November 14, 2006

new start

first day at the new job yesterday. a lot to talk about, but i'll have to find time to tell. my brain is currently full. (gratutitous Far Side reference)

all i can say is that I left 17 minutes earlier for work today and got there 10 minutes earlier. i am so not used to the commute mentality anymore.

Posted by spoof747 at 09:16 AM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2006

checking in

so i haven't checked in in a while. normally its because of work and how crazy it can get there. This time, it has been the exact opposite. we finished up a product release at the end of March and have been in that lull period in between releases. I even snapped this shot on the first day of working after the release went out.

This was taken as I got home from work.

Sad, that is the first time that I've actually left work before the sun has set for months. Even sadder, I had to get help from Daylight Savings to even see the sunset. But its gotten somewhat better since that day. We're still dealing with cleaning up the loose ends from the previous release and prepping for the next one. At the same time, I haven't really felt like posting because I've just been wanting to spend time with Jenn and Naomi as much as I can.

So ironically, now we're on the cusp of the next release, so there is all the preparatory work and the gearing up that happens. We've got a nervous client (as usual) and more people that have joined them who insist on meddling (i suppose that is as usual too). What is so hard to understand about us trying to be consultants that offer a cohesive solution? Why do the clients insist on tinkering with this and tweaking that. Maybe its just gives they justification for their jobs, since we're the engine that develops the product, after all.

I'm tired. Not the usual sleep late wake up early long hours tired. I think this is more like fatigue.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

fridays

fridays mean less when you work the weekend.

you want to know what kind of day this has been?

as i was about to jump off of a conference call with a client, i was so frustrated i swore under my breath -- and realized the mute button wasn't glowing red anymore.

its been that kind of day.

Posted by spoof747 at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2006

commuting vignette #3 - now you don't see that everyday

a pigeon just flew into my BART car and kept banging itself against windows thinking they were the way out. I would have snapped a picture, but the windows it was banging against were RIGHT NEXT TO ME. And I had no place to back away because I'm sitting at the very end of the car. The BART operator came out and finally was able to grab the bird (he was wearing gloves) and let it free outside, and it flew off, apparently none the worse for wear. I wonder if this was some sort of sign.

Then again, a bird bashing its head against window after window probably isn't a very good sign of anything.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2005

getting back to real life

So at work, we released to production last Thursday night. What has changed since then?

Schedule-wise, a little. While I've been still getting out of the office late -- at least its been at 7 or 8pm since Monday (and even a few of those were due to non-work-related reasons). I'm also using the morning time to take care of things I wasn't able to get to during release-time.

Psychologically, its a big load off my back (and the entire workplace) Actually, its more the other way around -- because everyone in the workplace, the client, our consulting bosses, all feel better now that this is in production and nothing big has blown up (yet), the whole atmosphere is a lot more relaxed. I'm trying to take advantage of that while it lasts. And not in a kick my feet up veg out way. I need to be better and get all those things done that have been languishing since, well, really since Naomi was born.

There's still two rooms in the house, not including the garage, that are chock full of things that need to be cleaned and/or thrown away. The guest room in the back of the house became a dumping ground for all of the stuff that got moved out of the baby room, which used to be the library. Following me so far? :) I bought a bunch of additional bookshelves because the current set was getting maxed out, and they are still sitting in their boxes. Also got a bunch of old computers that at this point, I will not be rebuilding or repurposing, so those are going to need to go too. The home office is split between my junk and Jenn's junk, and we have to figure out the best way to organize that junk.

And then there is the garage.

While I managed to do a fair amount of work in the garage before baby got here, such as painting two of the walls and putting in shelving and cabinetry, there is WAY too much stuff in our garage. Unused refrigerators? We got 2 of 'em. Mattress? Yep. Desk bought but never built so still unopened in its box? Check. Antique sewing machine? Courtesy of my grandmother who has passed on, its here. The irony about that one, is I don't actually mind keeping it, but apparently, my grandmother's eldest daughter (otherwise known as my mom) put it up for claim to the rest of her siblings and they "fought" for it. My aunt, the victor, was supposed to pick it up. That was roughly 6 months ago. Ah well. We actually have a hard deadline to clear up some space because we're getting a new garage door put in and they're going to need some space to actually install the necessary equipment.

