Decades of Work

I started a new job recently. This is my eighth job since finishing college in 1990. And if I count my computer-related jobs from when I was still in school, that tally goes to eleven. That's probably a reasonable number given my age and the churn that is typical of the computer industry. 

Sometimes I feel self-conscious about all these job changes. At many points throughout my roundabout career, I wish I had found that 'forever company', that one place that I could stay for life, that could provide me a measure of security and stability on top of engaging work. Perhaps these are the real unicorns.

One 'forever company' candidate would have been Endeca, a place I stayed at for almost eight years. However, when it was acquired by Oracle, I was among the many that had become redundant. Some managers reached out and asked me to consider finding a role at the acquiring company. I often think about what my life would have looked like if I had.

Someone once remarked to me: "You're doing something right if companies keep hiring you." Possibly! But every job change reminds me that I'm on the edge of capitalism's brutal knife. I have to constantly prove myself and provide value because any workplace can cut me without warning or penalty. Thankfully this works both ways! I can work elsewhere if the situation warrants it.

My hope is that this is the last job change until I retire. We'll see if this comes to pass. I can't predict the future, but I can work hard. My enthusiasm and capacity for my kind of work has not diminished after all these years. I'm counting on it because I have another decade of work before I reach the finish line.

My Quiet Phone

I run my iPhone with nearly all sound and lock screen notifications turned off. 

That's right. For every app I go into the appropriate settings and turn off anything that produces a notification. I have enabled a handful of apps to display items in my lock screen. I even go so far as to disable the "badges", the little red number that appears at the corner of an icon indicating there's stuff to look at. This has greatly quieted my phone.

Also, unless you are my wife or daughter, your text won't alert me. I turned off all text notifications, so I'll only notice your message when I look at the phone. (I do look at it regularly enough.) If you really needed to convey an important message to me, you can call me.

Of course the one thing I can't turn off are work notifications, but I try to set limits there too. For Slack messages, my phone makes a noise, but I have disabled nearly all the social channels and some of the direct messages as well. I also make use of the "active hours" feature. After a certain hour, I'm not reachable via Slack. If you really needed to reach me, you can raise a PagerDuty incident to my cell.    

I try to remind myself that before smart phones and flip phones, we were pretty much not reachable unless you were near a phone, and it had to be a landline phone at that. Instead of attending to every beep and buzz of our smart phones, we used to have to walk with our head forward, looking in front of us and around us. 

All this is in-line with my low-information diet, but it's also a way to control distractions. Turning off the notifications helps me remain somewhat present. I have noticed people making good use of the iPhone's "Focus" mode. This is probably something I should explore but my current system works for me.

Math and Me

I used to pride myself at being excellent in math back in high school. That pride quickly disappeared in college, when I started taking truly hard math classes like advanced calculus, differential equations, and graph theory. My math struggles were demoralizing. I'm glad I'm no longer obliged to think about higher math. Plain math is enough for me.

Some might ask me, since I work in computers: Don't you have to know math to be a programmer? No, you do not. Of course, some programmers do need to be well-versed in math. Some of those include those who program 3-D games, or those who work in scientific simulations. I'm a garden-variety programmer, and I can assure you that math isn't required.

I thought about my past and present math prowess while looking at some FAANG job listings. I saw this sentence in a Facebook job post:

"Facebook's software test engineers can make $131237, which is 32% higher than the national average!"

The sentence was framed like a math problem from high school. What is the national average? To my surprise, it was a slight struggle to come up with this number. I pulled out pen and paper, defined my variable ("x"), then did some dividing and distributing, trying to recall basic algebra. After a few minutes I came up with the answer:

131237 / (1 + .32) = 99421.96

I threw this math problem at my wife, inviting her to figure out the national average. To my surprise and mild dismay she quickly said "it's around 99,000." She didn't even use a piece of paper! We had a lively conversation about how she got to the answer so quickly. (Her intuition involved calculating 30% of $100,000.)

As I said, it's a good thing I'm not required to do any math for my work. 

