So I cleaned out my desk today

So I cleaned out my desk at work today. I did that just in case the boss wants to fire me tomorrow.

I took down my Jim Brown and Roger Staubach jerseys, I disassembled the Aerogarden, I packed up the protein powder and Bullet mixer, I carted out a wagon load of computer books. I also threw away a ton of junk and scrubbed the place down. Three big boxes, one Radio Flier, two full waste baskets and 30 Lysol wipes later, the joint was clean. I will take a photo of it tomorrow and post it here for your viewing pleasure.

There are only two articles left in that cubical that belong to me. The first is a Wacom Intous3 touch pad that I use in lieu of a mouse. The other is my custom-made Canadian Lifeform executive chair. I can unplug the touch pad in split second and walk out the door with it. Transporting my Lifeform chair will prove much more problematic. I will figure something out. The chair and the touch pad are the only two things [of mine] that I need to function until the day split for good.

This created quite a buzz at work. Three coworkers asked me what the hell was going on. They wanted to know if I had found a new job, or... or... or... "Not yet", I answered rather ambiguously. The two fleas, who have been sucking blood out of my ass for the past four years, were visibly shocked. There was no mistaking the meaning of those expressions. Neither dared to ask what I was doing. I suppose they were/are crushed that I am leaving them.

It may not be time to go just yet, but we just got the two minute warning and I am in my four minute offense. I am grinding the clock down. I am just making sure that everything is ready so I can sprint off the field when the final gun sounds. I got the lead and you can't have it.

I'm not the only character who is unhappy in this mix. Everyone of my teammates has a plan. We're like the 1960's Rams Al Davis once targeted: Everybody wants to leave the team. Everybody's got an escape plan. Some are sharing, some are not. We're all working on leads.

I've already got an offer on the table from what was formerly Country Wide and is now Bofa, and it is for a sizable pay increase, but who the fuck would be stupid enough to accept that position? It's literally right down the street from my present job, but this is no career move any wise man would make.

Right now I am big-game hunting. Getting the white lion may require a move to Livermore California. I am up for it, if that is what it takes.

Time to say goodbye?

Intro

It all began at a Hollywood website I joined in the wee hours of the 2007 new year. I was hired on by a full-Ph.D. computer scientist named Jamal. We’re not talking about an honorary or mail-order Ph.D. either. We’re talking about the real thing from UCSD. Jamal was of Syrian extraction, and he was good. This guy was not an ivory tower scientist. He really knew something about computer science and software engineering.

Jamal had been hired by the owner of this website to be the company CIO. All future development of the website was to be directed by Jamal. The owner wanted to focus on strategic partnerships with studios and production companies. He did not want to deal with the grind of software development anymore.

A funny thing happened on the way to that division of labor. It turned out that the owner could not stand being out of the website development business. It turned out that he could not accept the true meaning of delegation of authority. He just couldn’t allow anyone else full creative control over his website. It turns out that he had to have his hands on the baby.

A power struggle ensued between Jamal and the owner. Step 1 in winning the battle was to fire the three developers Jamal had hired. You take away his chess pieces first, then you go in for the kill. Unexpectedly, I found myself on the street looking for a new job in Mid-June of 2007 after just about 5 months of employment. I had been fired.

Looking for a new home

No one expects a job to end in 5 months. You really don’t expect that in a situation when you know you are good. I hadn’t planned financially for this problem. Further, my brother and I were splitting rent in a relatively expensive house in Van Nuys California, and he was planning to move out. I was unemployed, and my rent was about to increase.

In this sort of financial jam, you don’t have a lot of time to select the perfect job at the perfect company. You cannot afford to be selective. You need to accept the first decent offer you are given. This is one of those moments when a perfectionist needs to make concessions to real-world expediency. So it was with me. This is how I landed in my current job.

