So much to tell

I might as well start of by telling you guys that I got a new job. I know it's been quite a while since I last posted and it's mainly because everything sucked for a while. This job pays VERY well and they value the quality of the code written, not just the quantity. I've been at the job about a month now and I love it so far.

I also got a new phone, a Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S SCH-i500) which is a very fun Android phone to play with.

None of this is why I chose to write this blog post, though. About a month ago was my little cousin's birthday party. He turned 14 and we had a small family gathering for him. It was fairly last minute and, as usual, his father bailed halfway through. I told my cousins that I may take over my parents' mortgage since I'm making good money now and my parents want to retire and move away. On hearing this my little cousin's older brother suggests my cousin move in with me.

He declined saying he wished to go to school with his friends, which I can't fault him for. He called me tonight to tell me he's reconsidered because he believes he has a better chance at getting recruited to college on a soccer scholarship if he goes to high school around my area than where he lives now. Quite frankly I'm honored he'd consider living with me.

I spoke with my uncle (not his father but another uncle) about this and he thinks it's far more responsibility than I should take on, no matter how much I love my cousin and want to give him a better life than he currently has. Raising a teenager will be very challenging, especially a teenager that isn't yours. I have until the beginning of the next school-year to consider this and deliberate very carefully. I'm not sure what I should do just yet but one thing is for sure, I won't be making any rash decisions.

My uncle then dropped a bombshell on me. He told me his sister-in-law is to raise his two kids (currently 5 and 4 years old) should he and his wife die and that he wants me to raise them should anything happen to his sister-in-law. He told me to think about it long and hard because it's a big decision. The likelihood of that happening is very slim, but still something that needs careful deliberation.

I now have two monumental decisions to make that impact my family. I would love to immediately say yes to both but they are not decisions to be taken lightly.

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A few changes

I've decided to start a web development blog. I think I'll host it on my site and build it from scratch. I'll probably start tonight.

I sat down with the recruiters last Friday and they, of course, are trying to convince me to stay. This Saturday is my 90 day mark, the halfway point. I'm having serious doubts about being able to finish out this contract. To add insult to injury I've turned down countless opportunities (not actual job offers but recruiters that call with potential jobs). Today I got red in the face and felt like I was about to blow at the absurdity I've been facing. Just a few minutes ago I got that, all too familiar, anxiety.

I actually heard one of the developers say "As long as it works in one browser, who cares?". This website is already 28 days overdue and changes are still being made by the powers that be. I think it's time to find a new recruiter, and consequently a new job. I've been trying to talk myself out of that but I'm not sure I'll be able to stand this place for another three months.

I've gotten calls about jobs that pay between $40 and $50 an hour, that's between $83,000 and $100,000 per year. It's very tempting. What I'm worried about is how this will look on my résumé. I don't want to seem flaky. I have good reasons for not staying at those jobs and I'm sure I can convey that during an interview. What I don't want is for them to judge me based on my resume and then not even get to the interview step. Also, if I start missing days at work because I'm interviewing I'll most likely get fired. I don't want to end up out of a job because I was looking for a job.

This is tough.

-Crash

The shitstorm

On Friday I had planned to visit a friend of mine in PA. Because it's a long drive and I didn't want to get caught in rush hour traffic I opted to come in to work early and leave early. I came in to work at 5:30AM and left at 2:30PM. Some might see that as diligent, responsible, or even just doing my job (getting my full 8 hours in). Others only look at the negative, the fact that I left early. The latter would be my manager.

I got an email reprimanding me for not telling her I would be leaving early, despite the fact that I told my supervisor of my plan days ahead of time and the fact that I made sure the day of that I wouldn't be needed for the rest of the day and the fact that I got all my work done. That pushed me over the edge. I called the recruiter and then I sat down with my boss to straighten things out. It turns out she has no idea what I work on all day, no idea how productive I am or am not. As it also turns out she's been removing my supervisor's subordinates one by one by putting them on other projects. I'm the only one left still working under him (by her own admission).

My supervisor is a really nice guy and his code is good, it just seems his leadership is lacking. What bothers me is that she is taking such sneaky measures to effectively demote him. It also bothers me that she told me all of this. I'm not here to be in the middle of a battle of wills, to take sides, or to hold anybody's hand. I'm here to work, get stuff done, and get it done right. What I'm worried about is how it will look on my resume if I don't finish out my contract. I only have 3 and a half months left to my contract. I'm thinking of just toughing it out and getting the fuck out when it's up.