From Internet Archive Book Image

COVID-19: Returning to The Office

Since July 1, I have been working at my desk in my company's office building, just like before my company's work-from-home mandate (back in March 2020). I work at a high-tech company doing software, and as I've described before, I can just as easily do my job from a beach resort or a coffee shop. I only need a laptop and the Internet (and maybe some headphones).

However, when the company announced that vaccinated workers could return to the office voluntarily starting in July, I welcomed it. I was eager and ready to return to my nicely appointed work environment, my office amenities, and the work and social chatter that marks a busy office. Primarily, I welcomed the normal separation between work space and home space.

There weren't a lot of people who shared my enthusiasm to return to the office. I'm sure commuting distance is a large factor in deciding to come in. Roughly 50-100 people make it into the office with any regularity. (I go in three days a week.) Since not everyone comes in, I still wear headphones and participate in Zoom meetings daily, talking to co-workers wherever they are.

There are moments when I walk to the coffee machine, and I am dazed at how empty the floor is compared to "the before times." There are mornings when I walk into my cubicle area, and the motion-detector ceiling lights turn on, signalling that I'm the first person to arrive. I sit on an office floor that is nearly a half-acre in total size, and many times I won't see a single person.

The company has instituted a Wednesday catered lunch, which helps draw people in. The parking lot seems more full on Wednesdays. Certain groups have made this the "work from the office" day, and I seek them out in the cafeteria at lunch. It has become the social highlight of the week for me. One time a co-worker yelled out to me "Greetings human!" and I laughed.

It's a strange work world, and I'm sure the company's leadership is trying to figure out how to navigate a future in which such a large office space isn't a requirement to get work done. Lots of high-tech companies are thinking about this. For now I have the best of both worlds: I come and go as I please, I can get a parking spot near the front door, and there's never a line at the coffee machine.

COVID-19: Working from Home

When the company I work for closed its office for COVID, it was meant to be temporary. In March, we were told that the stay-at-home order would be for only a few weeks. A few weeks became a few months. Then it became the new normal. As of now, our current return-to-office date is July 2021.

It took a while to get used to working at home full time. In the beginning, I worked off of my laptop, at the dining room table. Then I moved to a side table/bookshelf, on which we displayed potted plants. Around July, I made arrangements to retrieve the full-size monitor from my desk at the office. That made a big difference.

When my company extended our stay-at-home policy in the Summer, I bought a little desk. This helped greatly, because although the bookshelf was a flat surface, I had to sit on the floor to use it. The little desk was foldable, so I could move it around. We experimented with a few locations. I first worked out of an unused hallway. When my daughter went to college, I moved it into her room. Today I work out of the master bedroom.

All throughout these changes I had regular meetings and calls which took place over Zoom and Slack. I first took these calls in my closet, valuing sound and reception. Then I became mildly obsessed with my video calls' background and lighting. My tips: 1) sit next to window, 2) stare at the camera, not your thumbnail, and 3) instead of playing with the 'mute' button, just leave it on.

Other high-tech companies have begun to embrace an all-remote model, though I'm not sure I'm ready. One reason: my wife already works from home for an all-remote company. Her normal is me being in an office all day. Another reason: I like my office campus amenities, which include free bicycles, a table-top multi-game arcade machine, and a half basketball court.

It'll be interesting to see where I'm working 365 days from now, but one thing was proven this year: my office is truly wherever my work laptop is open and plugged in.

Thoughts From My Lay Off

I was laid off in mid-January 2018, and it took me about a month and a half to find another job. It was a harrowing start to the year, but instructive nonetheless. I think about it now because I'm nearing both the one year anniversary of that event, and the one year anniversary of my current job.

I have been laid off two other times in my career. The two previous times that I've been let go was voluntary. I was offered transitional roles in both situations: the first one for 3-6 months and the second one for almost 9 months. In my first lay off in 2001, I completed the full transitional period and received the severance/bonus. In my second lay off in 2011, I found a job during the transitional period and it felt like a normal job change.

