I took three weeks off from work over the Christmas/New Year break. The company I work for was closed from 21 December until 2 January, but I took both the preceding week and the subsequent three days off. My parents were in town. I kind of had to do it. Everyone at the company was compelled to take three vacation days on 25, 27 and 28 December. We're in cost-cutting mode right now and we've been in that mode for a really long time. A really long time.
Budgets are getting slashed across the board. This quarter my department's budget is down 4% over last quarter, which in turn was reduced about 4% over the quarter before. It's a cycle that's been going on for some time. Each quarter we tell ourselves that the next quarter will be rosier, better but sure as we all need to shit, the next cut comes around. We're left little else to slash now. There are no more training dollars, no more money left for entertainment or travel. The only things left are essential services and heads.
Which leads me to the rumour I heard today: layoffs. You won't have to scrutinise the coffee grounds too deeply to come to that conclusion. When you've cut just about everything else but people and your CEO is calling for a significant ongoing reduction in costs then what else can you cut?
But it's not going to happen on the current CEO's watch. He's too avuncular for that.
Which brings me to my next event at work today: I met the new CEO. He's an affable enough guy. My first meeting with him left me impressed. He talked about the need to boost sales, which is true and I told him we're all looking forward to some new leadership, which is also true.
I reduced my inbox from about 400 unread emails to about 200. Our intranet was given a new lick of paint and it's not particularly good. I ate a salad for lunch.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Monday, January 07, 2008
Sunday, November 18, 2007
I've Seen a Few Before
I've been plugging away at my job in Silicon Valley for nearly ten years. By the time March of 2008 swings around the calendar will have clocked past the decade marker, and that's a long time. It's an especially long time to be working for the one employer. Sad but true, I've been slave to the will of the one corporation ever since I set food on American soil. I recently tried to change that state of affairs.
Right around Halloween, the household of The Brit, La Cubana Gringa and assorted other roommates threw a party. It was a rager, with my personal—and non-existent—costume prize going to the woman who dressed up as a box of Pocky. During the course or the evening I ran into the former Vice President of the department in which I once worked at my current employer. He departed the company under somewhat controversial circumstances, but that's a whole other tale for the telling. Anyway, he clued me into a Director of Engineering position at a startup that, unlike most startups people think of when they hear "startup", is making money hand-over-fist. They've got a staff of 25 and they're raking in annual revenues of around 17 million. What's the nature of their work? I'll answer the question shortly.
I was told by the former VP that they're carrying on like it's still 1999, and the job might well cast a lure strong enough to draw me away from a decade's worth of indentured servitude in Silicon Valley. The new job is in San Francisco, the pay very much on the high side and they're throwing all the usual and ridiculous perks once lavished upon the startups of old: massages, snacks galore, comped lunches, you name it. Colour me intrigued, I said, and then promptly forgot about it.
A couple of days later an email arrived for me. It was from the contract recruiter hired by the startup to stock the company with talent. After a brief exchange of emails we agreed to meet. The odd thing was that we agreed to meet on a Saturday afternoon at Puerto Alegre—a restaurant located near the intersection of 16th and Valencia that's well known for its margaritas. And one last thing, the company is in the porn business.
The porn business? I wasn't quite ready for that, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. After ten years in the semiconductor trade, the thought of jumping ship for the land of boobs and balls seemed quite enticing. Instead of watching eyes glaze over as I tell people who ask that I manage a group of web developers for a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor, I'd suddenly become a source of insider information into the salacious world of shaved pubes and DVDA. Yeah, that sounds great. Now, whenever I go to Australia and hang out with my wine maker brother, I might actually stand a chance of sustaining more than a half second of anyone's attention after we're each asked what we do for a living. A Silicon Valley semiconductor manager doesn't stand a chance against a wine maker. Nobody gives a shit about electronic components, but just about everyone's got a stake in the wine business somewhere, and I'd wager nearly as many—whether they advertise it or not—have dabbled in porn.
