I guess that in some other posts I've been saying "there's lots happening at Company_A and I'll write about it soon", but I haven't really updated. So, let's get into it:
1) Company_A has been working on a very large project. I don't want to get into what it is (not sure if I can legally get into it), but suffice it to say that it involves some very expensive products, a large team of consultants, and just about everybody in the tech area of the organization from both sides of the house (consumer-oriented and professional-oriented). The consumer side of the house has taken a serious beating for the last six months or so, with a few people having absolutely lost any hope they might have had of a life outside of work. Fortunately, this doesn't include me at the moment, but my day in the barrel is coming.
2) Two people from my group have left - this is out of a group that's only made up of seven people. I can guarantee that at least one more will be leaving within a month.
3) Most of the senior developers have left.
Right now I wouldn't call it a sinking ship - I'd more call it a revolving door. There's people coming and going at a high rate, and for every person that leaves, there's another one coming in before the first fellow's seat has gone cold.
As a result of the people in my group leaving, I now have many more projects than before. Naturally, I have to play catch-up with all of them, since I'm going into mostly unfamiliar territory with most of them. I will probably be very unhappy with the workload in a few weeks, but to be honest it feels good to just be doing something in the Linux world; I've spent the last few months focusing on a video project that's all Windows-based, and mostly it's been pretty dull with a lot of drudgery. I had one good opportunity to learn some Windows scripting, but it came at a bad time (I didn't really have any time to commit to it), so I cheated and installed Cygwin, then wrote a bash script to deal with it.
I could write a long list of gripes about Company_A (you know I could do that, since I'm such a big fan of gripe lists), but suffice it to say that I'm not happy and I don't see that changing in the future. Actually, it's more like the relationship I had before I met Clau - I liked her, there was nothing wrong with her per se, and I could see myself being with her for another five years, but I knew she wasn't right for me. It broke my heart to break up with her, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I'm not unhappy with Company_A, but it's not (and never was) the right place for me, and it's time to do the right thing. Two days ago I bit the bullet and called my recruiter. I spent yesterday fixing up my resume - from what I wrote about it, you would think I've been having a blast at Company_A; my list of completed projects looks varied and impressive. For the next gig, I'm going to either go with "big fish in a little pond" or "little fish in a big pond". There are benefits to both - big fish allows me to move my skills in some different directions, whereas little fish allows me to hone my craft and eventually work towards "big fish in a big pond".
So, those are the big developments in my working life. Personal life is basically the same as it was - the big news is that Clau and I are going to the Bay Area for our annual visit and my grandmother's famous Xmas party - Clau's brother is also in the Bay Area, so now we have even more folks that we have to divide our attentions among. I'm very much looking forward to finally meeting my little sister, and I'm also going to get to see Adrian that weekend (who I haven't seen since last Thanksgiving in Missouri). After that, we're taking the redeye on Sunday night back to NY, and Neil is coming with us and staying for the week - we really have to look up some stuff for him to do (and make sure he brings appropriate clothing - it's getting really cold).
Hopefully I'll have another update before the holidays...
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