{"id":395,"date":"2021-03-29T19:32:02","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T23:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/?p=395"},"modified":"2022-08-27T09:47:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T13:47:51","slug":"three-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/?p=395","title":{"rendered":"Three Criteria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As I approach my last few days as a cyber professional, I find myself thinking about a set of criteria for jobs that I developed years ago and that I&#8217;ve applied pretty consistently throughout my career. I&#8217;m wondering if these criteria still apply in a professional world where visibility and networking seem to be the only things that matter. I&#8217;m reflecting on whether or not my decision to retire from tech aligns with my criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/50073145407_6651e75643_c.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-397\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/50073145407_6651e75643_c.jpg 600w, https:\/\/wherndon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/50073145407_6651e75643_c-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption>Self-portrait 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The criteria (1 point scored for each) are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Will this job help me to acquire skills that I could not otherwise obtain?<\/li><li>Will this job enhance my prestige and\/or visibility within my discipline?<\/li><li>Will this job contribute, measurably, to my happiness or well-being?<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>With only one exception, I never took a job that scored less than 2, and no job I held, that dropped to 1 or 0, retained me for more than a year beyond that inflection point. But here&#8217;s where it gets interesting&#8230; My employer, MITRE, was once described by a trusted colleague as a place where one, &#8220;&#8230;can walk across the complex and get another job if you don&#8217;t like the one you&#8217;re doing.&#8221; And this is really true. The possibilities are endless. So why am I leaving MITRE and cyber? Why now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it has more to do with me and less to do with the criteria&#8211;no big surprise there. Yes, criterion (1) is still valid, but the skills available to me are not the skills I want any longer. I find I no longer care about prestige and visibility (criterion 2), but I&#8217;m hopeful that this transition will bring about outsized measures of happiness (criterion 3). So I guess the criteria still apply, after a fashion, but now I seem to be down to two. Is this just age? Exhaustion? Rebellion? The pandemic? ;- )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I approach my last few days as a cyber professional, I find myself thinking about a set of criteria for jobs that I developed years ago and that I&#8217;ve applied pretty consistently throughout my career. I&#8217;m wondering if these criteria still apply in a professional world where visibility and networking seem to be the only things that matter. I&#8217;m reflecting on whether or not my decision to retire from tech aligns with my criteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,31,29],"tags":[57,55,56,54],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-featured","category-reflection","tag-job","tag-mitre","tag-retiremewnt","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wherndon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}