Category Archives: Self Absorbed Whining

Where I moan and groan about how awful my life is.

Bitching in Beantown

Yesterday in Boston I pulled a 38-hour shift, from the first gathering of our employees at the tradeshow to fixing bugs in our product late at night to fixing my own little laptop to spending all day in the hotel room yesterday quashing bugs and fixing code to a late dinner last night with company employees who had come in from all over the country for this trade show. When I finally crawled into bed last night at about 11:00 I found that I was too tired to sleep. A strange feeling; I’ve never been awake so long in my life that I can remember, although the feeling of being too tired to sleep is not foreign to me. So I turned on the television and discovered that Nickolodeon is running a Three’s Company marathon this week.

This is only the beginning of this week. Late tonight (my flight lands at 11:15) I return to California to spend the night in an empty house (Jennifer is in Washington this week); then I leave the house again at 6 to make sure I get back to the airport in time for my flight back up to Portland. And because I’m getting a late start in Portland, I won’t be returning to California until late Friday night (though I had thought of returning on Thursday just so that I could say that I’ve worked in three states this week on two separate coasts).

My question for you, faithful readers (all two or three of you) is whether you’ll lose respect for me if I say that I’ve changed my mind about wanting to travel a lot for work? This company has strict policies against paying for rental cars, so when I’m on the road I’m stuck to plodding about on foot. Thus, I haven’t seen anything of Boston except for the inside of my hotel room (and I’ve spent WAY too much time here) and the few blocks between the hotel and the other hotel where the trade show is. By 5:00 yesterday afternoon I realized that I was in one of the most historic and most beautiful cities in the country and that all I really wanted to do was lie in bed with my book (King Lear by Shakespeare this time). But, of course, I couldnt; there were still bugs to squash.

Today I have to check out of the hotel so I’ll at least be away from my room and away from my computer; though I imagine I’ll be at the computer a lot anyway fixing up some bugs and clearing some pages. I’m not looking forward to actually being at the trade show; I’m not very good at schmoozing and I have yet to figure out what they want me to do while I’m here.

And in two weeks I go to another one of these things in Atlanta. I’m not looking forward to it.

Blind Man's Bluff

There are those who have expressed to me their disappointment that I have been averaging a single update every two weeks now, instead of the nearly daily schedule I had at the height of my journaling career here. I guess that’s understandable. I can only say that I wish I had time to update more often.

In one of my previous entries, from August 4, 2000: Odds and Endings, I wrote, "As I begin my new job next week at a new company, and as I build up my skills over the next few months, I’m certain I’ll be longing for days like today, when I didn’t have eighteen different projects due right now." I didn’t realize at the time how prophetic that statement was. Only two months into the job, and I’m feeling completely overwhelmed.

This job has been quite a learning experience for me, but not quite in the way I imagined. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to build up my programming or database skills (although I’ve become proficient enough with Unix and PL/SQL to be deadly to any Oracle database that lives on a Sun server, given the proper permissions). I’ve learned a lot about how the software development process works. I’ve learned about the rift that can exist between data migration staff and programmers, and about the often bitter conflicts that exist between development and QA. I’ve also learned how to smooth over some of those conflicts and differences by focusing on each person’s style of communication and learning how to translate to someone else’s style. And I’ve learned from one of my co-workers some of the myriad ways of scamming extra chocolate chip cookies from the staff of the Double Tree Hotel in Portland.

Mostly, though, what I’ve learned has been about myself. I’ve learned, for example, that when there are a lot of changes in my life all at once, I can become immature and whiny, even if those changes are all positive. My new boss pointed out to me that the biggest stressors in a person’s life are: (a) marriage; (b) new job; (c) moving; and (d) death of a spouse, and that in the next year I’ll be going through three of those. Then he laughed and called me a "stress monkey". And, of course, we’re not just moving; Jennifer and I are building an entire house.

