Take it easy, take it easy

Or maybe its "I don't care anymore,  no more no more no more".   I have been trying too hard and messing up, wanting to make a good impression on the POD hire even when he was just a member of the team.  He was hired before the BOD of the big corporation that manages everything got rid of their stupid Che quoting corporate president hire after letting him agitate for 3 years without being a leader who replaced what he had decided was too old and hidebound.   And things have just been worse since people in our group got bumped into management roles because our excellent director moved up to try to save the midlevel program that we are part of and the corporation as a whole.

So I am resolved to remember that I have savings and quite a bit in the retirement plan and I wouldn't feel like just working as a driver, or even just a cashier etc for ten years or so before started drawing retirement was the end of the world.  I will still try to do a good job, as I don't want to contribute to the group or corporation failing and putting some decent folk coworkers out of a job;  but  *I* dont NEED this job so there is no reason whatsoever for me to go all angst over every inadvertent flub.  If I'm still flubbing at least I maybe won't feel as upset if I haven't tried so hard and probably if I just relax more I'll actually do better.  

And hopefully the group hires the candidate that they had come and give us a seminar last week.  That person has a lot of program management experience and our group is floundering on the management side IMO.   So if they hire this dude and he helps out with the management while getting to do more research which he has zero time to do at his current location it should be win win. 

They were looking for more of a pure researcher at the initial science side initially from what our scientist on the committee told me at lunch but the first choice candidates they would have liked are all happy in current locations and they realized they could use some help on the management side.  And IMO getting a good researcher on the what all can we do with the data/products we are generating could be just as useful to expanding program work long term, and it has more chance of success than pitching a new satellite to funding agencies.  So I'm jingling curb chains for that.