So I met the recruiter at Puerto Alegre. He's a regular at the place and holds down the same spot every Saturday afternoon. He was calling the staff by name as he did his best to ensure that my margarita arrived promptly. It did. He then divulged the extra details about the company and not without a lot of spin. Yes, they're in the porn business but they're not a producer. They're more like a straight-up web company that just happens to have wound up a purveyor of smut. And he's got a point. The company, now revealed to be [REDACTED], has cooked up perhaps the most ingenious way of delivering video over the web. The greasy-haired producers in the San Fernando Valley supply their DVDs to VideoBox who encode the discs using a proprietary codec and then deliver the content to their fee-paying customers via a very slick Flash-based interface. The key there is the "fee-paying" part. Cast your mind back to the dim, dark, nascent days of the intertubes; it was the porn industry that first worked out how to extract a buck from the web. The porno peoples have been making money off the web for over ten years, while the major "legit" studios are still thrashing around, spewing forth failed, DRM-laden white elephants that chew through resources and yield nothing but a huge loss.
With the help of about three margaritas I managed to leave an impression. The interview was set up for the following week—the next Friday to be precise.
Clad in my ten year old suit that miraculously still fits me, I presented myself at the offices located near 2nd and Mission in SoMa. True to the words of the recruiter, the place was rockin' like was still 1999; snacks were in ready supply and the Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine languished monolithically in the center of the office, daring anyone to use it.
I met the guy running the show. He was bearded and overweight, but the beard was neatly trimmed, as if to say, I know I'm a fat slob but I still give at least a little bit of a shit about how I appear. The look of smug self-satisfaction hung on his face about as attractively as his fleshy jowls. I didn't really like the guy and I wondered whether or not I could handle working for him. He'd be my boss if I got the job.
But things brightened up as rest of the engineering team made their way into the office to meet with me. They were all smart, tech savvy and genuinely into the technology. The whole porn aspect of what they were doing was simply incidental as far as they were concerned. They were convinced that they were working a cutting-edge web startup. And I agreed. The high point of the interview sessions came when, feeling especially confident, I declared to the developer with whom I was meeting, "I've seen plenty of dicks going into pussies before. It's the technology that really excites me!"
Never again will I utter those words in an interview. It struck me only as I walked away from the building, mentally replaying the moments of the afternoon, that I'd just had a once in a lifetime moment. I suffer from social tourette's at the best of times, letting loose with all manner of inappropriate remarks under the cover of a funky accent. But in this instance the filter came off altogether and it was a strange relief.
Last night the recruiter called me. He said I didn't get the job. He said that while I was a cultural fit, my ten years of working in staid, large, corporate environment had left me ill prepared for the stress of a small startup. I agreed. During the interview it became clear that I would prefer to operate at a more abstracted level while the company wanted someone better able to stick his fingers into the code and make a mess. That's not me.
The recruiter put my name in his Rolodex and promised to call me when the next opportunity swings around.
Right around Halloween, the household of The Brit, La Cubana Gringa and assorted other roommates threw a party. It was a rager, with my personal—and non-existent—costume prize going to the woman who dressed up as a box of Pocky. During the course or the evening I ran into the former Vice President of the department in which I once worked at my current employer. He departed the company under somewhat controversial circumstances, but that's a whole other tale for the telling. Anyway, he clued me into a Director of Engineering position at a startup that, unlike most startups people think of when they hear "startup", is making money hand-over-fist. They've got a staff of 25 and they're raking in annual revenues of around 17 million. What's the nature of their work? I'll answer the question shortly.
I was told by the former VP that they're carrying on like it's still 1999, and the job might well cast a lure strong enough to draw me away from a decade's worth of indentured servitude in Silicon Valley. The new job is in San Francisco, the pay very much on the high side and they're throwing all the usual and ridiculous perks once lavished upon the startups of old: massages, snacks galore, comped lunches, you name it. Colour me intrigued, I said, and then promptly forgot about it.
A couple of days later an email arrived for me. It was from the contract recruiter hired by the startup to stock the company with talent. After a brief exchange of emails we agreed to meet. The odd thing was that we agreed to meet on a Saturday afternoon at Puerto Alegre—a restaurant located near the intersection of 16th and Valencia that's well known for its margaritas. And one last thing, the company is in the porn business.