These are all great changes. I can’t imagine being happy without Jennifer in my life; the house we’re building is going to be beautiful; and the new job is going well. But when I get stressed and overwhelmed, I’ve found, I wind up focusing on the negative parts of my life. In this case, it’s been an unwarranted focus on the less than positive aspects of my job and my career. For example: instead of appreciating the opportunity I’ve been given and the fact that I am involved in building something new which could potentially make life a lot better for thousands of people, I’ve focused on the fact that I’m not learning everything I’ve wanted to learn; on the working hours (which, because this is a startup, can sometimes hit 17 hours per day); on the fact that all this travel is starting to wear me out and that I don’t get to see Jennifer nearly as much as I want to; and so on. And over the next three weeks, our jobs will take us separately to Portland, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, and Andover; we determined that in the next three weeks we’ll have something like three days, total, to spend with each other. As the house building heats up and the plans for the wedding get more and more involved, we’ll probably get more and more stressed, though we’ll probably at least be able to spend more time face-to-face with each other — so that we can take out the stress on each other more appropriately. I’ve learned that while Jennifer is the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, an overabundance of stress can lead me to appreciating her less than I ought to.

I’ve also learned that I wasn’t as prepared for this career transition as I thought I was. When I was with the University, I bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t made it into the private sector, even though I had "broken the clerical barrier"; now I find myself occasionally wondering if perhaps I should have stuck it out with the University just a while longer. But, then, I knew that this transition was going to be a culture shock, that I was going to be drowning for quite awhile (sipping from a firehose is the metaphor that our general manager uses) before I really felt comfortable here. I hadn’t realized how big a step it is.

But, then, I remind myself of how far I’ve come (thanks to a whopping head blow from Jennifer, whose grace under pressure and ability to remain calm keep me in a constant state of awe), farther than I had thought possible just a few months ago and farther than many people make it in their lives (though I have no doubt that just about anyone could — I’m no smarter than anyone else, after all). I remind myself of where I was, and where I am, and where I’m headed, and even if the path ahead of me is still hazy and unclear, it’s starting to come into sharper focus; for example, I find that my interest in web development is continuing to shift from straight front-end design and usability concerns to the presentation of dynamic data, customized for the user and for the presenter of data. Which means, of course, that I’m finding myself learning more about PL/SQL and Oracle and Perl than I had originally planned to, and that I am also now interested in building my programming skills in XML and Java. The company where I am now may not be the company I’ll be with a year from now — then again, it might be after all, if the learning and development opportunities that I am building are present.

When I jumped into this ocean, I wasn’t doing it entirely blind; but I was, partially, playing a game of Blind Man’s Bluff. I’ve still got a few more rounds of this game to go before I can see clearly where I’m going. My challenge now — and for some reason this is a challenge I’ve rarely been up to, though I am doing my best to rise to the occasion now — is to enjoy the ride; to seize the day, as I wrote in my own journal a few months ago, and to throttle it.

It's Called Puddle City for a Reason

Sunday night here in Portland. I just got back here after spending a weekend with Jennifer, her sister, her brother-in-law, and her niece in Washington. And now here I am, back in Portland, in a different hotel than I normally stay in while I’m up here, and it is raining. Not that hard, but it’s wet everywhere around here. It rained most of the time that we were up near Seattle, which is fine with me. I like rain. I like walking in rain. I like listening to the rain on the roof. I like watching the rain come down. I even like sitting in a hot tub while the rain comes down on top of me.

Unfortunately, I never really got to learn to like driving in the rain.

I’ve reached another first this week: I’ve never before rented a car. After we drove back from Seattle-ish (actually, a tiny town about thirty miles from Seattle) in the rental car that Jennifer had picked up, we went back to the rental car headquarters, dropped off her car, and picked up one for me. Normally, the company I work for wouldn’t spring for a rental car, but this week, for some reason, all of the hotels in downtown Portland are booked solid, so we wound up having to rent rooms in another hotel, located several miles from Corporate offices. And since I’m the first one from the Sacramento office to arrive in Portland this week, it’s my job to rent the car.

