citizen of the planet

It’s a very good lesson to learn.  As you go through work and life in general you’ll end up building a multitude of valuable relationships.  Even if you end up moving on, to some extent you should try to keep some ties alive.  You never know when those links will become handy.  Now, I’m not saying those links should be exploited plainly for fun and profit, but there are certainly times when your information network can come in handy.

Quick story.  As I’ve mentioned, I’ve changed departments.  As a result I’ve had to relocate to a different floor, away from the main kitchen area where my old desk was located.  The other day I was out for some ice cream with our company’s receptionist.  She informed me that desserts were being served today, Friday, at around 11 a.m.  So, today, prior to 11 I pinged my old colleague and asked him to message me when everything was served.  He did just that, and I was able to scramble downstairs with my eco-friendly plate and get to the food before anyone else had a chance.  Minutes after I got back to my desk, the email went out and everyone ran.

See.  Information networks rock.  Priorities, you know.

The ending was rather anti-climactic, if I’m being honest.  Though, I really can’t imagine the whole thing ending with a big crash boom bang, know what I mean?  All the same, there was all of this build up leading to this date, and now that it’s passed, I’m kind of feeling like “oh, that’s it?”

Hmm.

Well, I guess as of this point I am now something of a free man.  Well, not really, but I have now moved on from my current project.  I can drop everything and start anew.  This chapter is ending, but the new one has already begun.

EPIC.

So, I’ve mentioned that I’m in a transitional period at work, right?  It’s been messing with my mind a little bit because the responsible part of me wants to carry on, business as usual.  The pragmatic part of me has been actively trying to get the new team to take care of all day-to-day things.  Makes sense, right?  Well, this push and pull has been at the forefront of my mind for what’s felt like an eternity.  Every person that I’ve talked to about my situation has told me that I have to listen more to the pragmatic voice.  After all, the new team needs to get used to the workloads that we used to handle.  Now, it seems like I’ve gotten good at pawning off tasks to them.  Like I mentioned in my last post, the client has pretty much kept me out of the loop.  That’s a good thing.  The only thing is, there’s a side effect to all of this.  See, the resulting detachment has left me feeling like my skills are rusting.  I’m not as confident as I used to be that I have a good grasp on the project as a whole.  It’s probably all just in my head, but I can be forgiven for feeling like I have no idea what’s going on anymore.

These days, when I’m asked to investigate something, I do a cursory check for the obvious suspects, and once I have an overview I send it back with an explanation, and a statement of what needs to be changed or investigated.  If the task needs more in-depth investigation, I leave it for the new team.  On Friday night, on my way out, I got a request to investigate a problem that a customer was having with his personal account.  I passed it to a colleague if only because I was already out the door when I received the request.  I thought that would be the last I would hear of it.  The following Tuesday, I was asked to have another look at the problem.  It seems that no one could find anything wrong with the code and left it to user error.  The only thing was, the problem could be reproduced by a customer service person using that user’s account.  It was quite odd.  I thought that perhaps the customer service person screwed up, but when someone I trusted was able to recreate the problem I was stumped.  I pulled up the entry in the database and stared at it for a few minutes.  That’s when it suddenly came to me.  There was a field in the record that should have been filled in with something, which it wasn’t.  Well, God, I was downright pleased with myself.  I filled it in as expected and everything started working.  It was amazing!  At the time, I wasn’t concerning myself with the cause of why the record wasn’t correct, but I was at least comfortable that the one user could finally sign in.  Honestly, it tells me that after all this time I still have the skills for this team.  I’ve been around the code long enough that I can spot this kind of thing.  Though, knowing all that it also kind of makes me sad that it’s all coming to an end fairly quickly, right?

*aigh*

Life is all about beginnings and endings.  Old chapters need to be closed before new ones can be opened.  My personality enjoys stability, so whenever there’s a change of some sort it I tend to feel it rather heavily.  At this point there are a couple of things winding down, and a couple of things that are still in their infancy.  In my mind, I kind of imagine all of these things in the form of several hourglasses.  The final grains of sand are draining out of the ones related to work, and perhaps improv.  My time with my current team is fading; soon I’ll be transferring to another team with a whole new set of responsibilities.  In improv, my 300 foundation class is coming to an end.  Following that I’ll be taking the final foundation course.  Who knows where that will lead?  The hourglass related to running was only flipped over a little while ago.  There’s still a long way off before that one drains, but I can’t afford to let that one be ignored.

I’m just feeling a little bit uneasy at this time.  I’m sure I’ll feel more at ease once everything finds a rhythm again.  As it is, I feel like I’m using so much of my energy holding back.  It’s sort of draining, to be honest.  This summer will be exciting and exhausting all at the same time.  I have to recognize that this is a necessary transition.  I can’t shy away from it.  I need to face it all and embrace it, willingly or otherwise.

