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Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Last Run

I went on my last run at lunch today; my last run because my last day is tomorrow.

It was cold out but wasn't unbearable in the sun.  And after I started my intervals, I stopped feeling the cold.

Afterwards it felt weird to finish cleaning out my locker in a room that used to be our janitor's closet but was now our company locker room (complete with showers).  The vultures started circling and contacting me several days ago inquiring as to the availability of my locker.  We now have over 100 employees and only 12 lockers.  Locker space wasn't such a problem when there were only 30 of us.

The way to leave a company is definitely to start taking your stuff home with you at least a week in advance.  Tomorrow, I leave with what I came with, and just an external hard drive, a coffee mug, and the water bottle sitting on my desk.  I wish I could take my dual monitors, but I think my new company gives developers dual monitors so my withdrawal won't be for long.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Sponsored!

Yes.

I got the email yesterday evening informing me I was accepted into the 2011 ambassador program for GU (http://guenergy.com, you should go there...seriously...like, just click the link already. Don't be scared, it'll open in a new tab/window).

How the ambassador program differs from a capital S "Sponsorship" is beyond me, but frankly I don't care.  I love their product and love how it helps me train and race.  Also, it doesn't hurt when your triathlon "guidance counselor" is (capital S) Sponsored by them.  And just a note of congratulations to Billy and his wife Lara on the birth of their 1st child, Paige.

My wife was a little nervous because she is not a triathlete and while she understands the training work required, she does not understand how sponsorships work.  That, and the fact that we are expecting our first child (also a girl) in early to mid-February.  I will admit that I don't know how they really work either, but she's worried that I will feel compelled to do things to justify having the sponsorship and train more than I would normally.  After telling her that family comes first (something that, admittedly, took me a while to get a handle on just after we were married 4+ years ago) I tried to get her to stop trying to plan the next five months and focus on the next week or two so as to not overwhelm herself.

I think a lot of the onus is on me to ensure that she doesn't feel like this would have a detrimental effect on our marriage/relationship/family.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Moving On [Up?]

I put my two weeks notice in at work yesterday.  I've been here for almost five years, by far my longest stint (by two years) at any one job.  I'm leaving not because of a Gen Y itch or because I don't feel I'm adequately compensated.  Rather, I'm not really in the same role as I was when I was hired.  Let me elaborate:

When I started, there were ~20 of us and only 5 engineers.  We had two QA resources and the 7 of us reported to the CTO and COO.  We had one person doing support.  I was hired to essentially build a new and comprehensive web application from the ground up.  Being in that role made me the go-to person for support and any issues.  I never really realized how much I fed off the feedback and interactions that were required.

Something changed earlier this year.  I don't know if a bit just flipped in my head or what, but I just started thinking about moving on.  I dragged my feet for months before finally pulling the trigger and started looking.  Ironically, that week, I got two phone calls at work from head hunters.  I NEVER get calls at work.  They didn't really pan out and I stopped looking until another engineer, who was one of the afore mentioned five, left about 5 weeks ago.  At that point, I felt it was ok to start looking.

I wound up finding and applying for two very different positions and getting two very different offers.  One was for a $15K pay raise while the other was for a 10% pay cut.  It turns out, I took the pay cut for the promise of being happy and fulfilled again.  I wasn't wild about the pay cut; especially since my wife is almost 8 months pregnant and is taking 6 months off from work.  But I did manage to negotiate a 6-month review which will hopefully result in getting some of that back.

One of the better things that the new company will offer is that not only does my sister work there as well, but it's located in Boulder, 15 minutes or so from my house and 10 min from the gym.  Hopefully that will bode well for my training.