Driving in a strange city is always nervewracking for me; I’ve never gotten in an accident and I’ve never even gotten lost, but I’m always afraid that I will. So, if driving my own car in a strange city makes me nervous, imagine how nervous I am driving a rental car in a city I’ve never driven in before, in a state — actually two, since the route from the airport to the new hotel loops up briefly into Washington — several hundred miles from home makes me feel.

And doing it in the rain makes it even more fun.

But here I am. I made it. I didn’t get lost, I didn’t crash the car, I didn’t even make a wrong turn and have to backtrack. The only problem I had was mistaking one hotel lobby for another and ending up at the wrong counter. And even that wasn’t that bad; the clerk at the wrong hotel gave me very clear directions to the right one, which happened to be just a few hundred yards away.

The hotel I’m in this week is much nicer than the one I’ve been staying in downtown. The room is much bigger, the bathroom is nicer, there are even more channels on the television to choose from (not that there is anything good to watch, of course).

So here it is, the beginning of a new week. A month into this new job, and the intensity level as we build a new company is really rising. Even though last week was a short week because of the Labor Day holiday, I still managed to put in nearly sixty hours of work. New migrations are being implemented, new data structures, new processes, and so on. I’m finding myself drifting into the murky realm of project management, but I’m not doing nearly as much coding as I would like to. I’ve been doing website mockups in imaging programs, but not designing the HTML behind them as I would like to, nor am I delving into SQL or Oracle as much as I had hoped I would be at this point. These will probably come soon, though; we’re in the process of hiring a webmaster, who will probably end up being tasked with design finalization while I step back from front end UI and start doing some more straight coding.

Portland is, as I’ve said before, a beautiful city. When Jennifer and I drove around Washington, we discovered that the entire Pacific Northwest is gorgeous (actually, Jennifer already knew that, having been up in the area several times already). We actually began to think that perhaps we had made a mistake in deciding to build our house in the Greater Central Valley of California, where things get so hot and dry in the summer time. But, of course, where we’re building is much closer to our families, and that is very important to both of us. Of course, we also realized that the way our careers are going, it’s possible that we will be, within five to ten years, in a situation where we can consider purchasing a second home. We’ve decided that, should we reach that point, we’re going to buy in the Pacific Northwest somewhere. Probably near Seattle.

I’m still experiencing career angst. Yes, it’s ludicrous; I have an opportunity that very few people ever get. I’m learning a lot in this job, not just about web development but also about project management and Oracle and database development. I have an incredible boss that I really enjoy working for, and co-workers that most people would kill for. And I have the feeling that even over the next year, I will probably move upwards very quickly.

But at the same time, the resentment that I’ve felt is still there. I’ve reviewed some of the career goals that I’ve explored over the past few years, and I’m amazed that the career that I’ve been pursuing over the past few months and which I’m in now has nothing at all to do with the goals that I had just a year ago — heck, back in December, I was pursuing a goal that was more HR-related than IT-related. I’m not sure what it is that made me decide to move into this new career, but here I am. And I think I’m much better off; and in less than a year, I will probably be in a position that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of just a year ago.

So why the angst? I have no idea. Jennifer has been more patient with me than I probably deserve as I fuss about this, and very inspiring to me at the same time. She gave me more encouragement to seek this new job than anyone else, and this is much closer to where I want to be than I was just two months ago. I suppose it’s all rooted in the fact that if I had started pursuing this five years ago, I’d be much better off than I am now; but, at the same time, who knows?

The rain has stopped, but the weather reports say that more is on its way. Streams of water are no longer falling out of the sky, and streams of consciousness are no longer flowing from my mind and onto the keyboard. So, until next time.

The Other Demon

Warning: Not for the squeamish or for those who wish to harbor any ongoing delusions that I am a "Nice Guy"TM

In my last entry, August 25, 2000: A Dream of Stephen King, I spoke of a demon called "Impatience". Impatience is always a struggle for me, but now there’s a demon of another sort bothering me: Resentment.

