What’s a Blog?
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve kept up with my blog (and others that are fantastic – like in the links down and to the right … plus countless others I’ve yet to visit).
The past month I’ve been working every Friday night. How awesome is that? Tonight I tried to throw together a video to show my celebration for the lack of work I was doing, but the film editor on this computer really bugs me so I gave up.
The reason I’ve been working so hard is for a work project I’m involved in. It’s great because I’m learning a lot, and I feel like our product is pretty decent. I’m a software engineer and have been working on the database side of it. One positive/negative note is that I am working with guys my age who are much smarter than me. It’s nice because I’m learning, but not nice because I don’t enjoy feeling dumb.
This week (on Tuesday I believe) we had a meeting with our customer to prep for our final demo. There are ten of us on the team, and I’ve met all but three. Two of the three I haven’t met I’ve recently been working with a lot. We’d get home from work, take a few hours to ourselves (for me that meant Netflix and dinner) and then we’d call in to a conference number and work until midnight or 1 am. It was hellish. As far as I can tell, the other two guys are machines.
Anyhow. At the meeting on Tuesday I saw their pictures for their first time. It was very strange. I realized I had painted a picture of who one guy was – G – who I’d worked with quite a bit since the start of the project (he’s the technical lead, so I got a lot of information/wisdom/subtle chastisement from). It turns out these guys look very different from how I pictured. But more surprising than that was realizing how I had, without realizing it or intending to, pictured them.
On Thursday (5/27/2010) we have our final meeting! Yes! A demo with lots of big wigs – yikes. I’m not going to speak during the meeting, which is nice for the sake of my nerves and mental health. But it’s unfortunate because, had I worked harder and done more of what I set out to do, I think I would be speaking.
Two bright notes: tomorrow I’m going on a canoe trip with two co-workers. Next weekend I’m going to Boston with Theresa! It’s Memorial Day weekend, and I won’t have to work all weekend. A trip is nice, but honestly I’m most excited about the idea of returning to a forty hour work week. Back to my blog, and others!
Here are some random things from the past month.
I tried my first cup of coffee. This was not a desire but a necessity. I have never been as hopped up on caffeine as I was this past month. Newsflash: coffee sucks. Blech. My sister recommended I mix the coffee with hot chocolate (we have a machine at my apartment that serves up both) … I did this and it just made me angry at hot chocolate. My semi-joke, semi-I’m being serious, line to my mom about this was: “I don’t think it’s the coffee waking me up. I think it’s the terrible taste.”
The lead tech guy, G, while coding at night had two go-to phrases which cracked me up. I’m hard on myself, but this guy is very hard on himself. And it surprises me, because he’s way smarter than me.
Line number one, talking to himself: “What is this, amateur hour?”
Line number two, talking to himself*: “Ohhh … oh!, classic, CLASSIC … classic mistake.”
*He’d also say this to others. But he’s a very nice guy, so he’d qualify that statement with, “I’ve done that hundreds of times.”
During one of the late night coding phone meetings, G had been trying to solve something for a while when he piped up,
“Can we talk about how dumb I am?” (Meaning it was probably a ‘classic’ mistake.)
Silence.
“Um … if you want.” (From the program lead.)
I remember when I worked my first fifty hour work-week in California. I felt a sort of nerd-pride. “Yeah, I worked fifty hours this week … no biggie.”
I can say, now, with that same nerd-pride, that I have now worked a seventy plus hour week. It’s pathetic because that statement actually does bring me pride. But much more than bring it brings me sleepiness.
The customer says, “boom, boom, boom.” It’s a sort of yada, yada, yada – but impatient. He’ll click around and do various things on the website we built and say, “boom, boom, boom” while he describes what’s happening.
Netflix is the devil! But I love it so good.
Oh and I’m not rich. All this overtime is unpaid overtime. Neat, huh?
DumbFunnery 