thank you, courtney… January 17, 2007

…for posting this and then letting me steal it. 

They call it the “Quarter-life Crisis.” It is when you
stop going along with the crowd and start realizing
that there are many things about yourself that you
didn’t know and may not like. You start feeling
insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or
two, but then get scared because you barely know where
you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that,
maybe, those friends that you thought you were so
close to aren’t exactly the greatest people you have
ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are
some of the most important ones. What you don’t
recognize is that they are realizing that too, and
aren’t really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that
they are as confused as you.

You look at your job… and it is not even close to
what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking
for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at
the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what
others are doing and find yourself judging more than
usual because suddenly you realize that you have
certain boundaries in your life and are constantly
adding things to your list of what is acceptable and
what isn’t. One minute, you are insecure and then the
next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest
force of your life. You feel alone and scared and
confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try
and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon
realize that the past is drifting further and further
away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you
are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you
loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed
and wonder why you can’t meet anyone decent enough
that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone
but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing
this because you know that you aren’t a bad person. One night
stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and
acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over
and over, and talk with your friends about the same
topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You
worry about loans, money, the future and making a life
for yourself… and while winning the race would be
great, right now you’d just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates
to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying
as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

– anonymous. for now

 note:  if anyone who the original author is, let me know

looking back, and moving forward. (volume 1: work) January 11, 2007

I’m going to dedicate my next few posts to reflecting on various parts of my life over the last year and my plans for the coming year. I had actually started writing it all in one post, but it turns out that I have a lot to write about, more than I expected! So rather than having my readers be overwhelmed with one long massive post, I thought I’d divide it up. I’m also lazy, and dont’ think that I can finish writing about everything in one sitting.

So, here’s my first one – the one thing that seems to have been the centerpiece of my life for the last 6 months. Sad, yes, I know. I really try to make an effort to separate work and home, but it’ so hard not to let it spill over into your personal time when you’ve got outstanding things that need to get done at work. Anyways, without further adieu…

Work

So 2006 saw the start of my journey into the real working world. People say that coming out of Waterloo coop, with 2 full years of experience in your actual field of study is supposed to prepare you for this. In my situation, coming back to the same company, same people, some of the same technologies, and even the same client, one would think that I would be completely prepared for the job and for the real world.

Is that the case? I’m not sure. I know I have an edge over anyone from any other university, and even any new hire coming from waterloo because of my extra 4 months of coop. But still, there are just some things that coop can’t ever prepare you for. In some ways, everyone still sees me as a coop, and I still feel like a coop. It’s only recently, after a few sets of coops have passed through, that I’ve now started to really feel like “I’m not one of them anymore “. I think the feeling mostly started after about 5-6 months, when I came to realize that normally, I’d be back at school and writing midterms by now. But no, I’m still at work today. and tomorrow. and the day after that. And there’s no end in sight…I’m here for the next 40 years!! It’s kind of better, now that I’ve been there for a while. But then again, it’s kind of not better! Cause I really miss being a coop! (as per previous post.) I still get pangs of….I don’t know what the word is. jealously? wistfulness? when I overhear them talking about looking for housing for the next term, or discussing what courses they’re going to take, or where their friends are doing coop etc. As a real person, you’ve actually got real responsibilities, and real deliverables, and if the quality of your stuff isn’t good, you’re still held responsible for it! No more saying, “oh well, by the time they realize how crappy this is, I’ll be long gone back to school with my steallar evaluation and a whole slew of fancy new skills for my resume.”

Am I happy at work? Again, I don’t know. I don’t think so. But then again, would things be any different at any other company or in any other position? I wonder if it’s just my idealistic view of what work should be like. Afterall, work isn’t really supposed to be *fun*, right? That’s why it’s called work, and not vacation. I’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out what the problem is and what is leaving me so unsatisfied with my daily grind. Is it the company? Is it the people I’m working with (or sometimes as it seems, the people I’m either working without or working against)? Is it the client’s inability to drive projects? Is it this specific project? The PM? The lead developers? The management? Or perhaps it ’s something that I have to deal with more on a personal level. Am I seriously in the wrong field? I wonder if I would feel this same way at any other company or on any other project or working with any other people. Perhaps I’m not really as cut out as I thought I was for all the political crap and finger pointing involved in a consulting environment – especially when projects turn sour. Why can’t everyone just get along and work together as a happy team, helping each other out, making sure there’s clear communication among all parties, and not letting their egos get in the way of productive work??

For years, I thought I wanted to be a PM, and for years I thought I wanted to be in the consulting industry (aka. the bullshit and suckup industry) cause that’s what I thought I was good at…but now, I have no idea anymore. There’s no way I’d ever be able to manage all the political crap that seems to run rampant around here, not only with the client, but internally with the developers as well. There’s the classic “business people vs. technical people” headbutting, but I think the PM is finding it particularly challenging with this set of technical people, and for the near future, I suspect that I’ll really only be working with these same technical people, project after project after project.

So. For 2007. What can I do to improve myself and my situation?

One of the main reasons that I was hired back fulltime was because as a co-op, I suggested an idea to automate a process, and then near the end of the term, I implemented the change for myself and future coops to use. (turns out, apparently, that my program was buggy and they stopped using it a few terms after I left. But anyways, lol, I still made the necessary mark to get my full time offer. If I have time, however, I would at some point still like to go back and fix it up for people to use…I did spend a few weeks programming it, aferall.)

So that being said, one of my goals for 2007 is to remind my boss and director about why they hired me, by offering one new, feasible suggestion for change. I actually do have a whole list of things that are fricken retarded at work, and one day, someday sometime, I’ll formalize the list somehow someway, and present it to someone somewhere. The problem with my list, though, is that everything is so…fluffy. As in, they’re not things that can be changed just because some punk-ass kid fresh out of school complains about it. There are things about company culture, resource management, organizational health, strategic management, human resource policies, etc, that don’t have a “right answer” to fix the problems. I have a few suggestions for things that *might* kinda, sorta, maybe make a difference, but I mean….these are problems that I’m in no position whatsoever to be concerned about at this stage of my career

So, given that I miss being a coop, and given that I know I haven’t contributed to the company the way my employer had hoped and expected from me when I was hired, my work goal for 2007 is to suggest (and implement?) one solid process change. Not something that’s going to solve all the complaints I have about management and strategic direction and work environment and culture, but something small that I can implement on my own (or perhaps with the help of a coop student). It’ll clearly not be the kind of thing that will take significant notice in the grand scheme of the company, since the most obvious source for my suggestions would be in the individual projects I’m currently on. But regardless, I’m determined to revamp my entire attitude about work. I’m not a coop student anymore. There were supposed to be big plans for me when I started, and I want to remind my boss, my director, and everyone else around me of the value that I can bring to the projects, but that I haven’t really brought…yet . I’m not “just a developer” and I’m not “just a business person”…I’m still the same “good mix of business and technical” that they told me I was as a coop. I just personally haven’t been motivated to bring it out and really show it to them in the last 6 months since I’ve been there

Entries to come: Health (mental and physical), Friends and Family, Money, Love