The porn business? I wasn't quite ready for that, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. After ten years in the semiconductor trade, the thought of jumping ship for the land of boobs and balls seemed quite enticing. Instead of watching eyes glaze over as I tell people who ask that I manage a group of web developers for a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor, I'd suddenly become a source of insider information into the salacious world of shaved pubes and DVDA. Yeah, that sounds great. Now, whenever I go to Australia and hang out with my wine maker brother, I might actually stand a chance of sustaining more than a half second of anyone's attention after we're each asked what we do for a living. A Silicon Valley semiconductor manager doesn't stand a chance against a wine maker. Nobody gives a shit about electronic components, but just about everyone's got a stake in the wine business somewhere, and I'd wager nearly as many—whether they advertise it or not—have dabbled in porn.
So I met the recruiter at Puerto Alegre. He's a regular at the place and holds down the same spot every Saturday afternoon. He was calling the staff by name as he did his best to ensure that my margarita arrived promptly. It did. He then divulged the extra details about the company and not without a lot of spin. Yes, they're in the porn business but they're not a producer. They're more like a straight-up web company that just happens to have wound up a purveyor of smut. And he's got a point. The company, now revealed to be [REDACTED], has cooked up perhaps the most ingenious way of delivering video over the web. The greasy-haired producers in the San Fernando Valley supply their DVDs to VideoBox who encode the discs using a proprietary codec and then deliver the content to their fee-paying customers via a very slick Flash-based interface. The key there is the "fee-paying" part. Cast your mind back to the dim, dark, nascent days of the intertubes; it was the porn industry that first worked out how to extract a buck from the web. The porno peoples have been making money off the web for over ten years, while the major "legit" studios are still thrashing around, spewing forth failed, DRM-laden white elephants that chew through resources and yield nothing but a huge loss.
With the help of about three margaritas I managed to leave an impression. The interview was set up for the following week—the next Friday to be precise.
Clad in my ten year old suit that miraculously still fits me, I presented myself at the offices located near 2nd and Mission in SoMa. True to the words of the recruiter, the place was rockin' like was still 1999; snacks were in ready supply and the Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine languished monolithically in the center of the office, daring anyone to use it.
I met the guy running the show. He was bearded and overweight, but the beard was neatly trimmed, as if to say, I know I'm a fat slob but I still give at least a little bit of a shit about how I appear. The look of smug self-satisfaction hung on his face about as attractively as his fleshy jowls. I didn't really like the guy and I wondered whether or not I could handle working for him. He'd be my boss if I got the job.
But things brightened up as rest of the engineering team made their way into the office to meet with me. They were all smart, tech savvy and genuinely into the technology. The whole porn aspect of what they were doing was simply incidental as far as they were concerned. They were convinced that they were working a cutting-edge web startup. And I agreed. The high point of the interview sessions came when, feeling especially confident, I declared to the developer with whom I was meeting, "I've seen plenty of dicks going into pussies before. It's the technology that really excites me!"
Never again will I utter those words in an interview. It struck me only as I walked away from the building, mentally replaying the moments of the afternoon, that I'd just had a once in a lifetime moment. I suffer from social tourette's at the best of times, letting loose with all manner of inappropriate remarks under the cover of a funky accent. But in this instance the filter came off altogether and it was a strange relief.
Last night the recruiter called me. He said I didn't get the job. He said that while I was a cultural fit, my ten years of working in staid, large, corporate environment had left me ill prepared for the stress of a small startup. I agreed. During the interview it became clear that I would prefer to operate at a more abstracted level while the company wanted someone better able to stick his fingers into the code and make a mess. That's not me.
The recruiter put my name in his Rolodex and promised to call me when the next opportunity swings around.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Break On Through To the Other Side
Here's an equation that doesn't balance in my favor: cheap, flimsy interior doors—it's high quality merchandise; cardboard is used to provide support between the layers—and a couple of cats whose plaintful bleatings are enough to penetrate even the hardiest earplugs. Trust me, every brand of earplug has been tried and none of them have proven themselves able to attenuate General Zod's early morning laments at his apparent lack of food. Besides, the doors themselves are the kind that Home Depot flogs for the lowest possible price, so along with providing negligible sound insulation they're also as ugly as a boil on an old man's butt.
