Cutting the cord
This short post is about losing my corporate e-mail account, a small (but symbolically important) step in our change in plans.
Friday was the last business day in August, and the last day that I was attached to a corporate e-mail account. I knew the day was coming when I would go “off the grid,” but I had anticipated that it would be August 31st, so I was taken a little by surprise.
In the universal scheme of things, this is a trivial change, and one that I was intellectually (and practically) prepared for. Emotionally, however, it created one of those “are we crazy?” moments.
Both times that I have changed jobs in the e-mail era, I have immediately started working in another institutional environment. Everything transitioned seamlessly, and my little, medium-tech bubble of telecommunications was barely disturbed.
In this transition period, however, there is no institution on the other side. There is no new IT department waiting with open arms and a new blackberry. It is just India and me, and two kids, and a personal Verizon account.
Again, from any practical perspective this is a trivial and anticipated change, and warrants zero sympathy, even from myself. It does represent the severing of another cord, however, a cord which connected us (umbilically? restrictively? both?) to a different life. I suppose I should feel liberated, but instead I feel at some risk of getting lost.
My new e-mail address, for what it’s worth, is my permanent one:
pbaird@alumni.stanfordgsb.org