Decisions

Had a long talk with an old friend on the phone. He helped put some stuff in perspective. Thanks for that Kelvin, you're the man.

I have a lot of knots in my rope, and to be honest, its cause I've been trying to "swallow my pride and soldier on". All the while my confidence has been slowly eroding. I suddenly realized while talking to Kelvin, yknow.. I did that contract work for Mom's company and wrote that reporting app. It went over huge and its being used. Better than that, no bugs were found! So, while I'm sure there are some flaws somewhere in the software, they are deep enough that the average user won't find them. But all that means is the software stable for a version 1. It also means I'm not a moron or inexperienced. I couldn't have pulled that off if I really was inexperienced or just not bright. I know, I've got to leave the company. I'm not really learning very much that is new. The work isn't that interesting, I mean, cmon I've been writing software in the electronic document industry for almost 5 years now. There is only so much you can learn about a PDF and how to squeeze it. Also, I found out yesterday, my company has moved the medical monthly payments onto the employee base which has increased what is taken out of my paycheck... *NOT* cool.

First off, I have to acquire the gear to support what I have to do. Which means a laptop for myself at home and development software. I've some development software that can carry me. I just need the laptop. I've already started pricing and looking for a good buy. Even if I go to another company, it wouldn't hurt to have my own laptop for development. I know I'd be very comfortable doing contract / consulting work and I want to be equipped for it.

Other than that, I've got to start keeping in touch with people. I've got my resume in the hands of some good friends of mine. Next I need to start sifting through monster to see what jobs are available. BUT I'll be looking very closely at guru.com for what contract work is available. Lately I've seen a little stir from companies needing people.. but I've seen TONS of emails from guru.com of available work for software contractors. And, as an added bonus, guru.com also handles contracts for freelance writers as well!

Its time, I can feel it. My 'Spidey Sense' is telling me something is wrong here at my company that I can't see and I need to get out of the way. Could be its cause I know the CEO lies outright to the employees to keep them calm and under control.

And today.. I give you a peek into the wallpaper I just created to use at work! Its kind of a cool link of the day:

Click here for wallpaper

Show and Tell

I remember back in kindergarden and elementary school, we did "show and tell". To this day I cannot fathom why we had to do that. I suppose it was to build public speaking skills. At this time in my life now, I would have *never* expected to have to start doing that again.

Ok, I've already mentioned that they've demoted me and placed a second level of management over me. With new management comes new management's collection of new ideas they think are the "right thing to fix all the problems". Well one of those is some kind of "stand up meeting" which is part of the Extreme Programming initiative. I'll talk about Extreme Programming in a moment.

"Stand up Meeting" is literally that. Everyone stands in a room and talks about what they did yesterday and announces what they will do today. In effect... show and tell. We all stand because its felt that will keep the meeting short. Feh.. given I can stand in my 501st biker scout costume for hours without sitting down I somehow think the effect of "standing to keep the meeting short" is lost on me. So far I'm not getting a benefit from the meetings and they are anything but short. Just a lovely way to stand around, drink coffee and waste a part of my work morning.
I could deal with it, if it made something, anything more efficient. So far its not accomplished what its advertised to do. Perhaps its because we're doing these *EVERY SINGLE DAY*!!

Now. Extreme Programming. I've read write up on it and had it described to me more than once. The concept is sorta sound but I've yet to see it put into practice well. New management here is trying to put some of it in practice here, but instead of increasing productivity its increasing the amount of meetings and red tape. Now instead of having a short design meeting then go implement the software.. its 4 or 5 repeated meetings over almost as many days, prototypes for a couple of weeks, then reports on the prototype/experiment results. After all that, the real work might begin. Seems like a safe approach right? Ok, now the process I just spoke about is for altering two functions in one file...

yeah.. efficiency.

Man I've *got* to get that next manuscript finished and into an agents' hands.

Monday Rain

Back to work today. I caught whatever cold/flu/virus that was running around last week and finally gave into the fever Thurs and Fri. Man I was sick! Felt just awful, especially that first day. Good thing was it lasted for about 2 days overall.. I managed to make NovaCon for at least Sat.

NovaCon was a lot of fun, and I got some writing done towards the end of the weekend too. Still feel a bit behind overall. Got the next entry for Spec Ops nearly written in one sitting! I'll work on that at lunch today and polish a short story.

Trying to keep an open mind at work, cause today the new hires are starting. Db guy starts today, and the new manager CB starts full time too. We'll see how it all goes. If he and Dr R start competing then I'll carry through with my promise and camp on the CEO's doorstep till he does something about it. If he doesn't, well, my resume is up to date and some people already have it. Not that I've not had a LOT of people already hound me into getting another day job.

Good thing is that Thanksgiving is coming up! Company holiday!! That'll be nice. If I'm lucky I'll get a lot of writing done. I'd love to get at least a short story and a manuscript *done* and ready to send. That's my current goal.

Under the weather

The weather here has been nuts. Freezing cold then suddenly its like summer. In all that I caught a cold or sinus problem or whatever. So I'm not feeling all well today.

