from “Job A” to “Job B” without pissing off several key people. But I think it can be done with minimal damage.

Anything to get me out a rut.