Those two or three of you who have been following my journal since the beginning probably remember an entry from March or April where I spoke of my plans for an upcoming two-month solo sojourn through Europe. I’d set up my 403(b) account with the University and was regularly stuffing 30% of my monthly income into it in order to save up for the trip; when the time for the trip came the plan was, I would take out a loan against that account and begin paying myself back upon my return.

The plan was going well. When I proposed to Jennifer, she asked that I not postpone my trip just to accommodate the upcoming marriage. With some prodding, I agreed, and began to plan out my itinerary, I began calling around to check out ticket prices, and making some contacts with people in Europe that I could hook up with while I was there. The first leg of the trip was going to take me through the British Isles, especially Ireland and Wales — places that I had always dreamed of visiting.

But plans come and plans go. When my job at the University became unbearable, I knew that I had to leave that job and that I would face a very difficult choice: either move on and make my job change and start heading on a career path which I knew would be a lot more rewarding but sacrifice the Europe trip, or stick with the unacceptable job but keep the trip. In the end, I chose to change jobs and sacrifice my European trip. I suppose that I could talk to my new manager and tell him that I’m going to take two months off in April and May, but I doubt it would go over well, since I’ll have been with the company for less than a year at that point. Probably not the best of plans.

So I sacrificed the Europe trip, but with very little regret because I knew that the career change would serve me much better in the long run; and while I will probably never again have an opportunity to spend two months backpacking in Europe, either solo or with someone, the career change was, I felt, worth it.

Now the company that Jennifer is currently assigned to is talking about sending her to Milan, Italy, for two months to work on the project there. She won’t be able to go because the time frame they’re talking about is right about the time that construction on the house will be heating up and we’ll both need to be around to work with the contractor to make decisions about things like faucets, electrical wiring, and so on. While a part of me is glad that she has been offered this opportunity, there’s another part of me — a disturbingly large part — which isn’t, and which is glad that she won’t be able to go. I’ve spent much of the past two days — between moving, plumbing, sorting and organizing books and CD’s and coping with incoming housemates and financial complications — soul-searching and trying to figure out why I’m feeling this way.

The answer is, probably, resentment.

I first conceived of my trip to Europe about two years ago, shortly before I even met Jennifer. I began saving money right away, first putting it into a savings account, and starting some early planning, back in 1998. In early 1999, I wound up with some medical expenses and other financial emergencies which required large amounts of cash — just the amount that I had in savings, in fact, close to $1200 at the time. So my savings were wiped out, and I had to begin again. I saved a few hundred dollars before having to start over again. Then I began the 403(b) account, and I now have close to $3000 there; if I’d stuck with the University, I would have close to $7000 by the time I left for Europe, far more than enough to pay for the trip and for the costs that would accrue back home while I was gone (e.g., a month’s worth of rent, and so on). Of course, since I’m no longer with the University, no more money is going into that account, so the money will sit there gathering light interest until I get to transfer to the 401(k) with my new company.

In other words, the trip had been planned and postponed several times. And each time I cancelled it I did so with some regret, and each time I restarted the process it was with some glee. But this time, the cancellation was final, and there is no real hope of rescheduling any time within the next couple of years.

My new job offers some travel. For the rest of this month and probably through the end of next month I’ll be spending the majority of my time here in Portland. In October, I’ll be headed out to Boston to attend a trade show. In November, I’ll be going to Atlanta. And in December, Los Angeles. After that, though, the travel will probably taper off. And with this company, there will never be international travel. And, being realistic, my skill set probably will never call for any sort of international travel, since UI can really be done from the comfort of one’s own home (part of the reason why I’ve decided that I really need to start making another shift and start building up some back end and programming skills, especially database skills). Conceivably, I could get myself into a situation where I would get to do some international travel while still using the skills that I enjoy; but, realistically, it will probably not happen within the next few years, if ever.