There are two weeks left until the end of the month, which means there are two weeks left on the team that I’m on.  After that point, I’m going to be moved to a different project to do something totally new.  Yeah, sure, I’m excited.  Still, the fear of the unknown is messing with my head.  Ah, but that’s still a while from now and not what this post is about.  For now I’m just sort of reflecting on how the time between now and then is going to be awkward.  I’m the last full-time employee on the project, however there’s a colleague that will remain on for a few more months.  He’s still going at full velocity while I’ve sort of been cruising.  It makes sense because I can’t really be taking on full projects at this point.  Still, the imbalance sort of results in me feeling like I’m rather useless.  The client side people haven’t really been putting much pressure on me, and that’s great, but the fact that I’m now out of the loop takes some getting used to.  At all that to the fact that I have no project manager.  Everything just feels very loose.  I’m just floating on by, know what I mean?

On some level, I kind of think that if everything were to be pulled off like a band-aid (in one swift movement) it would all be easier to deal with.  However, no, this is just a slow burn that’s been going on for many months.  It’s tough.  My only comfort at this point is that idea that things will be over very soon.  Then I’ll be dealing with the a whole new set of problems.  At least it’d be a new challenge, right?  Man….

I know there are a lot of people that relish the thought of being able to work from home, but personally it’s something that I wouldn’t be able to stand for an extended period.  It’s something that I can do now and then, but if I was asked to do it regularly I’d probably go insane.  I can’t be the only one that feels this way, right?

First of all, I like having a separation of my domestic realm and my professional realm.  A bit of overlap is inevitable, but for the most part I don’t want the two worlds to be too close together.  Once there’s overlap, if I were to continually work at home I’m afraid that my sense of sanctuary will become filled with stress.  Where’s the good in that?  Those few days when I work at home, I find that I end up not leaving the place all day.  It’s easy to get a bit of cabin fever as a result.  For that matter, in terms of work, being at home means that there are a lot of potential distractions.  Conversely, if I end up getting a bit absorbed in something related to my home, work itself becomes the distraction.  If I don’t leave this place, it means that I don’t have any proper face-to-face social interaction.  It can get boring here without someone to talk to.

Having a workplace to commute to is great for a couple of reasons.  It allows me to see a different part of the city that I wouldn’t travel to otherwise.  It forces me to get outside and get some fresh air.  It means I can connect with the city and tap into the urban conscience.  Travelling increases the chances I’ll get a bit more exercise than I normally would.  Being in the city allows me to see people.  Yeah, I have introverted tendencies, but there’s something about a crowd of city-dwellers that’s somewhat comforting.

So, anyway, leading up to Mother’s Day we’re monitoring the site again during some odd hours.  Due to the late shift, we’re being allowed to work from home.  This is why I’ve been lounging around at home today, and I’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow.  It really isn’t so bad, but I can’t do it for an extended period.  Truthfully, I’m looking forward to going back to a normal schedule after the holiday.  Thing is, the period between now and then is going to be rather crazy.  More on that later, I guess…

So I’ve been in office for about 12 hours.  It’s definitely not how I wanted to spend Friday night, but I suppose it couldn’t have been avoided.  This is all a factor of being in IT, isn’t it?  Sometimes it requires people to put in odd hours outside of peak traffic periods just to get a little bit of maintenance done.  In the end, it makes everything look like it runs smoothly to the average Joe; they shouldn’t really notice the work that goes into it.

So yes, cheers to the IT worker.  Unsung heroes, yes?

I’ve established many times that I’m not really someone that accepts change easily.  Normally I don’t go seeking it out–usually it finds me.  When it does, I adapt to the new circumstances to the best of my ability, but not before I go through some sort of overly dramatic thing where I have to re-frame everything.  This is definitely one of those unstable periods.  A few days ago I wrote about my job having a drop dead date.  Today I spoke with some people of influence to discuss whether there’s room for me after that date.  I honestly didn’t really know what to expect going into the meeting.  In the end though, it became clear that, yes, there would be room if I wanted it.  The only thing is that it would involve a move to a different technology than what I’ve been dealing with for the past 3.5 years.  Due to this, in effect I’d be starting all over again.  Right now, this fact is what’s messing with my head.

On some level it’s almost as if everything that I’ve been doing has all been for nought.  All of my experience has been specific to a particular language.  The change involves learning something entirely new.  Despite my experience, it’s certainly not like I can dive right in and take a position of high responsibility right from the start.  That alone was enough to make me feel a little bit helpless.  It took me a while of self-analysis and discussion with colleagues to put it all into perspective.  Firstly, given the drop dead date for my position, there are really only two outcomes that can happen.  The first is that I find a new job with a new company.  The other is that I stick around and join a different department.  Really, how is joining a new department any worse than taking on a new company?  In both cases I’d have to learn something new anyway.  The big difference is that the company is willing to let me ramp up and not stuff me into something entirely entry level.  That in itself is a blessing, isn’t it?

Seriously, all of this angst is really a bit of a heavy load.   However, its not like it’s one that I’m really forced to carry.  I could just accept everything and move on.  At the same time, I think that it’s just in my nature to try to look at something from as many angles as I can just to get a better judgment.  Anyway, at this point, when this change comes I’m going to do my best to grab it with both hands and run with it.  I know I’m worried but when the time finally comes to perform I will rock it.  I think the prospect of climbing the ladder again even has me a little excited.

Let me show you what I can do.