The interview process was simple. I made two visits. I had several conversation with a pair of developers I will call T and R. T & R had been in the organization for years before I ever showed up. I asked them a short list of questions about the company to help size up what brand of outfit this was. The both answered the question in essentially the same way. Based on their answers, I reached the following conclusions about my current company:

1. This was a very family oriented company. Execs were more concerned about taking their kids to baseball games than growing a trillion dollar organization.
2. This was a mellow, low-pressure company, where quality of life was basically paramount.
3. This was a low-pay company. Most of the people working here had been hired straight out of college or from low-end jobs at very low prices. There were theoretical bonuses and raises. Most people didn’t get any such thing.
4. This was a low-tech company. Elementary CRUD applications and websites were the warp and woof of daily life. VB.NET and FoxPro were the two dominant paradigms. There would be no real technological challenges or adventures in this business.
5. In terms of software development, execs were more concerned with cosmetic appearance of things than actual logic or data integrity.
6. Programmers were not managers, and managers would never come from programmer stock. If you wanted to be a manger in this organization, it would be best if you held an MBA from USC or Pepperdine. Otherwise, it was good to be a pretty girl.
7. They didn’t like change in the roster and they didn’t like firing people. If you joined the firm, you had job security.

Based on these seven smaller conclusions, it was possible to derive a much larger conclusion. That conclusion was as follows: If I accepted this offer, I will be entering a dead-end job. It would be a very nice and comfortable dead-end job, but it would turn out to be a dead-end job. There would be no opportunities for technical progress, growth in wages, responsibility or advancement in rank. There would also be no significant bonus for massive effort.

How do you play this one?

So the chess master has a problem before him. How do you play this arrangement of pieces on the chess board?

• You are out of work suddenly.
• You are in a financial jam
• You have an offer on the table for a comfortable dead-end job

What do you do? I will give you my solution:

• Turn down the offer of permanent employment
• Tell them that you are really looking for an hourly consulting position. Tell them that you would accept an consulting gig, but not permanent placement
• Go short with this one. Stay in the gig for 6 months to 1 year, deliver as much value as possible, then sell-short and move on.

This was my plan, and I followed it… at first. I declined the hiring offer. I tendered a counter offer for a consulting position. They refused the consulting gig, and offered the perm job again. I declined, and said I would continue looking for a position. They folded. I won. I was brought on for a 150 day contract.

The figure of 150 days was extremely weird. I had never had a 150 day contract in my life, and I had had 16 professional contracts before that moment in time. If I had been as calendar savvy as I am now, I would have understood that this was a setup. I was scheduled to come onboard during the first week of July. 150 days puts you schmack in the Holiday season. Nobody hires new consultants during the Holidays. They knew they could trap me with a perm-offer in late-November or early-December.

This was their plan, and they executed it by the numbers. Come December, I was trapped. I could be unemployed for the Holidays, which would create a true financial jam, or I could accept the perm offer.

At first I was of a strong mind to decline the perm offer and take my chances. No dice. As hard as I looked, I could find no suitable consulting or perm positions open at that time. I really looked hard too. There was truly nothing. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first early warnings of the financial crisis on the horizon.

With no other options available I took the only option available. I took the perm job.

The financial crisis

Once 2008 began in Ernst, I resumed looking for other employment. I never felt comfortable in this job. I always believed I was a programmatic and organizational non-fit for this company. I always expected it to end, and end soon. I never, ever expected this job to run four years. I never thought for one second I had a foot-hold in this company. In brutal honesty, I never really wanted a foot-hold. This was not my cup of tea. This was not in my agenda.

The problem with looking for employment in 2008 was pretty simple: We were on the verge of the worst banking collapse in the history of the world. It could have easily been the worst depression every. It may yet turn into the worst depression ever.

2008 was a rotten financial year, and it was rotten all year long. Some fools believe it only turned rotten in September of 2008. Not so. The financial news was terrible all year long. We were just in psychological denial about everything until Lehman brothers dropped dead, and the system executed the domino theory of collapse.

In this macroeconomic environment, it is difficult for anyone to find a job. It is more difficult if you are a computer programmer in the financial industry who is looking for that perfect job. Believe me, you won’t find it. I sure didn’t.

Once the crisis hit on Sept 15, 2008, I was expecting a pink-slip. I thought it would come any day. I was not expecting them to keep me, and I was expecting to be the second or third man in MIS/IT to be let go. Who was #1, and #2? I thought this was an arbitrary question, as I was expected the first three guys to go in a cluster. All three would be flushed at once, or so I thought.