So this is where the resentment comes in. I gave up my own international travel plans for a career which will probably never offer the opportunity for travel; and Jennifer’s current assignment will get her going overseas, if not for two months, then probably for some brief periods of time. I’m happy that she has these opportunities, but at the same time I feel upset and angry and even hurt. It’s nothing Jennifer did and I hope to God that I don’t wind up taking out these feelings out on her (and I’m sure that she’ll let me know if I do), but these feelings have colored my mood all weekend and are really gnawing at me this morning.

Last night, I dropped Jennifer off at her local office so that she could take care of some business while I ran some errands of my own. After I finished up my errands, I went back to her office to pick her up. I found myself getting depressed while I was there. It reminded me that while I’m closer to where I want to be, career-wise, I still have a hell of a long way to go, and the feeling is daunting and intimidating. There’s nothing anyone can do about these feelings except for myself, and the only thing I can do is to continue building my skills and keeping an eye out for new opportunities and challenges.

I’m a lot more optimistic about my future than I was just a few months ago. But, still, these feelings — the intimidation, the resentment, the anger, and even the hurt — still remain.

My Parachute Just Exploded

Note: I’ve finally gone and changed the look of this journal. I personally thought that the pop-up windows for each journal entry were cool, since I wrote the JavaScript myself that opened them and allowed the viewer to manipulate them. Unfortunately, too many other people didn’t think that the pop-up windows were cool, so I’ve decided not to use them for future journal entries. The archives will still have the pop-up format until I get around to fixing them (about the same time that Hell freezes over, I imagine), but future entries will be formatted like this one — until I change my mind again.


A few months ago, the acting manager of the Human Resources division at UC Davis announced her resignation; and in the wake of her resignation, which came shortly after a massive organizational review by the KPMG Management Consulting Company and a severe budget crisis, it was announced that Human Resources would be re-organizing completely. The new structure would be lean, mean, tight, financially stable, and tremendous fun for everyone. Not only that, we were promised, but everyone within the division would have the opportunity to let their own talents and skills shine, and everyone would be happy.

Generally, I try to be an optimist. When the above announcement was made, I tried to believe it; I tried to believe that I would get a chance to shift into a more technology-oriented position which would include web development and database development, without having to go through the hassle of actually looking for a new job. And when my unit was subsumed into a larger "super-unit" consisting of our group and two others, I was told that I would be the primary technical support person, the webmaster, and the database consultant (in liaison with Human Resources Information Services). I was invited to submit my own position description and I excitedly set about writing one up, tossing all of the secretarial functions I still had to other administrative assistants and taking on all of the technological and database/web administration duties that I knew would ultimately move my own career forward at a careening pace.

Unfortunately, it seems that it’s the cynics who rule the workplace.

Yesterday, after all these months of restructuring, promises, and solicitations of my own input, I was finally given my new, revised position description. I can’t help but wonder whether my ideas and desires and talents were all written down on a list and then burned or possibly pulped, or perhaps even lining a litter box somewhere. Not only is there no mention of database and web development anywhere in the position description, but any hints of technical support are gone as well. Nothing remains but a brief token nod to "report generation" and "data maintenance." Instead, my position is nearly 100% administrative support: I went from being a technical support coordinator, webmaster, and database developer to secretary. It’s as if all the months I spent fixing broken computers in the unit, building applications in Access and Cold Fusion to let the manager get the data he wants when he wants it, and developing the unit website were completely ignored.

I’ve been trying desperately to figure out the motivations behind this. I’m told that it isn’t punishment for anything (though I’m not certain I can see what I would be punished for anyway); all I’m told is vague mentions of "business necessities" and so on. What I’ve concluded is that this is driven primarily by ignorance. My tech support duties have been removed because Information Services is supposed to handle these duties; my webmaster responsibilities have been removed because Information Services is supposed to handle them. Of course, my own conversations with the manager of Information Services lead me to believe that Information Services would like nothing better than to have a distributed network of technical support people and web developers so that they don’t have to tax their own very limited resources. On the other hand, perhaps that, too, is as empty a statement as, "Richard, I’d like your input on the development of your new position description."