In these past situations, I was well aware of impending job loss, and ramped up my job search accordingly. This year, the lay off was unexpected, though of course, with hindsight, the signs were there. I was let go in the morning ("gather yourself"), and after a few hours of shock, I had to crank up my job searching machine, which in this analogy was gathering dust in my basement.

I think it's easy to be caught unawares, or to ignore possible signs for impending doom. We just want to get through our day, and collect our paycheck every two weeks. Keeping track of the bigger picture is reserved for water-cooler talk, or the occasional work lunch. There's nothing like an invigorating, unplanned job search to remind you not to take things for granted and to be prepared. At my age (nifty fifty), even more so.

Clock Watching

6:20AM - Since my daughter was born, I have rarely slept past 6:20AM. Once, coming home from a business trip after midnight, I told my wife I'd sleep an extra hour. When I got up at 7:20AM, I felt disoriented.

10:30AM - By now, the day has been humming along. Right around here I usually have a snack, usually some kind of trail mix, maybe some fruit. In my past, I'll have another cup of coffee by this time, but I've somehow reduced my coffee intake to the two cups I have at breakfast.

12:00PM - Lunch time. If it's ice skating season, I'll eat a sandwich on the way to the ice rink. If it's warm, I'll try to get out for a walk.

3:20PM - Here's another snacking hour. Typically it's some fruit, though in my past it's been chips or candy. My levels of concentration start to wane around here, so I usually turn up my music louder.

5:00PM - I'm starting my process to leave. Putting aside work. Getting that last bit of code to compile. Writing or outlining that last section. I leave work promptly by 5:30PM or, if I can do it, some moments before.

7:30PM - I'm usually helping our daughter into her "night time routine" a little before this. Then it's dinner (microwaved). Then dishes. Then, depending if I'm in a slog, it's either more work or some reading. The TV will be on, usually tuned to sports, but I'm usually not paying too much attention.

11:00PM - Sleep.

Fires in Trash Cans

One of the images I have in my head about the Great Depression are those small groups of desolate men, surrounding a fire that they've lit up in a garbage can. They're homeless, and huddling around the fire and each other for some warmth. I don't even know if this is a real image, but I can't help but think about that now, in the wake of all the jobs lost over the last few months.

Thanks to electronic social networks, I can see the electronic version of these garbage can fires. On Facebook, punching in "laid off" produces over 200 groups, with group titles like "I just got laid off due to this craptastical economy", "I Got Laid Off from Dell", and "I got laid off from IndyMac Bank and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt." On Twitter, I see a layoffs hashtag, but searching for "laid off" produces tweets that are only minutes old.

It's in the air, the demise of steady work. The jobless among us are gathered around their families, and around these electronic garbage cans, talking about their firings. Misery loves company, and those garbage can fires are online now. Good luck, all of you. I'm hoping that the economic stimulus plan works, so we can all be in a better place tomorrow.

Buckling Down

I took a drive around Sun Microsystem's offices in Burlington this morning. The company announced last week that it will lay off 15% to 18% of its workforce, which translates to roughly 5000 to 6000 people. It's becoming a tough time out there. The headlines on Friday were along the lines of "high tech sector now feeling the pinch of the economy."

I drove around looking for clues in the parking lot: how many cars were here? Who was working? I somehow thought the parking lot would be full, a buzz in the air. People were going to be let go, and middle managers needed to be working. Instead, the parking lot was empty. It was a quiet Sunday morning. Nothing was stirring except for a few landscaping vehicles. As I circled the large campus, all I was left to ponder was the general vulnerability of any kind of job, including my own "high tech sector" job. The economy isn't taking prisoners.

The New Kids

I was waiting for a cab outside the airport last week, when two people next to me struck up a conversation.

"Yeah, noticed you on the flight. You're at the Intercontinental?"
"Yeah, here for the same deal."
"Did you get an agenda?"
"Not yet."

I glanced over, and noticed that the two people were college aged kids. As they spoke, it was pretty clear they were here for some company recruiting function.

Companies will do that when recruiting college kids. They'll bring a whole bunch of them over, and interview them together. They'll make a day of it for these kids. Nice hotel. Nice meals at the corporate office. Companies trying to woo fresh blood.