A strange thing happened on the way to the flush. The high command decided to keep all of us in the programming section. The roster was cut to a very small extent; however, the cuts were mostly problem people who were on the disciplinary chopping block anyhow. I found this move baffling. It was very nice, but it was baffling. I still have a hard time believing they carried all of us programmers through this recession when there was no work to do. We sat around twiddling our thumbs doing nothing… and getting paid for it.

I guess we had good karma. I guess the bosses wanted good karma.

Where we are today

Three surgeries and a little economic non-recovery later, Dave is seriously thinking about moving on. I remain a programmatic and organizational non-fit for this company. If I am going to move, it better be soon. It better happen while I am in the full-bloom of rosy health, and it better happen before September strikes. This September could be a very bad financial month indeed. It might be the worst since 2008.

Bad things gentlemen, bad things...

I just finished a couple of conversation with several of my coworkers. Bad politics are afoot at work. Bad sexual politics, it would appear.

Ever had the feeling that you are coming to the end of a run with a company? Things have run their course and the firm is going in a direction you just don't want to go with them? I've been having an assortment of feelings like that for about 6 months now.

I could spell it all out in a great deal of detail, but this would be unwise, especially when it is largely unnecessary to my future plans.

Sometime between 7/2/2011 and 7/8/2011 I should reach my target weight of 230 pounds. At that time, it will be possible for me to put on a nice looking custom-tailored suit, and tuck a nice alligator bag under my shoulder. With my hair nicely styled and moused in place, I should be able to win a political beauty contest.

Make no mistake folks, sexual politics are involved in both hiring and promotion decisions. They may be suppressed to the level of subconscious mind--or maybe not--but sexual politics are always there. To knock-down a nice new job with a nice new promotion, you better have your sexual charisma working for you.

Few companies are run by altruistic Virgos who wish to make decisions on a purely logical and optimal basis, setting aside all unnecessaries. Many companies are owned by lusty lovers of life who wish to grip it an rip it. They do allow their passions and personal preferences to interfere with their decision making. The lust of the flesh, the passion of the heart, the desire of the eyes have a great deal of power in Corporate America.

I recently heard Rich Eisen say that he would select Blaine Gabbert because he is "dreamy". I don't think Eisen himself would dream of Gabbert, but I know a shrewed owner like Sonny Werblin would take this into consideration. Werblin would use that in his marketing plan, were he alive today. He sure as hell did with Joe Namath. You are a fool if you think 3 or 4 NFL marketing departments haven't run projections on potential earnings from the girl market if they select Gabbert in this draft.

This may be one reason Mike Shanahan is currently jiggling his connections with John Elway and Pat Bowlen in an attempt to acquire the #2 pick and select Blaine Gabbert. But then again, Mike is a Virgo. He should make logical an optimal decisions.

But I digress...

Firms hiring programmers aren't always happy to select the super-genius who owns just two T-Shirts... both replete with boogers. No, they would like a guy who is articulate and well polished, a dude they can set before a potential customer or client; a guy who will impress the MBAs with his demeanor.

Of course, such a life change will probably mean that I can no longer wear one of my 62 NFL jerseys each day, and every day in a seemingly endless rotation... Alas, we cannot have everything in life. You take the good with the bad in life. If I want a nice promotion in safe harbor I will have to accept the downside of more professional dress.

Knowing this, I would be a fool to make a premature move. I need to stay the course till the weight loss program has hit target goals. At this point, a launch window will open, and I should be able to find safe harbor somewhere else. With the right Cancer or Capricorn in the boss's seat, I am bound to impress. Cancer and Capricorn bosses usually (but not always) love me. The feeling is usually mutual.

I guess the real question is this: just how far am I willing to move to secure that safe harbor? Would I be willing to leave Los Angeles? Would I be willing to move to San Francisco? Would I be willing to blow out of California altogether and move to a place like Phoenix, Los Vegas or Austin?

I have family members in San Francisco, and Miami. I have always fancied Miami. Maybe I should give it some serious thought.