I have a friend whose favorite past-time is to talk about “Plan B”s. We used to work together and every time we went for a walk after lunch, he would talk about what he would do if he were not doing the current job. Sometimes it was about “writing a book”, other times it was about “designing new tools”. Recently he actually changed his job. And guess what he is doing in the new job? Pretty much the same thing he was doing in the old job.I am not a great believer in “Plan B”s. May be because I am not very good at creating them. The last time I went for a job interview was more than 10 years ago when I was returning back from the US. I stuck with one company I joined till the time I felt that I am completely satisfied with “employee” phase of life and the phase is now over. The feeling was similar to feeling in 10th standard that school was a fun place but we need to move on to the next phase. At that time (2 years ago) I started my new career as an independent consultant.
During the initial days of consulting career people used to ask me what I am going to consult on. I am sure whatever I used to say wasn’t convincing. Because immediately the next remark would be: You can always go back to a job if this doesn’t work out. Isn’t it? Frankly, that is not how I looked at the situation. You don’t say that if you don’t like a college, you will go back to school, do you? The idea is to enjoy college while being there.
Perhaps you have a much better experience with Plan Bs. In that case it will be good to exchange our notes some day.
2 comments:
Vinay,
It depends on the context. Surely if it is related to the job, its not a great idea to have a Plan B. To me Plan Bs are like "playing not to loose" vs "playing to win".
Its also interesting to see where do you place preparation vis-a-vis Plan B. For example, I recently had been to Zurich. It was my first visit to Europe and I was reaching at 9PM or so on a day when the temperature was expected to be close to 0 degree. I was to be greeted by someone from my office who was to handover the keys of the corporate guest house and guide me into reaching that place. However, I also had taken address and phone no.s of the hotel where our Zurich office puts their guests. In my mind, I was prepared to have a peaceful night even if I was not picked-up (no panic calls here and there). But do you call it a Plan B?
I also posted a related article
Organized/Planned Living vs being Spontaneous in my blog (http://facilitatingimpact.blogspot.com/2008/12/plannedorgnaized-living-vs-being.html)
So what about people who go to B-school? :-)
Cheers!
Ramya TV
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