And my own emotions surrounding this development have been pretty strong for me. I feel hurt, certainly, but also betrayed, ignored, and disenfranchised. Why did management bother asking for my input if they had never intended to use it? I found myself so upset at the entire situation that I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I told my supervisor that I was going home, and I left. Later, at home, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who works in the same office, and she suggested to me that I take today off as well; she even talked to my supervisor on my behalf, which I really appreciated. I’m feeling less upset today, but I’m certainly not happy about the situation.

What really bothers me most about my own reaction is that I find it very difficult to build up any concern anymore for the unit. I want to be a good employee and contribute to the unit; I want to be able to do my best and give my all and feel committed to the work. Unfortunately, it’s not happening. In its place I’m feeling nothing but indifference for the unit, its management, and the work it does. I find that I have no motivation whatsoever, and no interest in doing good work. This is bad not just for the unit but for me as well. It’s going to be a drain on me, and it’s going to hurt my career in the long run.

What I’m really getting out of all of this is a voice from God saying, "Get the hell out of Human Resources now!"

So the urgency behind building a career as a web developer and database developer has skyrocketed. I still don’t know how to start doing it, really, but I’ve taken the plunge by contacting potential employers, revising my resume, and developing a plan for learning Java, Access, and working on how I can learn Oracle and a few other tools and development applications. Ideally, of course, I’d slip right into a high-paying job that would pay me at least twice my current salary just to learn all of this, but that’s not terribly realistic. I’d also like to start this new job this coming Tuesday, but a realistic job hunt timeline is at least four to six months; and since I’m looking at an entire shift in career, the process will probably take me even longer.

I find that my emotional state is very mixed. On the one hand, I have never been this upset over a job-related situation before; I’ve never had to actually leave my workplace because I was feeling upset. I’ve never had to take a day off because of stress or burnout or frustration. And yet, here I am.

And yet, at the same time, I’m feeling happier than I ever have in my life.

The latter emotion is easy to figure out. I’m engaged to the most amazing woman in the world (see my May 22, 2000 entry: "Letter to Jennifer"). And looking at her, I know that she is one person who will never abandon me or abuse my trust; and I know that if she wants my input on something, she will actually consider it. I can trust her, and I know that she’s good for her word.

As I push forward in my career hunt, knowing that I need to be more aggressive with this hunt than I have ever been in my life, my natural reaction is to get discouraged. There’s so much that I don’t know, and the market is rather competitive, and I don’t have the overwhelming experience that would give me a strong edge.

But Jennifer tells me that she has faith in me. She tells me that if I put my mind to it, I can get that dream job, using the skills I enjoy using in a workplace that I believe in. She has faith in me.

And looking into her eyes, I know that it’s true.

My Parachute Has a Great Big Hole

I have to confess: I really don’t care for my job all that much.

Surely, not liking my job puts me into a tiny little minority of American workers. After all, doesn’t 99.9% of the American workforce love their jobs? Well, no. Some studies have shown that something like 70% of Americans just don’t like their job, and that a significant majority of that 70% — something like 85%, I think — feel that they are simply stuck in their job with no hope for advancement or improvement.

That I don’t like my job that much is nothing unusual. But why don’t I like it? After all, I have great co-workers that I like and that I have a lot of fun with. My girlfriend can even attest to that. I also believe that the work I do is important work, since it helps keep the University running (even if I do occasionally feel that the whole point of labor unions in California is to deliberately waste my time). The money I earn is somewhat decent, though I won’t be buying a house or a car or anything like that anytime soon — especially when I’m still paying off some large debts and putting away 20% of my income each month to save for my trip to Europe. And the benefits — medical, dental, etc. — of working at the University just can’t be beat. Free medical coverage with no deductible and a small-ish co-pay, free dental (with no co-pay), free vision, legal insurance, a nice retirement package, and so on.

