Reading charlie's journal

So this week, I had a meeting with my boss. He told me he needed a team of champions and I was just a nine-to-fiver. He said he had no use for me anymore, paid me for the rest of the month, and told me not to come back.

...It's kind of nice. Kind of like a three week paid vacation.

He said I was a hard worker, and I was loyal. He said I did my job well. He said he'd tell any employer that if I used him as a reference.

When I started this job I was defiantly green. I could hardly configure my own local DB service :$. I learned a lot. I learned how to debug faster, how manage complex DB schemas, how to read through someone else's thick and uncommented code and still figure out what it was trying to do.

When I started, he told me "I work more than 40 hours a week, but I don't expect you to." Right before I was "let go" I was averaging about 45 hours a week.

When I started this job I told him I had never heard of PROGRESS 4gl, but I was willing to learn. He said he was willing to teach. But he got busy with clients and sales. I taught myself enough to get by. Maybe I should have taught myself more.

There were a few things I hated about writing this software:

• Writing the billing part of the software. Insurance claims suck.

• Being to told to redesign an interface and add functionality, when I didn't fully understand what the interface did in the first place.

• Having to read code that was 12 pages long, had zero white space, and was completely uncommented

In the classroom I loved debugging. It was never very long. I mean, how long does it take to debug a program that turns degrees F into degrees C? or a program that shuffles poker cards and lets you play 5 card stud?

But in the real world, when the program manipulates insurance claims codes, and sends them to another part of the application - where they might get screwed up - then gets them back, updates them, copies them and submits the DB data in XML format to Medicare. It gets a little harder to debug. It just seems like a never ending hole.

Am I whining too much? Should I just suck it up? (I'm seriously looking for opinions here).

Anyway. The major choice I have now is: look for another development job, or look for something else. Did you know there are delivery men who get paid as much as software developers?

I'm probably going seek a web development job, not like I have a lot of experience in it. But I love web dev. I don't think I love software development. I defiantly hate medical/finacial software development.

So I have three weeks paid vacation. But I need to find a job. Flights from the USA to Japan are $500 this week. I've got the time. I'm really thinking about giving myself a weeks vacation, seriously considering what I want to do for a career, and then look into this find-a-job thing more.

Maybe I'll just work at Starbucks (health benefits for PT and FT workers) and do my own web dev thing on the side.

Please contiune to vote AND post.

Web development is a fine thing but you will see that it is more code than anything else these days. People just aren't willing to pay for graphic designing at this point.

The thing I found as being the most annoying about searching for a job in this field is that employers were looking for someone to do what ammounted to three jobs. For instance, one prospective wanted a java programmer, html, oracle database and, oh yeah, good with all Macromedia products, Photoshop and a few other propritary softwares.

I actually found my current job through a tech temp agency which is what I recommend to everybody. They have the god jobs, trust me.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

Think about this...you've been wanting to go to Japan. And up until you got fired from your job, the idea of how you were going to do this, without loosing your job, just incase you couldn't do in Japan what you wanted to do, was something that you hadn't figured out, right?

So, guess what, you now have a golden opportunity to follow the dictates of your heart. Since there is no worry about if you go will there be a job if things don't go according to plan, there's one less thing to worry about.

As to the boss and his thing, wanting a team of champions, that was very corporate of him.
He actually did you a huge favor. Your more than what that job let you be. Common face it, if you had stayed what is the chance of you ever leaving it to take the path of your heart?

It would probably blow him away if you sent him a thank you card for giving you your freedom...:)
That's what he did for you, you were a well paid prisioner in a little space in a building, and you've lived your life based on that job in many respects.
You are now at a cross roads.
You can either stay here, look for another job, or take wings of flight, as it were and follow your dream....little tip...following the dream especially when it's entrenched in your heart is the only way to fly.

What you do is up to you.

Ms. Maude, you are stupendous.

...you've been wanting to go to Japan.

Actually, this one would be more like a week vacation, hang out with old friends deal. Japan is kind of picky about foreigners, they like you to have a work visa before you live in there. And their academic year starts in April. So I have to make it here in the good old USA until then.

that was very corporate of him.
He actually did you a huge favor.

Yeah, I know. I just wish I could have left him instead :). I've been planning how to say to when April rolls around.

and you've lived your life based on that job in many respects.

You're right. I was kind of getting tired of that job defining who I am.

