Friday, April 4, 2014

And the winner is . . .

 AMAZON!!

That's right, folks, the winner of this year's contest for who gets to employ the charming young lawyer known as yours truly is Amazon.  The competition was stiff, with companies from DC, New York, Colorado, California and Washington vying for my loyalty and the law firm putting up a valiant last-minute effort to avoid losing its title of reigning champion. 

The decision wasn't easy -- no move of this magnitude ever is -- but after many rounds of interviews, follow-up calls, soul searching and even a couple of life-coaching sessions, I signed on Amazon's dotted line exactly one week ago today.  In a few weeks I'll be moving across the country to Seattle; on May 5, I'll show up for my first day of work as an Amazonian. 

Now you know why I haven't written much lately.  There's been so much to say over the past few weeks, but the time to say it was never quite right -- and, frankly, with all my angsting and over-analyzing, I just haven't had the mental/emotional bandwidth to write about it.  But now that I've accepted the offer and the process of moving across the country well underway, I figured it was finally time to bring you up to speed!

There's plenty more to say about all of this.  For now, suffice it to say that this is a leap of faith.  For the past six years I've had a great career at one of the best law firms in the country, doing exactly what I wanted to do with the people I wanted to do it with.  I've also built a rich and happy life in DC, building deep and lifelong friendships and having many wonderful experiences.  But those two aspects of my life -- the rewarding career and the rich personal life -- haven't always been mutually compatible.  In fact, over time they seemed to be increasingly incompatible:  the career had a way of insistently and repeatedly pushing out the personal life.  So this move is a leap of faith that it's possible to find a better balance.

Obviously this means that the next few weeks and years are going to be full of fun, new adventures (and probably a few trials and tribulations).  Stay tuned!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on every aspect of this process, which lead to this outcome! Change always comes as a double edged sword. Good luck! And enjoy the process from here. So many great new opportunities to be had! Lady

Ashley said...

Jason, Congratulations on a huge decision! Having worked at both C&B and Amazon myself, I support you 100%. (Haha...yes, I spent the summer of 2000 packing orders in boxes at the Amazon warehouse in Fernley, NV!) I'm looking forward to seeing where life takes you in Seattle. And you're always welcome to our air mattress if you find yourself in Boston! Ashley

JJD said...

Haha, Ashley, I love it! I hope I can make it to Boston sometime -- it would be great to catch up with you guys. (Also, now that my parents live in Reno, I suppose there's a chance we could end up visiting Nevada at the same time…)

The Atomic Mom said...

Ok, this answers my previous question ... Amazon. I knew I signed up for Prime this year for a reason. I know my membership helped them snag you. :)