So what’s wrong with my job? Simply that it’s dull. It was a challenge when I came on board almost three years ago, when I found University personnel policies and labor relations fascinating. But once I figured out the rules of the labor relations game — that for every stupid manager there is at least one psychotic employee, but that people in the work force are, surprisingly, mostly stable — I realized that I didn’t find it at all interesting anymore. I do believe it’s important — after all, in large organizations, the Labor Relations unit (if it’s run properly and the people there know what they’re doing) can keep the workplace stable and healthy. And it’s gratifying that I work with people who do care about this stuff, and honestly do their best to keep the University functioning well. But I’m not one of those people, and it’s beginning to wear me down.

On the other hand, though, I am starting to delve into areas that I do find fascinating. Web development, for example, and database design. Last week I started learning how to program in Cold Fusion to create websites that are dynamic and which pull information from a local Access database — my first application was well-received in my department and I’m trying to get the go-ahead to build more. And just last night I wrote my first Java applet (it’s not exciting, to be sure, and does nothing more than print a silly phrase on the screen), and I found that Java is surprisingly easy to grasp. Object-oriented programming is going to take a little getting used to, but I don’t think that my brain will melt when trying to figure it out. So, needless to say, I’m very excited about the possibilities of building dynamic web pages for inter- and intranet use, with Java, Javascript, Cold Fusion, and MS-Access, or whatever. I’ve even coded XML, and find that fascinating as well.

But at the same time, this is all very daunting. I have all of these books on Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, Perl, Cold Fusion, and Access, and they all fill up at least two feet of bookshelf space. It’s exciting stuff, but the amount that I still have to learn seems overwhelming at times.

And, of course, there’s the question of employment. I could probably find a stable job with the knowledge that I already have under my belt, but probably not anything that would match what I’m earning now. I haven’t got nearly the skillset I need to find a job that pays what I need to earn to keep myself afloat, let alone buy the house and the car and the Palm Pilot and so on and so on and so on. Until I can get paid to learn what I want to learn while still contributing to something which I feel is valuable, I am stuck doing this on my spare time and writing up small useful applications here and there to impress the socks off of my co-workers.

While it’s easy to get depressed over this, I find that I’m not. Sure, I’m a long way from the exciting high-paying job where I travel to dangerous parts of the world and solve tough database/web development problems, Indiana Jones style, and it’ll probably be a couple of years, at least, before I can seriously think about getting there. But, on the other hand, I’ve managed to get places before that seemed daunting and impossible. When I first graduated from college, it seemed downright impossible that I would ever find a good job at all, let alone one that would give me decent benefits and where I might have a boss who does, in fact, support my efforts (as much as she can, at least, without sacrificing the needs of the unit). I once thought that I would never own a car of my own. And even less than a year ago, I was nearly convinced that it would be completely impossible for me to ever be involved in a healthy relationship with a wonderful, stable woman. But all of these things happened, so, in all likelihood, I can probably improve my job situation as well.

Until then, though, I’ll keep fobbing off less interesting responsibilities of my current jobs onto other administrative assistants who find the idea of using the University’s centralized accounting software really, really exciting (while I myself find it tedious and mind-numbing), or who live for setting up meetings. And in the meantime, any ideas you might have for helping me develop my web development/database design career would be more than welcome.

Until next time, I remain,
Your obedient and humble servant,
Richard

P.S.: Shortly after posting this journal entry for the first time this morning, I received a telephone call from a recruiter who had seen my resume, and who was recruiting for a web development design position in Sacramento, which would use some of the very skills that I’ve been developing recently. The Universe excels at irony, and this is just one more example. Please keep your fingers — and whatever other digits you find helpful — for me. -RC

P.P.S.: And very shortly after posting my P.S., above, I received another call from another recruiter. This is simply too weird: two recruiters calling on the same day that I post my whiney job-hunt-related journal entry. I turned the second one down, though, because it is a Unix-heavy position down in Menlo Park; and I am certainly not any kind of a Unix guru (I’ve used "vi" and "chmod" and that’s it), and right now I have a vested interested in staying in the Sacramento area…

Today

I’m in an unusually introspective mood today, so today I’m going to talk about something different. Today I’m going to talk about grief.

