As I’m writing this, I’m nearly finished working a Saturday at my old job. It’s an odd experience and probably one that not many folks go through – coming back to a job that you held for three and a half years, working in place of the guy that replaced you because he’s at a wedding. It’s not a scenario that’s bound to come up a lot.

You know, I should give a little more history before going on -- way the hell back in April of 2003, I took a job with an independent concert promoter / venue operator in Columbus, Ohio. It was only my second full-time position out in “the real world,” the first being the box office manager for a regional opera company. Suddenly, I was dealing with a whole new sort of thing – several shows a week comprised of every type of live musical entertainment you could name. Also, the venue was big enough to pull in pretty well-known acts on a regular basis. A month and a half into my new job, I was standing outside of my office watching my boss play ping-pong with Dave Grohl*. It was May 26, 2003. Memorial Day. I have this thing with dates.

This brings us back to today, April 12, working at my old job well more than year after I’d left to chase a new career. (I’ve done this return trip several times before… it’s nice to be helpful and hey – they pay me well for making occasional appearances.) I was halfway through the 11-hour “old job” reunion tour when I realized why April 12 had been popping up as a sticky note in my head all day – the first show I ever worked at the Pavilion was April 12, 2003. Five years ago today, I was working an Everclear show (and I hadn’t technically started yet, my first full day was April 16). Basically, I hadn’t set foot in the building in over eight months and fate brought me back for my fifth anniversary.

When I left – two days before I got married – I was absolutely ready to make a transition. The job was time intensive, if not always work intensive, occupying 50-60 hours of my average week (and I was maintaining a church gig as well). I was worn out, irritable, whiny, and generally in a state of emotional disrepair. Why my wife ever decided to marry me at that point is still a mystery, albeit one I’m sort of happy about.

But coming back every now and then serves as a reminder that along with all the baggage, it also was the time that I came into my own in terms of my work persona and abilities. And I got to go through all this development while working in a freaking rock venue, providing me with tools that have proved critical and invaluable in my new career as a non-profit arts fundraiser.

Yes, I’m sure you see the connection there.

I wonder if my potential kids will be able to wrap their heads around the idea that their silly ol’ dad, full of lame jokes and geeky sensibilities, met a bunch of famous rock stars. There were several brief encounters with Ben Folds. Elvis Costello (I pointed out to him where the catering room was). Listened to John McCrea of Cake sort of passively insult my venue while drinking a Rolling Rock in the production lot. That whole Dave Grohl ping-pong thing… Yes, these were truly my formative years.

It also occurred to me that I was fortunate enough to be able to use the slower times during events to write – so it’s also kind of appropriate that I’m sitting here at my old desk, waiting for the show to end, writing an essay about it.

Life nowadays is nothing like this place. I feel like the work I’m doing is far more important in the big picture, and it also feels a lot more… well, “grown up.” Which is not to say that what I was doing at the Pavilion wasn’t -- when I left I was ultimately in charge of ticketing operations for the company’s three venues, administered the guest services staff at the largest of them, and got to run the building when the GM wasn’t at an event. But it’s a sort of importance that’s very “here and now,” easily replaced by what comes the day after. If you have a rough night or a bad show, you go home and put it behind you because you’re probably doing another one in a day or two and it’ll be a different animal. Being a fundraiser, though, is all about working with the big picture, and if you suck at your job… you lose funding and other people suffer as a result. It’s really worthwhile work, but sometimes it’s a struggle to find the fun and excitement in comparison to the former.

I have no doubt that there’s a pivot point, though…a point when you’re ready to take on the more mature stuff. Being here today serves as a reminder of what life was, both good and bad – it’s fun for the moment, but I can feel how easily I could regress back into feelings of frustration and irritation if I were in this sort of place regularly. I was ready for the next step, although even after almost a year of the new career I still feel like it’s hard to be fully immersed in that at this point. I’m through the pivot, but I’m still not settled into this new course, not quite ready for all the “big picture” responsibility that can dog you every day.

Maybe I need to visit the old a little more often. It provides good perspective. And at the very least, I can sort of be a dick to the clueless teenagers buying tickets. I miss that.

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*I assume that most of the readers of my column will know this name. But for those of you that don’t, Dave Grohl was in this band called “Nirvana.” They were very popular with the kids. He went on to form a band called “The Foo Fighters,” who are also popular with the kids, David Letterman, and myself.