Sunday, January 15, 2006

After five days of class, I learned something very important. I learned that commuting sucks the big wazoo.

I've mentioned before that I work from home. When my current employer purchased the startup I was working for, part of the deal was that we would get to work from home rather than going into the soul-sucking office. (I'm not kidding about the soul-sucking. Dementors lurk. (Gack, my first Harry Potter reference in this blog. Next up? Care Bears.))

Anyway, so because the class was in the office, which is in the heart of Silicon valley, I commuted all five days this week. The trip took an hour each way. That's 10 hours of my life that I'll never get back unless I finally put together that damn time machine. I keep meaning to get to that, but it takes sooooo long, and it's hard to justify spending all that time. So, those 10 hours are just gone.

Meanwhile, other work-related projects were heating up, my boss quit, and my wife was sick . This all made for a bizarre and taxing week.

I'm bummed that my boss quit. Our team at work is pretty close-knit. We all worked together at a startup for years before we were purchased by Internet Corporation X. Our boss did a great job of shielding us from the politics of upper management, while still protecting us admirably. After about 5 rounds of layoffs, our team was one of the only ones to remain unscathed. Plus, our boss had a very healthy respect for work-life balance. It was easy to explain that you needed to take a day of vacation because of a sick kid, or a hangover.

He's the second guy to quit our team in the last 2 months. I'll miss him too.

Class was pretty good. Although I hope to never eat off of the lunch truck again, it was nice to learn something new. It had been about a dozen years since an employer sent me to some sort of class. I'm sure I'll forget it all before I get a chance to utilize my knowledge, but at least I knew it at one time. That counts for something, right?

8 comments:

Badaunt said...

I think you should get to work on that time machine. You don't need to worry about how long it takes. Once you've finished it, you can go and get your time back.

(I think.)

zelda1 said...

My husband has about an hour trip to work and an hour home. He drives through the Mountain and it's a beautiful trip, especially in the spring and fall, but still, it's a lot of wasted time. I, on the other hand, have a trip of five minutes to school and five home. So, I am the one who has to listen to his complaints about the traffic, the idiot drivers, the rain, the sun, well you get the idea. Plus, he thinks just because I am not on the hour trip to and from work, I should do more, as in the laundry, the dishes, the floors. I say, off with his head, that's what I say, but then, who would screw in the light bulbs?

Mike said...

Ok, but if I get stuck in an infinite time loop, I'm going to be annoyed.

Mike said...

Zelda, you can always use candles.

zelda1 said...

Mike,
Here's the thing about the candles. They just don't give enough light, plus, there's the thing about never having a night candle, see, the night candle is dangerous, so once the candles are out, no lights plus I don't like the smell of burning wax. It's one of those things that likes bothers me. I hate going to someone's house and they burn candles to hide household smells. The smell of the perfume in the candles plus the wax, well it's bothersome. I married Mr. Zelda because one, my children moved away from home and I needed someone who could reach the lights to put new bulbs in and because he had his own power tools. You know, chain saw, drills, all of that. I figured a man who could screw in a light bulb plus had his own power tools, well he would have to be a good mate. For the most part, I was right, but there are those moments when he makes me wonder if power tools and light bulbs are all that.

Mike said...

No, no, you've convinced me. You may stay with Mr. Zelda.

Will said...

How about write an extension that uses the Blogger API through Eclipse /: )

On the sadder note, I kinda felt the same at the end of my job over the summer because the people I really liked expressed disinterest in continuing work there. But, hey, more opportunities will come. (Don't forget the stock options!)

Mike said...

Will, hmmmm, I think you're onto something. There are probably ones, or maybe tens of people who would like to post to their blog from Eclipse. I could make dozens of dollars.