The two men conversing next to me traded woes about the job scene ("it's tough") and about the trials of modern recruiting ("that was me who asked that question in the chat room"). They impressed me. I had the bizarre thought that someday I'd probably be working for one of these people.

Hello, you new kids. Good luck getting hired.

Flying

Since 2005, I have been traveling for work. Over the past few weeks, I discovered FlightMemory, and it's a little delight. I've learned that my smallest flight was between Minneapolis and Eau Claire, Wisconsin (85 miles). I've learned that I've flown almost 45,000 miles over eight different airlines. I've also been reminded that I took one "international flight" to Toronto. I wish I could map my travel over time, because it's increased over the past year, much to my immediate household's dismay. Next week offers more travel; check the map next week to see where!

Labor Daze

I hope everyone out there takes a brief break from all the hard work they've been doing. In America, it's well documented that people take fewer vacation days, and work longer hours than many many other nations. It's downright frustrating. In my line of work, it's easy to overwork, to "over"-produce. I have to remind myself that rest is just as important as work. There's a balance that needs to be kept. I have to remind myself to take the break. Take the rest. I hope you'll join me!

Padding

Marilee Jones was the dean of admissions at MIT until an anonymous tip last week led MIT officials to investigate her credentials. They sadly discovered that she did not earn a Bachelors and a Masters from Rensselaer. In fact, she only attended there for one year, in 1974. In 1979, she added the degrees to her resume when she applied for a junior role in the admissions department at MIT.

I feel badly about her downfall because she did eventually run the admissions department, when she was promoted to dean in 1997. From all reports she helped redefine the admissions process at MIT. She clearly had the talent. She spoke at conferences. She served on boards. But she didn't have the credentials. MIT had no choice but to ask her to resign. Institutions tend to frown on anything that diminishes their integrity.

Bizarrely enough, in my own industry, not one single person has asked for proof about my own credentials. Eventually, I suppose, the history of your work speaks for itself. I think the most anyone would do is shrug their shoulders if I announced that I did not graduate from college. Yet, I've never considered removing my degree from my own resume. I guess it pads it nicely.

Process Versus Product

I was flipping through a new knitting book that my wife got in the mail. She wanted me to pick out some projects that she could make for me. (She had just finished a nice vest, and I liked how it turned out.)

This knitting book, by Sally Melville, was quite inviting. I skimmed the pictures, marveling that the description of the actual stitching is done in a very terse language that looks like computer code ("Yf, sl 1 p-wise, yb, k to 5 sts remaining"). In Ms. Melville's The Purl Stitch ("don't try purling until you've learned knitting," she warns), she has a "meditation" on "Process versus Product." She states clearly that the process is "knitting," and the product is the final "garment." She strongly claims that the more valuable of the two is "the process." In fact, she writes "if you ask a knitter what she loves, she often won't even mention the finished garment."

Ms. Melville then applies the Process versus Product analogy to relationships ("dating and engagement" versus "the wedding"), to child caring (quick: what's the product? what's the process?), to education, to life itself.

For me, I most savor the times in my job when I can just "try things out": compiling code and seeing if it works, trying some different command or statement to see its effect. I love the process. Same with the guitar. My favorite part of working through the guitar DVDs is making my fingers learn the song. For most songs, this is a grueling process. However, once I finish learning the song, I am eager to go through the process again.

In the end, she says "it's what we do in the time we pass that makes up a lifetime. The journey is the destination." How wonderful to be reminded of this, from such an unexpected place!

The Strike

I had been working on a long blog about the strike by the Transit Workers Union in New York City, when I learned this afternoon that an agreement had been reached, and the strike would be stopped. So much for topical blogging on my part. However, Tom Evslin wrote a strong piece that has aspects of my position on pensions, which was a major sticking point in this strike. I hope the spotlight stays on pensions even though the strike has ended.

Now, Discover Your Strengths

I have spent a few evenings reading Now, Discover Your Strengths, and through the website for this book, I discovered that I had the "Learner" theme. I love to learn. This isn't news to me, but it's comforting having it validated. But the description of this talent contains this: "The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences..."