The fun part is that it seems my manager has made waves with another contractor as well and that the recruiter had to step in to smooth things over. Let's see how this all plays out.

The cycle continues

Pride will be my biggest asset or my downfall. I'm not yet sure which it is.

After 2 months and 2 weeks at my current job I'm ready to beat people's skulls into their desks for lack of common sense, lack of knowledge of the tehnologies they were hired for, and lack of planning on the websites we've been tasked with building. I'm going to stick it out the rest of the week before telling the recruiter that I'm no longer willing to finish out my contract. Luckily NJ has at-will employment, that means I can quit at will and they can also fire me at will.

I take pride in what I do because it's what I love. Even if it wasn't, it's my job, I get paid to do this. I might as well do it right. Apathy is setting in and I'm no longer willing to fight. If I don't have the will to fight for my code, best practices, or the security of the website (or lack thereof) then I'm no longer an asset to the company. Furthermore, this website will do nothing to further my career. It's not something to be proud of so I will most likely not mention it as prior experience.

In that case, why am I here? Time to start job hunting again.


-Crash

Playing Catch-Up

I haven't posted in quite some time.  Sorry about that.  Let me try to get you guys all caught up.

My last day of work was kinda sad.  I didn't want to leave.  I was fine all day but when 5:30 came I realized I wouldn't be coming back on Monday.  Luckily I had the next week off.  I went to Naples, FL and had lots of fun.  It was beautiful there, almost surreal.  It's crazy how perfect life can seem down there.  I got a sun burn during my last 2-3 hours in Florida which totally sucks but it went away quickly.  I'm still peeling though.

I came back 2 weeks ago Saturday and started work that Monday.  It was a great first day.  They were expecting me to take the whole first week to figure out the system.  I was implementing new features my second day and analyzing and offering suggestions on the first day.  They seem to be fairly impressed and I'm happy to be there.  They pay for breakfast and lunch most times.  It's pretty cool and laid back.  Nobody's hassling me, which I guess is worse because I'm my own worst critic anyway.  I can work from home at will, and have been for the past 2 days and will again tomorrow because my boss wouldn't be there Wednesday-Friday.  No reason to be there if I can save the gas by doing the same work from home.  We have each-other's phone numbers anyway.

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 Beta 64 bit build 7000.  It's not as fun as I expected but it does seem to run a lot better than Vista.  Today I found a torrent of build 7057 and upgraded to that.  Not a huge difference that I can make out yet.  A bit disappointing that I can't run Virtual Box on physical drives though.  I can only create images and use those as virtual drives.  Apparently this was a change they put into Vista and it's still in 7 as well.

That seems to be about it.  If I think of anything else I'll post it.  Hopefully you've all been doing well.  Leave me a comment, let me know.

First Time in a While

Today I accepted the contract job offer. I really hope I get the other job though. In any case, that's not what I wanted to post about. For the first time in a while I actually worked my ass off. I not only fixed a few important bugs on a site that a high profile client wanted fixed tonight but I also finished my redesign of the Baby Phat site.

Keep your eyes peeled. The site will change from black/purple to white/gold/red at some point tomorrow. It actually came out quite good if you ask me. Very close to the designs given to me and I cleaned up a LOT of the code. It was terrible. I'm not saying it's perfect now because I didn't have enough time to do a complete overhaul but it's far better than it was before. I worked from 9am to 10pm tonight. Hell of a day but I got a bunch done.

I also gave my letter of resignation today. I'm free!

The biggest surprise of all

About 3 minutes ago the front end was called to the project manager's office for a mini-meeting with the CTO. He told us Friday would be his last day due to being laid off. Apparently they laid off the CTO in order to keep the developers. I can see this going terribly and
especially since now apparently Technology will report to the COO/CFO. I'm positive he'll care more about the money than the procedures.

I didn't even know you could lay off a Chief Officer. I forsee hard
times ahead.

And I thought it was over...

Let me start off by saying I haven't forgotten about my blog, I simply haven't had much to put in here recently.  Now on to today's news.

I lied, I'm rewinding an extra day to yesterday.  They let some more people go but luckily they weren't from my department.  Apparently the financial troubles continue.  This leads me into today's goings-on.  The CTO called a meeting for the whole department this afternoon.  We got a few extra guests than what we expected.  The CEO and CFO/COO joined the fun.  The theme of the party was pay cuts for all!  I'm glad they decided to share the poverty but I'd rather the wealth.

