Perspective.

Thanks guys, for the Comment Love. It definitely helps me battle the frustration.

Today was a late school opening so I didn't even head in to work until after 11. Then I had a 2:00 meeting downtown - great for getting me out of that downer of an office. It also helped to be among my users. Lots of tech people think their users are dopes, but I really like my users. Sometimes they do some dopey things but so do I. They are all really good people.

It also helps that my users appreciate me. They all told me that I'm essential in their book. It made me feel better. Guess it's not really about the money, it's about the love.

The senior vp (high on the corporate food chain) actually was the one who put it all into perspective he said that the whole thing has less to do with whether I'm essential to the system I support (which I am) than managements assessment of how essential or not that system is to the company. To them it's not the accounting system of record so it has less importance. He even offered to make some calls on my behalf. That made me feel pretty good too. His take on it was that I was in a position to be very essential in converting the application to work with the new core accounting system (which is the same package we converted it away from in 2005). He believes there's opportunity for me there.

That may be the case, but I still know it is time to start looking around. I want time to pick and choose. I'm not sure exactly what I want but what I don't want is clearer by the day.