A Quarter Life Crisis

So before you get ahead of yourself there's nothing sexual about this post....ha-ha!

Any who.....I recently gave up the schlepping of adjusting workers compensation claims for the high pace world of consulting. Yes I hear the cheers from the peanut gallery or maybe that is the little me inside my head trying to slap me five. But I digress. So I've parlayed in some odd way that angst from getting yelled at by half the state of PA, VT, CT and RI into a job where I get to use my greatest tool....my brain. Way to go and the crowd goes wild!

Quite frankly no one goes to school to become an adjuster, it's one of the seven pits of hell. Of this I'm sure and if you allow it, it will consume your entire being. It's so consuming you go home at night thinking about some random podunk claimant who cursed you out because he's in too much pain to answer phones (oddly enough he is talking to you on a phone and answered it when you called) and since you denied his claim he can't pay his daughters tuition. Assuming that you did your job correctly you appropriately denied his claim but you still feel in the pit of your stomach that you made the wrong decision. Why you ask, because you have a heart. Granted he's probably playing the system and when it's all said and done he'll be rewarded with a gi-normous settlement, it doesn't matter. (A little touch of the bitterness is still there, I'm not that far removed yet.) You sit up eating cold leftovers wondering if you're a bad person.

And to the outside world you are a bad person. It was as if I woke up one day and said I was a dentist, lawyer or IRS agent. At random business parties when I told people what I did for a living I got the evil eye. So I was right I did work in one of the seven pits of hell. Strangers acted as though by telling them I worked as an adjuster I was in some way inviting them into the pit with me. I was just holding pleasant non offensive conversation, or at least that's what I thought I was doing. Should've started talking about religion at least the crowd would be friendlier.

Someone should've warned me before I signed my soul away to the insurance devils and hoped that less liberal judges sat on commissions and in the depts of labor. The job was toying with my politics. Here I was an elf yell away from my collegiate days (the hot bed for liberal thinking) and I wanted conservatives in positions of power. Overnight I morphed into Condelezza Rice. Maybe I was going to far. One morning I caught myself screaming at the phone saying something to the effect of those damn liberal bastards! That's when I knew it had gone almost to the brink. Who says those things.

In an attempt to right the capsizing ship I was calling my life before I fell any deeper into the abyss of adjusting I carefully sought other employment. Searching for another job was brutal. I knew that I still wanted to be in the world of insurance because believe it or not I do enjoy the business of workers compensation just not the adjusting. And one late afternoon, turning out of the parking lot at the office a magical thing happened. No I'm kidding, a headhunter called me saying this well respected consulting firm in the city was looking for someone with just my talents. For a second, I paused my talents huh and why would they want a half used up adjuster who was a about 2yrs off becoming a lifer? Of course I didn't ask him that but given how late in the day it was enthusiasm had been beaten out of me hours before this call. Oddly he continued to give me the car salesman spiel and did peak my interest. About 2 months later I had the job.

In steps the consultant, an overly smart individual who probably never did your job telling you how you can to do it better. Sounds like the prerequisite for an arrogant prick....yes I accept! And now the saga begins.......basically with a whole lot of reward points at the Marriott (that's a consultant joke for any of you out there).