Goodbye, Siemens Dematic

After three years as an IT guy and Design Engineer creating simulations for airport baggage-handling installations, I'm leaving a well-paying, predictable, and secure job to re-enter the teaching field. Insane? You tell me. I hope next summer when I'm reading this again I don't regret the move.

I think I just got tired of feeling that my job and life in general was seriously lacking the meaning and purpose I felt during my previous seven years teaching. Pics

Read on for the email I sent to my boss to explain myself after he recruited me away from IT with promises of riches and women.

-----Original Message-----
From: Davis Bryan M
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 9:51 AM
To: Berryman Michael D
Subject: let me explain myself

I feel obligated to explain why I'm leaving at least to you because of your generosity and belief in me.

First of all, I'm not leaving because I'm unhappy with anything about working conditions. I like working with everyone around me, and I feel my job has a purpose within and benefit to the company. I also feel I have the respect of most everyone I've worked with. It's not because of anything I think the company or coworkers can improve.

It's about a deep-seated lack of meaning and purpose in my life. In seven years of teaching, I never got up one day thinking I didn't want to go to work. Teaching was something that was intrinsic to who I am and how I believe the world needs to be. I never doubted the nobility and value of what I was doing, and, getting paid peanuts, never considered money to be the primary reason I went to work.

I imagine you feel betrayed by me after having gone through the trouble of hiring me away from MIS and providing a generous raise. To that I can honestly answer that I, at the time, intended to remain with ABO and eventually program controls one day. Great pay, challenging work, relaxed environment--what's not to like? My left brain was happy.

But, unfortunately, my right brain wasn't. My idealistic and philosophical side just isn't satisfied working in the logical world of computers and engineers. The need to try to make the world a better place and help young people reach their full potential just holds too much of a draw for me to stay away, no matter how emotionally and physically draining I know it to be. So, here I am, feeling like I'm abandoning friends but knowing that the move is a necessary one for my well-being and sanity. I thank you for believing in me and hope that I get invited to next year's July 4th party. I'd hate to think that I'm leaving with bridges burning behind me.

bryan m davis [] embrace your contingent existence [] Orwell was an optimist