Got fed up monday, emailed A about my concerns over the new organization for work. Figured, he's supposedly got an "open door" policy and he runs the company so I'll just ask. Well given he didn't answer me until yesterday means I probably confused him. In a nutshell, all I asked was "Why do I have two managers?" Simple direct question. I got a scripted answer. A lot of "you're doing a good job" stuff. I came away with the idea that the people "in charge" had an agenda to pursue and I was in the way. I think the phrase is "collateral damage".

So now I'm a 'team lead', which means I'll get to program some, but I'll be delivering reports on what the team is doing to the managers and handing down designs and information from the managers to the team. Bear in mind, the 'team' consists of mostly me, maybe the one junior programmer and rarely, maybe the new database programmer. Oh, also, I get to do research and hand my findings over to others for them to make the designs and decisions. At least I make an ok salary.

I think the worst part is that I'll have to prove myself again. To me that's funny cause, if I changed jobs and worked somewhere else, I'd have to prove myself again. And now, after 5 years, I'm having to prove myself again but I didn't have to change companies I work for! Quite handy I suppose. At least I didn't have to fill out any new tax paperwork!

Well, I better get back to work.

Lively Morning

I started getting up early again. I'm not much to label myself a "morning" or "night" person, I like to think I'm adaptable to either schedule. This morning I was glad I did do the "rise early" routine. While driving to work, I see a car swerve out of control around a pair of dogs ahead of me in the oncoming lane. Because of the dew on the roads, the angle which the driver swerved and the speed of the vehicle, the car flew off the road and rolled at least twice. The car was a total loss from what I could see. The driver was a correction facility officer and seemed to be a nice guy. Fortunately he wasn't hurt other than a few cuts here and there. He was more dazed and ticked off at losing control over the vehicle more than anything else. I got him what he needed to clean the blood up off himself and let him call his wife, police, whoever he needed to. It was amazing he was ok given how badly messed up the car was when it was all over. Once I was *positive* he was ok and people were there to keep an eye on him, etc. I left for work again.

Made me think though. One, I'm glad I drive a Jeep Wrangler. If for some reason I accidentally rolled that wrangler, there is no doubt in my mind that it would roll right over and be mostly ok. Nothing like a gigantic roll bar to make you feel safe! Two, life is dangerous, unexpected and should be experienced. Too many people closet themselves, all obsessed with all the knots in their rope that have been tied off. I'm not saying anything new mind you. There are *dozens* of books on this topic. I think the latest that everyone got behind was "Who moved my Cheese?" The message is still clear: pay attention to what is going on around you and act accordingly! That is something I've not been doing as of late. I've been bitching and moaning over things that I have no control over. Its the fact I can't control them that bothers me, not necessarily what happened. Well, I'm going to try and keep my head about me a bit better. That and start listing pros and cons about where I'm working, what I'm doing. I know I'll keep writing as a second job, that's not going to chance. Perhaps its time to change Job #1? Dunno, that's the million dollar question I think its time to figure out.

And to the gentleman I helped on North Balch road, God go with you, sir. I really hope the rest of your day goes *much* better than it started!

Defying Reality

Nothing like it when life imitates art ( aka Office Space ). I just got told about a change to the company structure. Ok.. so now I'll report to Dr R, BUT I'll also report to a new guy ( I'll call him CB ). So.. in effect, I'll have TWO managers! Given one handles long range architecture planning, and the other will oversee engineering. The people left in "engineering" will be one database engineer, one junior engineer to be mentored and ... me. If CB isn't coding, the database guy isn't coding except for database work, and the junior enigneer is to be mentored... I'm back to working as a bottom end grunt coder. Talk about a blow to my self-worth.

Gotta think about this one. I know I don't like it, just got to figure out what I'm going to do about it.

Back to work

Been on vacation for a few days. Good thing is that it leaves me with 2 days left for the work week. I'll pack in all my work into 2 days and be done with it. Though, what I think is really funny... lately I think I've only got about 2 days worth of work per work week!

Vacation was nice, I ran errands a lot, did housework as time permitted. Naturally when done, I looked around and grumbled cause it looked like nothing was done. Maybe I'll make headway tonight after work. Didn't help that I got VERY sick yesterday. Not sure why cause today I'm feeling pretty much ok, just a bit washed out.

I also got a lot farther along with several outlines. The errands kept me from turning the outlines into anything more, but I'll get them there.

Work, as always, hasn't changed any. GB is trying to be the company software architect as usual. He's good at hacking at code, but he's by no means a really good programmer. I think if you forced him to use a coding style, he'd come unhinged.

Got to meet with Dr R today. More design work. Not a big deal. Its yet to be applied which is the neat trick. Too many people wanting to do their own thing here.

Well, while I was writing this GB came in to talk to me about what he's coding... he's so off on his own writing all of what he's doing. We need to be under ONE architecture... ONE. His customer-specific work fragments that.

Oh well.. back on the work treadmill I guess.