The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘unpaid overtime’

Weekly Wacko (33)

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?

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Weekly Wacko (19)

My Utopia

(I wrote this today, 3/4/2010.)

I’m at work, but I’m not on work time because I’m in a lovely program where I work for the company for free, outside my 40 hours a week. Currently I’m on a telecon. The ‘major players’ are together in one room on the east coast, and someone they hadn’t seen in a while showed up so they’re all catching up. Punch me in the face. (One of the big wigs just said, “yeah they’re building us this in their free time!” I hate you.)

So I’m dreaming about what if this was true (remember, it’s a dream world, so I’m much more impressive there than in reality, to quote a Hemingway line from one of his books – “I want to be me, only much, much better. And have you love me.”):

(And I enjoy my job, but it’s fun to have my own little mental island to escape to.)

I wake up, it’s about 630, and I slip out of bed quietly so I won’t wake up the old ball and chain. My dog, a husky named possibly Fitz or Hemmy (short for Fitzgerald or Hemingway, two of my favorite authors), gets up at the sound of my getting up.

We go for a jog four mornings a week during the summertime. In the winter, we settle for a walk.

It’s May, and where we are in northern Arizona, it’s cool in the mornings. I get my running clothes on, grab the leash, and my dog and I are off to the races.

When I get back home my wife is awake. We eat cereal while watching morning news. We scoff and make fun of the obvious faux sympathy practiced by the news anchors/actors. Even though we do this every morning, it brings us easy amusement.

I say goodbye to the wife and dog – my two best friends, one of them prettier than the other (huskies are so pretty, so I can’t say for sure who will be prettier even in my utopia world).

I head to school, it’s the last week of classes and the kids are itching to be done with everything – but they have to get through finals first.

The 8th graders are even more excited than the 7th graders to be done – because they won’t just be done with school that year, they’ll be done with middle school.

I look forward to class – not because all of my students are smart, but because they all want to learn. They all have, at the very least, desire. And, the classes and I get along swimmingly.

For example, one day a 7th grade class had vowed not to speak the entire period. When they came in I started my usual small talk with them, seeing how so-and-so’s baseball game went, and how so-and-so enjoyed the movie they told me they were going to watch the night before. Nothing. The kids are giving me nothing. At some point I realize what they’ve done – the silence pact.

I decide it’s game on.

I teach the entire pre-algebra lecture without saying a word. The kids are desperate to say something, I’m desperate to say something – but hell if I’m not stubborn. Kids come up and point at things violently to demonstrate confusion. I pretend to not understand, then finally explain. Explanation 1, explanation 2, explanation 3, ahaaaaaa! The last group who hadn’t been getting it has their eyes light up – they get it now.

[I worked at a summer program, and a math teacher there told this story. Well, I made some small changes. I thought it was a great, and true, story by that teacher though.]

I am one excellent middle school math teacher.

I’m cool, but I still get them to learn. I transition between a joke and an aha faster than anyone. My students’ younger siblings have heard about me, and they can’t wait to have me despite the fact that my class isn’t easy breezy.

During lunch I check my email quickly – I’ve got one from my literary agent confirming some dates for my annual summer book tour.

I miss living near a city, but I make up for it during that trip when I get to visit quite a few cities.

The plan for that particular summer is that I’ll be driving east to Savannah, Georgia, stopping at various cities along the way. From Savannah I’ll head north, staying mostly coastal but sometimes heading inland. I read at small bookshops, big bookshops, and even a weird fans house (she makes the best cookies, but I think she’s in love with my wife). The previous summer I went westward ho, so east was the choice for that summer.

I forward the email to the old ball and chain, my sister and my mom. Each of them will be joining me at various points during the tour. My wife for the drive east. My mom and dad in the south. My sister in the north. We have big plans to make side trips for various reasons. It’ll be a long summer with a lot of miles, but I’ll get to read things I’ve read to people, and people enjoy it, which brings me extreme joy.

Along the trip I also reunite with some old friends from the places I’ve lived. It’s good catching up one-on-one, and we repeat the same stories that we’ve already heard and told. I get made fun of for the obvious origins of ‘fictional’ stories that I’ve written about in my various published (yes, published) books.

Plus, I make money, which as a guy who loves money, I love. Teachers make squat compared to my old ‘career’ as an engineer.

*

Well, there you have it, my utopia. Will that happen? It could, which is nice. But who knows if I’d enjoy a different job more than my current one. Or if I’d be a good teacher. Or if I’ll get published. Or if I’ll get a husky. Or married. Or have a wife who would be cool with me naming my dog after a womanizer like Hemingway.

But – this phone meeting is dumb, and to quote another Hemingway book (a famous line),

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

(Oh, and somewhere along the way I would get really good at carpentry, painting, the piano, and the guitar. Easy peasy, right?)

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Weekly Wacko (16)

Lean, Mean Crying Machine

The past few weeks have been very stressful to me, and I’m about to whine about stuff like I did before (blah blah blah), but I’ll try and keep it interesting (read: I’ll make fun of myself).

Last week (le what?!) I found an apartment. This week I started at my new job. Today my co-captain of the move left. The co-captain was more commonly called: mom, ma, and her favorite, lady (she has proclaimed this website “the greatest space on the internet. period.” Note: my brother and sister do not have websites).

When I moved to California about 2 years ago (Feb 5, 2008), my mom came with me to do much the same as we did this trip. Apartment hunt, furniture shop and drive me to work the first day (this mama’s boy tradition dates back to my first internship).

When she drove me to work the first day in California, she then drove around and did some errands, and finally caught a flight to go home – all before I got home from work. So, as she dropped me off for work (a little ways away from the location so my co-workers wouldn’t see that my mom drove me to work – I’m an ADULT now!) it was our final goodbye. I saw that she was upset, which made me upset. And that, combined with the scariness of my first real job, a new home where I knew pretty much no one (except Anna and Whitney) … made me cry like a little girl.

I don’t deal well with emotions. I’m a boy. I’m an engineer. And at 25 I’m living in my 11th new home. I am one emotionally stunted monkey. When people see me interact with emotions it’s like watching a calf take it’s first few steps – it’s awkward, you want to help but don’t know how, and you crave veal (kidding?).

Anyhow. I decided crying like a baby was a good tradition, so as I left to walk to work today (my hotel is across the street from my work) I cried like a baby. Thankfully I walked to work looking into the sun which made it more socially acceptable. Or maybe I’m just very passionate about my first week of work.

Just a reminder, I’m an adult!

The weird thing for the crying this time was it wasn’t started by SEEING my mom be upset. I think it’s a fair guess she was sad to go, but usually my emotions are reactive – they start up when I see others emotions in action.

I think this is because I am much more stressed about this move – I feel bigger expectations (and my boss confirmed this by saying, not in these words, “this is Brad, and he thinks he’s a hot shot”), and I have an outside work project going on. Let’s just hope I don’t take to crying all the time, because that would be annoying.

But don’t worry for me – there are two bright spots.

At my work there are a lot of acronyms, and an acronym finder. When I was reading through some documents today one of the acronyms I came across was my brother’s name. I found this funny so I ended up looking up acronyms for my and my family’s initials. This is surprisingly entertaining to me, but that is maybe a bad sign.

The real bright spot is this. I work in Texas. And one of my co-workers names is … Peggy Hill! Are you serious!? How great is that?

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