You're more than what that job let you be.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's not like I'm dieing of depression here, but every little bit helps.

...Thanks to KyleBellamy too. I'm still a geek and I appreciate your insight.

Please contiune to vote AND post.

This post was edited by charlie on Oct 14, 2005.

We geeks have to stick together!

Besides, I second your going to Japan. I have long dreamed of going to the temples on Mt. Fuji to meditate and feel some quiet peace. Why there? Who knows save that it draws me in a place deep inside.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

Your very kind. :) Thank you.

You know if you take that vacation you never know what will present it's self while your there....you may find a company there that wants someone with your skills.
You never know. :)

(It's brainstorming time...yea!!! We love brainstorming...it leads to the most amazing things...and it's fun besides...)

There are a couple of ideas that would fill thoes months, give you a chance to not stay so tied to a job, as getting another one of thoes corporate monster things....I hate thoes things, like huge smelly beasties you want to bash up side the head with a club every now and then just to remind them, that your life does not revolve around their demands.

A temp service, several temp serivces. Christmas is comming up and there will be a flood of businesses looking for temp help.
OR...you could put an ad in one or two or all of the free papers offering your skills.
People have done it before.

You called yourself a geek...like that's a bad thing or somthing.
Being a person who understands how all thoes zero's and ones work and all the things you can do with thoes two digits is amazing.
You and all the other "Geeks" see the world from a very different place, and that's cool.
The language of art, just in another format.

Think about all you know. Think about what you've learned.
Here's another idea, there are grants out there for all kinds of things.
With all the things you've learned, are there things you now know that you can look at and say this would be much easier if it was just done like this?
Why not apply for a grant to work on an independant program designed to do something....
I'm not as emesed in computers as others are, I just come here and write and look up cool art sites.

How about designing a game where you have to debug your way out of a maze or you die trying...
You could create the beasts you fight to resemble all thoes tyrants who run corporations and sit on their asses barking orders while they do next to nothing and get paid like they are putting their lives on the line.

Another crazy thought here, you could apply for a grant to study the japanese culture.

There is something else. A field that's related, but not as obvious at first.
Many of the appliances out there being built now are designed with computers in them.
The average person who buys said appliances often fucks things up, and complains that it's broken.
When in fact it's operator error. That's usually the case with most computer problems, right?
So, why not hier your self out to teach people how to use the equipment properly?

You were once there, and remember how it was not to understand.

I figure that teaching in Japan is going to require you to have good teaching skills that will make what you do easier for people from an entirely different culture than this one.
It's one thing to know how to do something yourself, but being able to teach someone else is something else.

And doing it with people who speak a nother language is even more of a challange.
No time like the present to discover what you will need as a teacher.
:)

One last thought to chew on, there are times when doors close because there is something that's been waiting for you.
You can't very well walk through another door if your busy doing somthing that is taking your all your time.
Your too busy to notice the door that has just opened.
What better way to see that door than to all the sudden be outside with the door to where you were locked tight behind you.
Make sense?
My sister has this saying, which I happen to agree with, each thing you go through prepares you for the next thing.

:)

You called yourself a geek...like that's a bad thing or something.

Oh no, ask anyone here. We're all quite proud of the title geek.

I figure that teaching in Japan is going to require you to have good teaching skills that will make what you do easier for people from an entirely different culture than this one.
It's one thing to know how to do something yourself, but being able to teach someone else is something else.

And doing it with people who speak another language is even more of a challange.
No time like the present to discover what you will need as a teacher.

Yeah, I've considered finding ESL jobs to help me prepare for that. Temp services isn't a bad idea either.

Thanks for all the ideas.

Please contiune to vote AND post.

Your welcome. :)

I was getting ready to hit post, and this idea just popped into my head.
Have you ever considered being a travel writer? Someone who gets paid to travel and write about the places they visit.

For some odd reason it just occured to me that maybe ultimately what your going to do while your in Japan may start out as teaching but end up going somewhere else.

Just a strange thought I guess.

Hey, travel writing! That does sound fun. You could even take along a video camera and narrate the whole thing. End up on the travel channel.

Yes, we are proud of the geek title. You see, in highschool, I was what I like to call a Beta Geek, muted personality, abysmal clothing, the works. But as time progressed and computers came to rule the world, I developed into an Alpha Geek, complete with DK and Kennith Cole and the ability to actually be amusing in mixed company! ROFL

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath