Work
2 Weeks Notice
It has been only 14 months since I started, but today I gave my two weeks notice at my current job. In many ways it was a hard decision, but in many others it was an easy one. You may or may not have noticed I have not talked about work on this blog for some time. Part of that was due to my schedule, and another reason was my employer frowned upon it. But I also didn’t have anything interesting to write about. For that reason and a few others I decided to take a new opportunity that came up. The last company I left 14 months ago I was simply burnt out and frustrated. This move is less emotional.
If I had to boil down the reasons why I decided to look to leave I would say it was because this position never transformed into the job that I signed on for in the first place. For that I am disappointed. I like the majority of the people I work with. I think the direction the department is trying to go in is a good one, but I am simply bored and not doing what I enjoy. When you wake up and don’t want to goto work, it isn’t a good sign. I will probably talk more about this decision in the coming weeks, but I wanted to write something today. I will also try to write about some of my experiences that I went through once I am gone. I also hope to be able to discuss more of what I am going to be doing at this new organization, but I can’t be sure.
I am really excited about my new position. It is a smaller organization but the opportunity is huge for me, so I can’t wait to get into the thick of it!
My Presentation
We had our annual division town hall meeting last Friday. It is where the entire division gets together to talk about what we did and where we are going. It is kind of boring, but very informative at the same time. On Monday I ended up volunteering to present my departments slides for the presentation. The other manager who did the slides ended up scheduling a day off on the day of the presentation and they needed someone at the last minute, so I volunteered. I know why would I volunteer? I don’t know. I figured the other manager in my department isn’t a native english speaker, and if I didn’t volunteer he would get stuck with it or my boss would have to do it. I figured not a big deal i’ll do it. Sorry dad, I know you always said never volunteer for anything unless there is more money in it for me! I am a disappointment!
As it turns out the preparation for the presentation (an hour plus long meeting) was worse than the actual presentation. I did my slides perfectly or so I think. I only started fumbling on my words when I tried to ad lib my summary. Oh well. It was a long afternoon but at least I got out of work at 4PM and headed over to the House of Brews to celebrate John’s birthday.
The Busiest Day of The Year
Today was the busiest day of the year for me at work. As it turns out this statement is true on several levels. My current company has a bi-annual event that generates the highest volume of web traffic on one of our sites. We literally began planning for today back in June during our last event. Because of the work shifts we ended up doing, and problems creeping up throughout the day today was also probably the hardest work day I have had since I started working at this job last February.
The odd thing is I kind of liked it regardless of the craziness. There is something about being in the thick of issues with the pressure mounting and you having to make split second decisions that has an odd attraction. I guess I am still sometimes an adrenaline junkie from my days volunteering as an EMT in College. The other alluring aspect of today is you see six months of work put to good use (hopefully), and for me all my skills as an engineer and a manager put to the test. The result is exhausting physical and emotionally, but in the end very rewarding. During our last event in June I commented afterward that if you are in an operations group and you don’t secretly enjoy such days you are in the wrong profession or lying to yourself. I still think that to be true.
The day did have its high and low points. In the end I know now that I have to handle a few personnel issues, and our systems performed better than anticipated. All in all a mixed ending for a roller coaster ride of a day.
The Day Off
I took today off. I had no plans, I just wanted to take a day off and relax. I haven’t had a day off in a while and I have tons of vacation to burn. I cleaned up my apartment, did some shopping, and other totally useless stuff to relax all day. It felt good. The down side is now I have to goto bed and then get up for work tomorrow. I didn’t answer my blackberry all day, but I did glance at it before and saw I had about 40 legitimate messages I need to look at. 🙁
Back to the grind tomorrow.
France Trip Recap
Wednesday and most of Thursday were taken up by work at one of our companies offices near Lille. It was a massive place. It is weird getting used to going to a place like that when the office I work in only has 90 or so people. Thursday night we ended up heading back to Paris on the TGV and walked around the area by our new hotel until we found a sidewalk cafe to have dinner at.
My boss and I also had to figure out a way to get on a conference call with our team back in NY while at our hotel. The call could have turned into an hour long thing, so mobile phones and hotel phones would have been very expensive. We ended up using my macbook and skype to call our conference bridge. It was an interesting use of the technology we had at hand. The hardest part was getting the high speed connection in the hotel to work. Connecting to Skype worked flawlessly once we were online.
Friday the morning was spent trying to go sight seeing but work took priority so we didn’t get out of the hotel until the afternoon. We hit the Louvre and got lost walking around there for a few hours. Then we walked to the Eiffel Tower. It was crowded so we didn’t go up. The line was really long. I got some decent pictures though.
After that we had a decently hard time finding a cab back to the hotel. We hit dinner near the hotel at another cafe, and then at night meet up with some people from work who were finally in Paris from Lille.
A Very Long Day
It feels like monday night but it is fact Tuesday night in France. I am in Lille, France. The red eye last night was ok. I took some stuff to help me sleep and it worked a little but not completely. The bose noise canceling headphones also helped but it was still a long flight.
Once we got to Paris, we were able to goto a hotel and get a Day room. It is basically a room you pay for during daylight hours so you can shower, sleep, etc. We landed like 7AM local time but didn’t have meetings until noon so we needed a place to go and relax. That room made all the difference. I was able to take a shower and just lie down for an hour. I didn’t sleep but just able to relax on the bed was all i needed to get through the day and even end up at dinner at 10PM local time.
We had our meeting in Paris after we got a bit lost walking around to find our office. We then toured a data center for a bit and then our host took us to the train station so we can catch the TGV to Lille. The TGV was awesome. We got biz class on that also, but it probably wasn’t needed for the hour long trip. That train is fast, and quiet. I always like trains but this one was really cool.
Once in Lille we hit the hotel and then went out for some dinner. We ended up meeting up with some other people from our office and had dinner together. I didn’t get back to the hotel until late. It is weird when it is like 10PM and there is still some daylight out.
I am off to a much needed sleep in a bed.
Ready To Go
I haven’t mentioned it before (or did I, now i don’t remember) but I am going to France today. I have a flight later this evening (a red eye) and then I am there with my boss until Saturday. It is my first trip to France, or mainland Europe for that matter so i am a bit excited.
I don’t like red eye’s since i can’t sleep well, so this flight will be interesting. The bright side is i get to travel business class so hopefully I can sleep when the seat reclines allot but not 180 degrees. More details as the trip unfolds.
Busy Day
Today was one of the two busiest days of the year for the company i work for. That ment i had to be up at work really early last night and work through the night. I got to the office at 9PM or so and worked to 10AM. It was very hectic because we had allot of executives watching everything as well as a few “minor” issues that kept people busy. Over all it was an interesting night and even with our issues it was apparently a successful day.
Last night i went and signed the lease to my new apartment so i am finally squared away with my living situation.
Technorati Tags: Apartment Hunting, Moving
Recruiting
Over the past several weeks i have been interviewing people like crazy for open positions we have on my team. We have been a bit under staffed for a while. We had 2 people leave plus we added new positions so it since a little after i started it seemed like we were under staffed, because we were. Within the past week we have had 2 new people start. I am hoping another person will take an offer and we will be close to full strength. It is good to be able to move multiple projects along when you have the manpower to do it.
Things are starting to shape up at the new place and I am starting to feel more at home. It is a nice feeling. I just don’t want to jinx myself by saying it.