There is a Pablo Neruda poem which begins, "Today I am going to talk about pain", and ends, "Today I am simply in pain". While I don’t consider myself a pain-ridden, angst-infested person, there are times when I need to think about pain and grief.

I am, on the whole, a positive, optimistic person; I have a good attitude towards life, having learned that the only way to really enjoy life is to choose to do so. But every now and then people will say strange things to me: "Richard," I’ve been told, "you are one of the saddest people I know." A former girlfriend once told me that she could see that I had a lot of sadness inside of me. And so on. (Of course, I’ve also been told, "Richard, you have a great attitude", and "Richard, you’re the bravest person I know" — but those self-aggrandizing statements are for another time.) So I’ve wondered what it is that people see in me that makes them say that I’m a sad person, because I don’t, on the whole, feel sad.

Then again.

What I do feel, often, is grief. It’s a strange feeling, something that I frequently have trouble quantifying or describing. I have not suffered any major tragedies in my life outside of the loss of close family members; nothing more than anyone else. My childhood was a good one, and I had a great family. I like my life, and I look forward to the future.

So, why should I feel grief, especially to a level that is detectable to other people at times? I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think I’m beginning to get a sense of it.

Grief comes from loss, or the awareness of loss. I look forward to the future with eagerness and joy, but I’m aware that all of the good things that I have now and that I will experience in years to come will, at some time, come to an end. I love my mother deeply, but I know that one day there will come a time when I will realize, "I haven’t thought about my mother in months, and she passed on years ago." Or, one day, I will have a family of my own: and I know that there will come a time when I’ll look into my son’s or daughter’s eyes, and realize that I no longer know that person. It’s a powerful feeling, and sometimes it’s overwhelming.

Is it a stupid or a silly feeling? I honestly don’t think so. It may seem absurd to feel grief for events or pains that haven’t happened yet, but, at the same time, I think it has served me well. I have become acutely aware of the times that I have lost people close to me, or failed to say "Goodbye" or "I love you" to someone who is leaving me forever.

Say your goodbyes when you can, tell them you love them while you still have them with you.

I suppose that I have at least two choices in the face of this neurosis of mine. One route — which I think would probably be the easier — would simply be to avoid contact with everyone, to avoid loving wherever possible, to become a solitary hermit, to withdraw completely. This would certainly ensure that I never lose anyone that is close to me, simply because I would never have anyone close to me.

That, however, does not seem like a good idea to me.

The other choice is to feel the fear of loss and plunge ahead and be close with people anyway. I may feel pain when I lose a close friend or lover or child or pet — but, all the same, my life will have been richer for having had that closeness in my life. I become very close to my friends, although I may sometimes have trouble expressing that, and I know that I’m really quite blessed to have those friends and family in my life.

What brought on this introspective mood? Part of it was thinking about an old friend that I’ve lost touch with; this person used to be my best and closest friend, a person with whom I could share my deepest feelings, fears, and hopes. Then… something happened. I’m still not sure what; but this person apparently decided that I’m an asshole, and subsequently severed contact with me. Conversations with people who knew both of us very well convinced me that the fault really lay with the other person and not with myself; but the loss lingers. I enjoyed the time I spent with this person, and I regret the loss. But perhaps the end of that friendship was for the best anyway. (Trust me, you don’t know this person.)

You cannot prevent losses in your life; you cannot prevent the pain that they will cause. But you can strengthen your appreciation and love of the things that you have, and face a future that will be filled with more blessings, most of which you have no clue of today.

That may be why some people have told me that I’m a very sad person; or, perhaps, I’ve missed the mark completely. But these are my own thoughts on this.

Once again, I hope I haven’t bored you or embarrassed myself utterly in this semi-public forum.

Richard