In almost 5 years of blogging, one of my cardinal rules, though unwritten, was to not talk about work and my job on this blog. You hear stories today about prospective employers doing Google searches on interviewees or looking them up on MySpace or Facebook. (Interesting sidenote: since converting my blog’s identity from silwenae to Paul Cutler, a Google Search of my name takes me to the #2 result on Google, up from about 10 6 months ago).

Rules are made to be broken.

After 15 years of working at Best Buy, I resigned my position this morning. I believe it came as a surprise to most of my co-workers, who thought me a “lifer”. But this past year has been one of reflection for me, as January was my 10 year anniversary of working at the corporate office after 5 years in the retail stores, and May was my 15 year anniversary.

I’m not leaving retail behind forever, as I’m going to a small software publisher, who, well, publishes software to sell at retailers.

Best Buy has changed immensely since I’ve started. From 75 stores in 13 states, we now have 875 stores in 49 states in the US, as well as stores in Canada, China and operations in the U.K. I started as a part time cashier, and worked my way up the ladder managing my own store as a General Manager in 5 years. I then spent 10 years at the corporate office, holding positions as a Product Manager, Sr Buyer, and others working in Service, Business Development and lastly as a Merchant.

Change is hard, and a bit scary – Best Buy is really the only job and career I’ve had in my adult life. But I’m looking forward to the challenge of a new position, and in a way starting over. I’m going from a company of 120,000+ employees (5500 at our corporate office) to a company with 45 employees.

One of my co-workers who I have grown close to over the past few years left me a card and a CD with songs she thought was appropriate to me leaving. The song choices were amazing – and one of them was Tom Petty’s Running Down a Dream. I’ll post the set list in a few days.

I’m excited at the opportunity, and I’m looking forward to the change. And don’t worry, I’m back to my unwritten rule of not talking about work and my day job.