Category: Just Shelley

The weather is cooler and we’re able to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows. With the cool breeze comes the sounds of the neighborhood, normally blocked by the glass.

In the night was the sound of the train, whistle fading, lowering as it moves away. The train travels close enough to hear but not so close as to hear too well.

This morning, I was awoken far too early by the truck picking up the garbage — a cacophony of crashing gate, motor whine, and the melodious clang, break, smash, and smoosh of garbage sliding into the maw of the damned beast. I put a pillow over my head until the bin is lowered and the truck begins to drive away. Relieved, I snuggle back under my comforter, prepared to continue my rather interesting dreams, only to hear the same process repeated at the bin a block down.

Mid-morning a mockingbird sits in the tree next to the townhouse and sings for whatever reason mockingbirds sing, and the sound is wonderous. And unusual as the bird switches between different types of song at the drop of a, well, feather. So much song for such a plain little gray bird.

The people across the way have guests, and when they arrive, there are cries of delight among them, each voice dripping with an accent as thick as molasses on pancakes. I look up quickly, wondering why Dolly Parton’s here in my neighborhood. Not Dolly, but surely kinfolk of hers.

Tonight, the neighbor has friends over to watch the game. I don’t know what the ‘game’ is, but there is much yelling, cries of “All right!”, and hands slapped in high fives, accompanied by great gulps of beer, punctuated by enormous belches.

Well, I didn’t really hear the hand slapping and the beer guzzling and the belches, but I know they’re there, just beyond the range of my hearing.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have never had a job I disliked so much that I would want to have revenge on them. Reading Dorothea Salo’s description of a job she left two years ago leaves me a bit in awe at the passion of her dislike. No, I’ve never disliked a job that much, but I have loved a job with equal passion.

I’ve written about my job at Skyfish.com before; specifically in an article for O’Reilly, Death of a Dot-Com. I was reminded of the company again this week when some legal issues associated with the bankruptcy arose in addition to making contact with several people for references during my current job hunt.

I loved that job with a passion that most people reserve for their lovers. During the development of the first released applications, I worked four straight months, 16 hour days, without taking a break. I took a $100,000 dollar a year cut in pay to take the job as technical architect and senior technical lead (and weren’t those the days to be making that kind of money). I absolutely and totally loved that job.

If you ask me why I loved the job it wouldn’t be because of the surroundings (condos in the Leather District, desks crammed up next to each other, poor ventilation), or the pay, or the fact that the work was overly innovative. It’s true we were working with an environment I particularly liked: J2EE, WebLogic, EJBs, Java, Oracle, Unix, and so on. However, the tools and the applications we were building weren’t enough to make me love the job.

I did like the people. The Skyfish.com group was one of the most eclectic and interesting groups I have ever worked with. My CTO was an Australian named Michael, and he is, without a doubt, still the best boss I’ve ever had. We made a very good team, each of our strengths complimenting the other. And the others I worked with: Lisa the web page editor and my closest friend, Enza our content editor (who was a natural born weblogger if there was one), the other developers such as Peter and Brian and Joe, and Ichiro and Mauro our SysAdmins, and lovely Lena, serious/comic Jim, and Tim our finance guy-with-a-heart, and Sebastian, especially Sebastian – a true Renaissance romantic living in modern times. All special people, and I adored them.

But the people and our enthusiasm couldn’t overcome the problems. The management team, very conservative, had offices in Connecticut, while the very eccentric technical team (included the CTO), worked in Boston. You can’t split management from technical in that small a company without problems happening. Serious problems of credibility and trust. They needed us, but we needed them just as much and neither party recognized this at the time.

And within the management in Connecticut, one officer sleeping with the wife of another and everyone knowing this. Well, I knew this when one of my co-workers called me up at 3:00 in the morning before I was to take a train to New York to try and sell our company to yet another bunch of conservative investors. This was among the tidbits of information he let fall.