What interests me most? The book doesn't explain how to answer this, but it does state "You will need to find your field ... by listening to the yearnings that pull you and then seeing what moves you." What pulls me? What moves me? It's something that I've thought about because I am reporting this after my first day at a new job. That's right: I switched jobs.

Over the past several months at my previous employer, I slowly began to lose my interest with their "subject matter". Yes, the work involved computers, something that has fascinated and intrigued me since grade school. The work specifically involved multi-computing hardware and software. The problems I faced were multifaceted. But after a year or so, I was becoming despondent with how difficult the subject matter was. It was an area of computers that ultimately didn't engage or thrill me.

So I stayed in my "comfort zone" amidst all this technology: I focused on software tools, not the hardware that was the mainstay of the company. But even in the comfort zone, I found myself in areas that I wasn't completely comfortable with. More importantly, I was in areas that I didn't find myself desiring to learn.

I was productive, but I was aching to "do more", to "be more". Which leads me to another strength identified by that website. I have the "Maximizer" theme. I have a talent for measuring myself against excellence. I don't want to fix what I lack. I want to increase what I already have.

So over the past few months, I searched the meager market for a position involving technologies that I knew well and technologies that I desired to know well. I networked. I practiced. And now I'm at a new job.

I believe I've found subject matter that greatly interests me at my new job. Now it's time to Learn and Maximize.

Take Back Your Time

Friday, October 24, was Take Back Your Time Day.

This grass-roots "movement" attempted to make a dent (or at the very least, make a scratch) in the well-rooted mentality of working "extra hours", or long hours. I applaud such a movement.

At my former employer, Open Market, I was a classic "long hours" guy, especially in my last few years. I often gutted out fifty, sixty hour work weeks. On top of that, I added more hours by being "on-call" after work (I was a customer support technician for an e-commerce system). I have missed my wedding anniversary by being on a customer visit. I have worked draining technical issues ("help, my system is down!") at nearly every holiday. When I was promoted to management, the hours didn't go down, but they changed into an even more stressful version of my "individual contributor" years.

I had the occasion to read my diaries from those years. There were plenty of entries in big, angry letters: "I'm so SICK of working!" and "I'm so TIRED!". I was loyal, but I was burned out. So I had mixed emotions when the company, in a steep downward spiral, decided to transition the product I supported overseas. I volunteered to be laid off (there were incentives). Three days before the lay off date, my daughter entered the world. My work life abruptly ended, and it was incredible.

I didn't work for the next two months (eleven weeks, actually). I lived on severance and unemployment checks. Mia was her own "after-hours" operation, but it was a stress and pressure that I could share with Jenn. While I was jobless, I began to write this BLOG in earnest. I read. I avoided wearing shoes. I watched movies. I put up rickumali.com. I had so much time. But I knew I couldn't "stay on the beach" forever.

In June 2001, I rejoined the work-force, at another technical support gig. The customers, however, weren't working on "live" systems. They were developers, working on future systems. My hours could be regular, and there was no after-hours support. After a few weeks of adjustments, I found myself working exactly between 9 and 5. Sometimes earlier than 9. Rarely later than 5. I was rigid about when I left the office. I managed my workload so that by the time the 5 o'clock hour arrived, I was headed out the door.

As a result, my days have achieved a relatively peaceful and pleasant routine. I get home by 5:45 PM. I have dinner with Jenn and Mia. On the weekdays, I put Mia to bed. Then I do clean-up and laundry chores. By 8:30 PM, I settle in for television (a DVD, or sports) or run out to see a movie (my resolution this year). Sometimes I do some computer stuff, or Internet stuff. I try to get in some reading and writing.

Working 9 to 5 life has improved my work productivity. I try very hard not to slack off at work. I push myself in those hard hours (between 2 and 5PM), when the tendency is to slow down (I'm a morning person). But when 5 o'clock arrives, I am able to put down my work, and save it for tomorrow.

I feel like a hypocrite because when I was in management, I often gave more credit to folks who put in extra hours, who put in extra time. Heck, I called some part of my group for a Sunday afternoon training session. Sunday! My mores have changed, I suppose.

