indessed roscivs

Today was the second day at my new job. Well, it’s not completely new … I’m still at the same company, but in a different building, working for a different division, doing almost completely different things.

At first I was really worried. Am I jumping out of the frying pan, into the fire? How do I know the new place will be better than the old place?

And not that the old place was really that terrible. I had friends I liked hanging out with, and a lot of freedom to do development on whatever projects I found most interesting. But I never really hung out with any of my team members, and even the people I hung out with on the other teams weren’t really the sort of software developer types I had really enjoyed working with at my previous job. Add to this that management was technically incompetent and formed an almost impenetrable wall between our team and the outside world that made real progress towards solving users’ problems difficult at best—yes, it was definitely time for a change.

But still I wondered—would the new place be any better? When I had nervous thoughts like this, I comforted myself with thoughts of the sacks of money they were paying me to move. It wasn’t likely to be worse, I thought, so even if it wasn’t much better I’d still come out ahead.

But so far it has been better. The people on my team and the neighboring teams are talented, opinionated, and vocal. One of the things I really missed was having people who vehemently disagreed about stupid things like choice of operating system, development environment, or where to put the curly braces. It just seemed odd to be around a bunch of people who would happily use whatever was placed in front of them, even if it changed from project to project or from day to day.

It feels warm and familiar to have people who really care about the technology they’re using. (Even if, or perhaps especially if, they don’t agree with my own very strong opinions on the subject.) Random design discussions throughout the day, lunch conversations about what development methodologies are better, questions about roundabout ways of doing things just to stay in one’s preferred environment—these are the sorts of things that make me feel at home here.

I also feel like the problems scheduled to be tackled this year are very exciting ones—they match my strong points as well as areas in which I’d like to grow, and they match my interests too. I’m not sure how much time I’ll actually be able to work on these sorts of things (as opposed to the daily grind of less-enjoyable tasks), but at least the overall picture seems to line up well with my own visions.

I’ll keep updates coming as time goes on. After all, today is only the second day! (Not to mention that my new manager is out of town, so I’ve been enjoying a little more freedom than I perhaps otherwise would be having…)

February has not been a very good month for blogging.

Lately I’ve had other distractions on my mind. Probably the most significant is the fact that I’m changing jobs on Monday—I’m staying at the same company, just moving divisions (and buildings). It’s a big change, and I’m nervous about how different it will be from where I am now. But I won’t be able to find out until Monday!

Last month I blogged in Japanese. That was primarily for the benefit of N-san, my Japanese conversation exchange partner. (I’m not sure anyone else who reads this site can understand Japanese, much less my broken beginner’s Japanese.) But it was really fun to write! And really fun to see the results, too. And, a good learning experience since N-san kindly corrected my mistakes. I feel like I’m really learning a lot by working with him. I hope he’s learning a lot from me, too.

In any case, expect more Japanese blogging behavior!

I’m not the kind of guy who can’t take vacations, who has to be working at every moment of every day. I can certainly appreciate some time off and spend it relaxing, successfully forgetting about the papers piling up on my desk back in the office.

But I’m also not the kind of guy who can be without a job for very long. If I didn’t have a job, I’d probably go insane quite quickly, even if all my physical needs were adequately taken care of. I simply need to be doing something productive. So yesterday, when I got off the bus and headed up to my office building, I was practically skipping with sheer delight of being back—back to the daily grind, the fun coworkers and the inane coworkers, the office politics, and everything else that “work” means.

Of course, it will only take a few days before I’m once again back in the routine, no longer with a big smile on my face as I enter cubicleville one more time.

Here I was, at work, being embraced (rather awkwardly) by a young, single female coworker, wondering how I ever got myself into this mess. As everyone knows, even platonic relationships between a married man and a female coworker are a very bad idea. Anything that even hints of non-platonicity is a recipe for disaster.

I wasn’t remotely attracted to this particular coworker. (In fact, disagreeing with my coworkers about her alleged good looks led to my ridicule.) But she, apparently, was attracted to me. Not only did she invite me to tea (I was expecting to sit down with a few of her coworkers and chat about work—not sit down one on one and chat about life in general), but she also dropped little “hints” here and there. Normally I’m pretty thick when it comes to women (or men) hitting on me—typically my wife has to point it out to me, and even then I’m mostly oblivious. But Rachel’s comments (about how much she loves the “geeky” type, about how her last few boyfriends were all phsyicists, or a demure “why don’t you walk me back to my cubicle?” after tea) seemed a little much.

And yet still, after walking her back to her cubicle after tea, saying “cheers” and being unexpectedly met by a good-bye hug (awkward to say the least), I still wasn’t sure what was up. Or, as DW would say, I was oblivious. At the first sign of any mildly flirtatious behavior, I had started making refereneces to “my wife,” just in case she hadn’t seen the ring. Several references later her demeanor hadn’t changed, so I wasn’t sure if she was deaf, just naturally friendly, or a psychopath. “Maybe she’s just extra-friendly?” I thought.

A week later at the company party, I had my answer. I saw Rachel nearly instantly; her face lit up when she saw me, then fell instantly as she saw my beautiful wife at my side. Her expression soured into what I can only describe as, “How dare you have a gorgeous wife!” Immediately I knew that her friendliness toward me hadn’t been the platonic work friendship I had foolishly taken it for. But what can I say? I’m not accustomed to being hit on by strange women.

Turns out I wasn’t the only person at the company to be subject to unwanted attention from this particular lady. Her cubemate, a devout homosexual, had allegedly encountered some “inappropriate touching” from her wandering hands. One of my coworkers had been “stalked” by her to the degree that he told me, “If she and I went into a dark alley alone, only one of us would come out alive.”

I enjoyed our tea and our chats, but I dare say—women beware: if you plan to hit on me, all you’ll encounter is an oblivious, friendly, happily-married man.