In the end, our organization degenerated into petty fights and rumors and disagreements and continuous worry and disappointment with each other, and desperate attempts to maintain a façade of composure whenever we walked into yet another mahogany paneled office in the halls of finance, hat in hand, begging to be allowed to live…as a company.

But the industry is small and rumors were large, and no one would touch us, even with the business alliances we made. You might say that skyfish.com was brought down as much by sex, as it was by the dot-com implosion. You might say.

But why, with all this, did I love that job so much? Why?

Because for the first time in a position, I was allowed to release my full technical creativity and build something really special, from the ground up. Because it was the only job I’ve ever had where the only thing that mattered — the only thing — was my technical abilities. Because my boss believed in me, but more importantly, because all my self-doubts and insecurities were swept away and I actually believed in myself.

And then one day, it was all gone.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There are few things I dislike more than interviewing for new gigs, especially in a town where you don’t know the consulting companies, and don’t have contacts. However, my name has now been submitted for several longish contracts at some bigger companies and hopefully in the next week or two, I’ll get work.

(I’m not going to mention company names, even when I do get a new contract. Who I work for is between me and the company, and the consulting company that arranges the contract.)

Today, the employers rule, and it shows. It’s discouraging to go into an interview with several years of Java development experience (and references) as well as having worked on two Java books in 1996, and being Sun Java Certified, only to have the consulting firm want to have you take a bench test in Java.

Luckily, the weblog doesn’t matter — none of the folks here have heard of weblogging. And most don’t care that I’ve written books on technology. In fact, I’m finding that technology and capability is less important than how you dress and your ‘attitude’, here. Perhaps the mid-western folks in the audience, especially those in the St. Louis area, will let me know if I’m off the mark on this. I truly hope I am.

The worst interview so far was Wednesday, last week. I was interviewing to be part of a team of consultants on a gig, and as soon as I walked through the door, I could tell the guy wasn’t interested. And it continued to show for an entire hour.

So, was my college a liberal arts college or an engineering college? He’d found that people who came from a liberal arts computer science program just didn’t have the proper background as true engineers. I found this question puzzling because I graduated from college in 1987, and most hirers could care less about college when you’ve been working for several years. However, my college was a liberal arts college. He then asked if it was any good.

How does one answer a question like that? My first reaction was to say, “Well, we didn’t have computers, so we got some cardboard boxes and painted switches on them and pretended to program them.” But I didn’t.

Amidst interruptions to take phone calls or talk to people in the hallway (without once apologizing — I guess this is another engineering thing, no politeness), he also asked about what I did before I went back to college since it was obvious that I wasn’t 18 twenty years ago. Well, now, that was fun.

Also, he informed me he would have more references from me since I’d been in so many jobs. I told him I was a consultant since 1994, and normally consultants don’t spend years at a job. Since I was interviewing for a contract, this discussion just didn’t make sense.

I have interviewed so many times in the past, I’ve lost count, but I’ve never interviewed with such an obvious asshole as this guy. When I finished, I went out to my car and just leaned my forehead against the stearing wheel for twenty minutes. What the heck am I doing here?

At least my cat likes me.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The way of dealing with the stress of the interviewing process is NOT to sit in front of the computer, becoming frustrated at the BS associated with RSS. I need to work on the RDF book, true, but I’m also taking time to do some hiking.

In fact, I’m going to be increasing the difficulty of the hikes I take. I’m still not in the best of shape, but if I take it slow and use caution, I should be able to traverse some of the tougher hikes in the area.

There are few things more uplifting to the soul than completing a challenge that’s just beyond your current skills. Nothing else seems to give a greater boost to either morale or confidence. I need this now. I need the type of challenge that tempts me to give up half way, but that I’ll stick with, and succeed. No one and no body can give you this type of success, or take it away.

So, if you’re in Missouri, out in the country, and hear the far off faint cries of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs, you’ll know that it’s just me, having met another challenge…or it’s me, and I’ve managed to fall off a cliff.

(Just foolin’ about the cliff. My mama didn’t raise no fool.)