The premise of Take Back Your Time was to bring attention to the culture of overwork. Political solutions would be wonderful, but I believe overwork starts with the individual. We should look at ourselves closely if we're working a lot of overtime. And if we are, then what would it take for us to scale back, to take back our time?

ScriptLance

ScriptLance is a website that exemplifies the frictionless economy. It's a gathering place where web developers/programmers can bid on "odd jobs" from web sites that need extra work. It seemed like a good way to make a few extra bucks, so I signed up as a programmer. So far, I haven't been able to get to work.

ScriptLance is too frictionless. It's like EBay, but in reverse. The "employer" can always get the "lowest bidder" for his/her job. Here's an example: someone wants to make an auction website. They want it by the middle of May. The lowest bid: $1. The highest bid for the job: $3000. One person out of twenty-two bidders, has deemed their time for this job to be worth $3000. Could this person make a living on this? One 45-day job for $3000?

I know jobs are getting done. Webmasters (owners of the web sites) and web developers are receiving feedback, and presumably web developers are getting paid. But here's another example of how crazy things can get: someone wants to add "membership" capabilities to their web site. This involves personalized pages, auto responders, mailing lists, etc. The web master has listed $10/hour as their minimum fee. At least programmers can put in a reasonable quote here, but the lowest bid is again $1, with the highest being $2500.

Browsing ScriptLance is enticing yet exhausting. There are some nice little odd jobs. Software installations. Code modifications. Things I know I can do. Yet the bidding for jobs is very immediate. And the favored programmers have feedback associated with their IDs. You can't get feedback unless you've done some work. But it seems as if you can't get work unless you have good feedback. What about resume? What about my ten years of "industry" experience.

It's capitalism, of course, in its purest form. It's capitalism made frictionless.

It's easy for me to be shrug off a failed bid because I have a day job that supports me pretty well. I'm just glad I'm in a position not to have to compete for work on ScriptLance.

Heavy Snow

Somehow, I made it to work, despite the heavy heavy snow fall. I shoveled a little bit last night, after dinner, during the heavy snow fall, and I shoveled a lot in the morning, to dig my car out. The temperature promises to break 35 degrees tomorrow, and through the weekend. I'm hoping for a little snow-melt. I'm hoping for a little relief.

Michael Pouliot

Michael Pouliot died in Kuwait last month. He was a founding member of Tapestry Solutions. Mike leaves two daughters and a wife.

I found out about his horrible death this afternoon from NPR. Michael wasn't a soldier. He wasn't a reporter. He was a software engineer. A programmer. He was like me, and all the rest of us computer folks, except he worked on defense software. He was a military contractor, and he was in Kuwait installing software. He was driving in an SUV with David Caraway, another Tapestry Solutions programmer, when an unknown number of unidentified gunmen opened fire on it. David was injured. Michael was killed.

Reading the eulogy on the company web site, I see that Mike had a focus on military software. He had a real customer-focus, and believed that you needed to be near the users to understand their issues. For him, this meant being in battle-scarred Kuwait.

I don't think young students studying computers ever think about being in harm's way. I know I never did. But from my job at a computer systems company that serves the defense industry, among other markets, I can sense first-hand the reliance of computers in war-fare. I often see hardware chassis that will make their way into planes, and battle cruisers. I'm at peace with this. Bigger companies build the planes, or the cruisers, or the tanks, and then they put our systems in them. We're just a small piece of the machinery. Well out of harm's way.

But as systems get more complex, as the reliance of computer systems grows, more and more military contractors are finding themselves near the front-lines. And with last month's news about Mike Pouliot, the proximity to this danger can be perilous.

Unlike our intrepid astronauts, for whom the risks were well known and understood, Mike's job as a software engineer (and company executive) should have been risk-free. I'm sure he was told to "be careful", but he was a civilian. He was just there to install software. I'll feel the senselessness of his death. The randomness. As we head towards a confrontation with Iraq, I will be remembering Mike as already having paid the highest-price for our freedom, and for our military.