I'm in disbelief as to what happened today.  I can't say that I won't be able to survive on what I get paid, far from it.  It does, however, mean a change in my daily spendatures.  I have to not only think more about what I'm  spending on a daily basis but also the overall picture.  What monthly expenses can I do without.  The first thing that comes to mind is my servers.  That just makes me wonder about those with families to support.  

I'm being positive though, it's not a ridiculous amount and I'll make it through this.  The only question is will the company make it through or will I even be there to find out.

EDIT: Oh, and one of my servers may have a corrupt HDD and now I can't get my email.

What We Take for Granted

The wisdom and insight of those around us is probably foremost on that list.  This morning I got on my computer as I always do and read that John Travolta's son died.  Quite honestly, this means very little to me, I'm not one to follow the stars but it is a sad occurrence regardless.  I read this article and put it in the back of my mind as I tend to do.  A few hours later my mom and I talked for a few minutes and we went back to doing what we were doing.

For some reason I felt like bringing up the John Travolta story.  She's usually up on the happenings in Hollywood for some reason.  I mentioned it and we got to talking.  We talked at length about life and eventually got to the topic of what we do with our lives.  She's said before that I should enjoy my life while I'm young (don't get tied down, don't feel you have obligations anywhere or to anyone but yourself).  This particular conversation went the route of the job offer in Canada I told you guys about.  She said that she was excited when I told her about it because she had always wanted to travel the world and that it doesn't matter where a job takes me (career-wise and life-wise) I should experience as much as I can of the world, of life. (sidenote: the job turned out to be for a company that made their website in what appears to be Microsoft Frontpage...I don't think I want to work with them.  That and they have no portfolio.)

We had worked out a payment schedule a few months ago so that I could chip in and pay rent (not my idea) since times are tough and the mortgage is expensive.  She told me just now that regardless of what we worked out, I have no obligations here and if I want to go I should and should I ever find it didn't work out I always have a home to come back to...regardless of whether my stuff has been thrown out or not (and she said she probably would throw it out).

I never thought I'd feel this way but I think I want to go.  I want to apply to jobs EVERYWHERE and see what comes up.  I had originally confined my job search to Northern NJ, then extended it into NY.  After the Canadian job I aded Canada and I think I'm done being passive about this job search thing.  I'll list myself as open to work just about anywhere and I'm going to start actively looking.  Forget depending on recruiters.  It's January, companies will hopefully have a new round of funding for the new year either now or soon and that means looking for talent.  I'm currently working on version 3 of my Woot!-off checker and it will be my crowning achievement.  I hope to have a job before I finish it but if I don't, I'm sure it will help me get my foot in the door.

I can't believe my luck

Today started off particularly shitty.  It all stemmed from yesterday at work.  If other departments could get their shit together before they talk to a developer, that'd be great...but apparently too much to ask for.

I put up a whole bunch of shit, I check it, I have QA check it, I have the creator of the task check it, then I go home.  I receive a nasty email at 6:45 forwarded from my boss that she received from the marketing manager.  Apparently it was an absolute fucking emergency that some banners go live on the website at 6PM and not midnight like I coded them.  I told the person that put the task in that they'd go live at midnight with all the other banners they had given me.  I wasn't going to bend over backwards for them since the task was already late and being done on only hours notice.

The marketing manager raises a HUGE stink about the fact that it's not live.  Luckily we have a system that keeps track of all our tasks and all comments posted to it where it clearly says "this will go live at midnight" and the task creator says "ok".  I sent the marketing manager an email detailing all the events leading upto the task going live and pointed out that if there was a problem it was with the communication between her and her team.  She then went to my boss and my boss more than backed me up, especially considering that they fucked up yet again this morning.  She didn't have a leg to stand on.

So after all that drama and aggrivation at work, I come home in the sleet/snow and break out the snow blower and clear my driveway, clear the sidewalk and the walkway around the house.  I'm almost done and I run over an extension cord...awesome.  Now I have to untangle this shit.  I tip the snow blower over and start to untangle the fucking cord.  After getting it free of the machine I continue.  I'm outside for about an hour and in that time what I first cleared is now covered with snow again so I give it a second go for good measure before putting the snow blower away.  I go to put the snow blower away but we have 2 cars parked side by side in the driveway so I need to move one before I can get the machine back in the garage...my car key is missing.  It's not in my pocket and it's not in the ignition.  FUCK!  I remember hearing a clicking sound inside the snow blower when I went over the area I was untangling the extension cord at.  I must've dropped my key and the snow blower threw it somewhere in the front yard.

