Working Stiff

Hello yeah it’s been a while.
Not much.
How ‘bout you?

Steely Dan?

I’m sitting in at a strange desk in a strange office in a strange town. Say goodbye to icy landscape outside my window and the happy din of children jumping. Hello white walls and florescent lights, and bookshelves of abandoned technical manuals and paperclips and Ethernet cables.

Am I happy? Actually yes. I miss my family, but the selfish part of me is thankful to be learning the back roads. How many times have I sat in traffic at the Alewife station, wishing that I knew a back way around. Three days on the job and I’ve got it nailed.

I’ve stepped into something here—quite unexpected. It seems that I have been given the reins of my own project, a chance to put to task all the theory of which I so eloquently espoused in interviews. If I nail this, then I am officially a software architect, instead of the loose title I’ve held for the last eight years or so.

So, from now on, I’m up at five, and on the road by six, then into the office by seven. Leave at four, home by five. Good luck--especially when I stay up so late.

I hope my blogger buddies are still hanging with me. I have to watch my internet usage at work. Not only that, but this is important to me. Everyone knows I want to be an author, but like the song goes, I like adventure with security. Sticking this job opens a whole new avenue, a road to a peak only a minority subset of developers in my profession ever achieves. Just in case you are wondering, it also means higher pay, which always soothes the nerves. New England is not the cheapest place on the planet to live.

I’ll be checking in as time permits today. Maybe I’ll grab a sandwich and do the rounds at lunch.