Am I going to get this all done in this little downtime cycle that's happening right now? Not likely. Not on top of what, for some reason, is an October that's booked every weekend. Part of it is us, finally holding our red egg party (3.5 months late), but there seems to be a whole bunch of good-bye parties, baby showers, birthdays, housewarmings, and just general gatherings that go through November. Funny how it always seems that way. All I can do is give it my best shot and not succumb to the usual temptations of vegging out on the new fall TV season or sitting in front of the computer, playing FPS or RTS games. Since I can't wait until the already booked weekend to do stuff, I'm going to have to use those gaps of time I can find right now, the ones I normally think, "I can goof off and catch up with home stuff over the weekend"

Wish me luck.

Posted by spoof747 at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2005

career manifesto

. . .I was going to post about the Giants game first, but life intruded and dropped this stream of thought into my brain. . .

We were invited over to Steve and Hanh's new pad on the weekend. We got to a nice tour of the new place and were treated to a yummy dinner as well. Although the night ended strangely because Steve was a lifesaver and noticed a flat tire on our car that we had to get CSAA to come out and fix. All in all, it was a fun time.

Of course work intruded because I had a conference call exactly at 6 which ended up running overtime and I was standing outside with an earbud on my cell phone while everyone was more or less waiting for me inside. It actually turned into a fairly contentious meeting, because some people didn't check their e-mail beforehand and everyone just simply didn't want to be there.

This naturally led me to go into my work bitch spiel while there, and that lead to talk about where I should go and what kind of job am I looking for. I threw out Google as a place I wanted to go, and was asked why I wanted to go some place where even the janitors are rich and there is going to be conflict between the haves (pre-IPO) and the have-nots (post-IPO).

Having started off my work career in the dot-com era, I admit that I am pretty spoiled by those high-flying times. It was only just a few years ago that the Bay Area was the place to be when it came to jobs, and people came streaming in from all over because they heard this was where you came to make money. Venture Capitalists were throwing money at just about any idea and companies run by college grads with barely even a business plan were valued at $100 or more a share on the stock market.

All this cash flying around led to some pretty cool perks and things. Even the small things like having lunch and dinner provided (and not just pre-packaged swill, decent food with some variety) or just having free food around was a nice thing (for my wallet, not necessarily my waistline). Other companies went farther and had regular outings. At one company, we had a Sega Dreamcast and a ping-pong table. At another company, we had 30" LCD screens on the walls, and a Sony Playstation in one of the conference rooms. There was the legendary slide installed at Excite, and the gourmet chef at Google (which is still there).

It was great to be a consumer too. We all had extra cash in hand because of the economy and the environment. And these companies were throwing out all sorts of deals just to get noticed. People would practically pay you to take their product. I remember trolling through coupon sites where promotions would be run every month, sometimes several times in a month. You could combine offers, there were no expiration dates, and people were trying to sell just about everything online.

It was a grand time to work here and I don't know if we'll ever see anything like that again. I view it as a sort of democratization of the work environment that led to a lot of beneficial changes, some of which been rolled back in recent times, others which have stayed. The casual style of dress that was popularized during this time has remained, although you don't see T-shirts and shorts too much anymore, at least it hasn't gone back to suits and ties. And there were a lot of younger people who did strike gold during those times and are now in positions to make decisions.

While I know it is unrealistic to find a company who lives by the dot-com rules, I am looking for at least the following things:

I want to find a job where they share the value of "working smarter, not harder" Not a place where you've got an eagle-eyed moron watching what time you clock in but leaves early so they have no idea how late you stay.