Now I'm out a $300 car key.

The Recent Goings-on

So much shit has been going on; mostly with work.  As you know, they laid off all those people and now there are a total of 3 of us working like crazy on all these brands to get everything live.  It's the most tedious and repetitive work.  I prefer a challenge not monotony.

Enough about work, I've been feeling very depressed lately.  Not in the way you're probably thinking, though.  I've been feeling very "blah", not "The world is against me!  I want to die!".  Maybe it's seasonal, though this never happened before.  In some regards I should be happy I'm healthy, I have my handful of friends, and my family.  But lately I've been feeling like I don't want to go anywhere, do anything...I don't know.

I want to see if I go snowboarding with a few people from work next weekend.  I've never snowboarded before, I've only been skiing.  I've been wakeboarding, that was difficult but I got the hang of it after a while, though I wasn't very good.  It should get my mind off things.  Life just isn't what I remember.  The simplicity of being a kid is gone.  Responsibility takes over and I feel thrust into it.  I'm still impatient, cocky, and to some degree, immature.

I just feel terribly short-sighted.  Like I don't know where I'm headed.  I guess we all feel that way though.  There's a degree of uncertainty to all our lives.  I just never had it staring me in the face, never had to think about it before.  I've also been craving someone to hold and someone to hold me.  I've felt this before and it only lead to trouble.  But here it is again.  I mean, I have somebody that likes me...a lot.  but I'm just not interested in her.  I'm fairly picky with my choice of girls, and even pickier when it comes to guys...that doesn't make it easy to find someone - throw in some shyness and you have yourself a whole slew of reasons why I'm single.

Oh well.  We'll see where I go from here

Oh for the Love of God, Make it Stop!

So much work and only 3 people.  I tried writing about it just now and erased the whole post because it was barely coherent.  It made me sound, not only crazy, but like a fucking whiner.  I'm gonna go do something other than bitch.

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss me mind the most!" - Jadrian

Nothing could better sum up how I feel.

A sneaking suspicion

I posted a comment on josh's blog and got an email from google a few minutes later saying my email couldn't be sent. I checked it and it
was a comment notice to josh with my comment. The odd part is it was addressed to webmaster@freshboy.co.uk. Now, I'm no rocket scientist but to my knowledge he's supposed to be a teenage boy in Oxford, not the webmaster of a gay porn site.

Oh, and the Internet is fucked up here at work so we're twiddling our
thumbs.

Aint that some shit

If I already used that as a title for another post, sorry.  This totally deserves it though.  Today they made ANOTHER round of cuts.  My boss (she's still around for the time being, God knows when they'll get rid of her too though) called me into her office and told me there was going to be some stuff going down but that I shouldn't worry.  A few hours later the lead Flash developer gets called into the CTO's office.  He comes out, puts his hat on and his coat and leaves.  This is at 4:45, our day ends at 6...I knew what had just happened.  Then I saw more people leaving.  It was scary.

The Front End team is down to 3 people, the Interactive team has been dissolved, and the back-end is down to 4.  Aint that some shit.

I've been talking to a recruiter lately about a job in Toronto, Ontario (yup, up in Canada).  I really want to take it since they're willing to relocate whoever they pick for the job.  We'll see how that goes.  The NY Times never got back to me so whatever.  Maybe a move away from the American economy is exactly what I need.  I hope it works out.  I hate the cold but I'll deal if I get to move out on my own and explore another country.

Fruits of My Labor

So my project FINALLY went live!  It's about time, too.  I was at work til about 6:45 making sure it launched without a problem.  We have a few things to add to it still so it's not perfect but it's pretty good so far.  One of the back-end guys messed up a query which caused it to send some empty data to my app and because my app shouldn't receive empty data it failed at one point.  So I'll be putting in some extra checks to make sure it doesn't do that if it receives unexpected data (or lack thereof).  Without further ado, I give you my project: http://www.playboystore.com/landingpages/customizer.php?dept=women

Fucked up

I love knowing stuff that other people don't. In this case, though, it's more of a curse. I'm out having drinks for my boss' last day. The problem is nobody knows it's her last day.  She was laid off and nobody knows yet. Fucking awesome.

They're making more cuts. Of course the first to go is the one that makes the place run somewhat smoothly. My faith in the company is shaken. On the bright side my project finally goes live Monday. This week was fine until today.

I'll post a link to my app on Monday