I want to find a place where I'm working with smart people, good people who I can trust to take care of something. I don't have enough of these where I currently am, hence my mentality of taking too much on because I am trying to help the project succeed as a whole.

I want to find a job where there is an environment in which I can continue to learn things, not be so busy that I'm just treading water.

I want to be somewhere where they do (ok at least try to) recognize people who work hard and reward them appropriately. Not based on how many asses you kiss or how brown your nose is. When you get 2 movie tickets as a thank you for huge amounts of unpaid overtime, its a nice gesture, but its only a gesture.

I'm still hoping I can find that kind of place here. If its any consolation, I think that this is one of the few places that you can still find places to work like this, simply because people here are so ingrained in the culture of innovation that grew out of Silicon Valley.

I hope.

Posted by spoof747 at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2005

sucks to be me

I had a post all written up last week where I told a little story about how I nearly lost it with my consulting boss and my onsite boss. A little informal complaint session on my part turned into a full meltdown where i yelled and had to get a lot of things off my chest. I ended up not completing my story about that because things seemed to look up and, with the three day weekend, I was content to try and enjoy 3 days without worrying about work at all (and luckily work cooperated with that)

then I get a call today (well actually it came to the house, so Jenn took it) telling me that I would not be offered a job that I have been interviewing for (I won't mention where).

Now everything seems grey and gloomy again.

Not that I would have taken the job. It was still even money, at least in my head, depending on how much they would offer, along with the hours requirements. If there's one thing I really want right now, its to do something as close to 9-5 as possible. But at the same time, finally finding out, after a few rounds of interviews, that a door has been closed to me is very discouraging.

And herein lies the crux of my problem.

I may have 9 years of experience in my chosen field. I may be a very quick learner. I may even be considered as being very good at what I do.

But I do not have a degree in this field. And I also have low self-esteem, and a pattern of not handling failure very well. This is a bad mix. While it does drive me in some sense to continually prove myself, it is also the same thing that gets me taken advantage of, because deep down, I don't feel that I am fully qualified for what I do. I may know that I am, but I don't feel I am. And that makes a difference when I negotiate things like my salary and when I walk into job interviews. I present myself well, but I always feel like I have to compensate for that perceived gap.

And also, having low self-esteem means you fly high when things are going well, but you tend to crash when your house of cards comes tumbling down. It was great when I first heard about this job opp. It was brought to my attention by someone who had worked with me in the past, so it was nice to know that I had enough of a reputation that he would think to talk to me about this. But ultimately, it wasn't enough to get me the job, and now it doesn't mean jack that he liked me since I didn't get the offer.

I guess the most discouraging thing at this point, is that this opp was actually a bright spot in my day, because of the crap I am currently dealing with. Now I no longer have that to look forward to as a possible way out. Are there other ways out? Sure, but who can say if I will be met with the same type of rejection?

This sucks.

Posted by spoof747 at 10:56 PM | Comments (1)

July 04, 2005

back at work

my 6 weeks of freedom/diaper changing/do what I can around the house were up as of last Monday, so I had to go back to work.

joy.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2005

still here. . .barely

April has been one crazy month. 3 weekends in a row of work. Neverending conference calls. Calls at all hours (probably should have never given them my cell phone number). And if its not work, I'm trying to get ready for the birth of my child. Oh yeah, that's right. That was the whole reason why I wanted to start blogging now. Well, hopefully, I'll have time to tell more of the story. Hopefully after Wednesday. We'll see.

Posted by spoof747 at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2005

work will always be in the way

and here i thought that I would be able to get going full-speed on posting and laying out my plans for this space. unfortunately, my company had two words for me: project deadline. and sometimes, i feel like i'm just plugging my finger into a leaky dam. i plug one leak with my index finger, and then i look back, and 3 other leaks spring, which I try to plug with a foot and an elbow. and if anyone else looks over, it looks like there's a stupid guy trying to plug a broken dam with only his body. i'll post more later.

Posted by spoof747 at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)