The Great Organiser, intrepid as she is, stumbled across a salvage yard in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago. It's filled with just about anything that can be wrenched free of a house that some over zealous contractor decided needed to be eviscerated of its original charm, just like the place I live in. Pluck it free of its fixture, mark it an antique, slap on a hefty markup and then set it out to display in the salvage yard. A sucker will be along any minute to eyeball it, decided they're equipped to strip and refinish it in completely unrealistic time frame, and fork over the exorbitant price. On Saturday that sucker was me, with a little help from the Great Organiser.
Exactly why it would take us upwards of four hours to select four doors escapes me at the moment, and I've had two full days to ponder it. With measurements in hand it really ought to be a straightforward task to size up a few likely candidates, confirm the dimensions and plonk down for the purchase. Where in that simple set of procedures is there latitude to blow four hours? It's got me miffed. Perhaps the early switch from Victorian doors to five panel God-knows-what-they're-called doors precipitated our downfall. It was like something ripped from a Kafka novel; staring at long hallways lined with racks of old doors shedding their century-old lead-infused paint—tasty stuff. It drove me slowly nuts. But ultimately we prevailed and with four doors strapped to the top of the car we made our way back across the Bay Bridge, the securing straps humming in the breeze as if to confirm our relief at being done with the ordeal.
But that's not the truth, is it? The ordeal isn't nearly done. Getting the doors was just the first challenge in what is starting to become an Odyssean adventure. There's four of those things sitting outside right now, waiting to have their twelve layers of paint removed. And that's the real trick; they're sporting enough layers of paint—latex, acrylic and sumptuous lead—to warrant an archaeological dig in order to find the wood hidden beneath. The Great Organiser, being ecologically minded, ditched the proven yet highly toxic Jasco as the preferred paint stripper in favor of a citrus-based gel. In the past few years it seems as if citrus cleaners have become the panacea for all our ills. No doubt there's someone online who's flogging a citrus based ointment that is assured to make my hair regrow. I should check it out. Now when it comes to removing decades' worth of paint the orange peel extract just doesn't cut it, and heavens, we tried. It'll take off about a layer or so of anything latex based but beyond that it's slow going at best. Surveying the gradual progress I informed the Great Organiser that I was returning to the hardware store to pick up a heat gun. Seventy five bucks later I was back and wouldn't you know it, those things actually do the job; bugger the detail work, that's a job for our old friend Jasco. I've since bought a liter or so of that stuff too.
Stacked like dominos ready to totter over, the four doors are now leaning against each other in the back yard, begging for the hours upon hours of further attention they're going to need if ever they're to migrate their way into the house. Towards the end of Friday afternoon I wrote a brief email to a colleague at work wishing him a good weekend whilst mentioning that I was looking forward to some relaxing. Yesterday, whilst blasting away with a heat gun in one hand and a spatula all gummed up with melting paint in the other it occurred to me just how blatantly false that statement had turned out to be. What I'd hoped would be a chance to recharge the batteries over the course of three days turned into the beginning of a home improvement project that threatening to consume whatever free time I care to think I might have. I guess I've only got myself to blame.
The Great Organiser, intrepid as she is, stumbled across a salvage yard in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago. It's filled with just about anything that can be wrenched free of a house that some over zealous contractor decided needed to be eviscerated of its original charm, just like the place I live in. Pluck it free of its fixture, mark it an antique, slap on a hefty markup and then set it out to display in the salvage yard. A sucker will be along any minute to eyeball it, decided they're equipped to strip and refinish it in completely unrealistic time frame, and fork over the exorbitant price. On Saturday that sucker was me, with a little help from the Great Organiser.
Exactly why it would take us upwards of four hours to select four doors escapes me at the moment, and I've had two full days to ponder it. With measurements in hand it really ought to be a straightforward task to size up a few likely candidates, confirm the dimensions and plonk down for the purchase. Where in that simple set of procedures is there latitude to blow four hours? It's got me miffed. Perhaps the early switch from Victorian doors to five panel God-knows-what-they're-called doors precipitated our downfall. It was like something ripped from a Kafka novel; staring at long hallways lined with racks of old doors shedding their century-old lead-infused paint—tasty stuff. It drove me slowly nuts. But ultimately we prevailed and with four doors strapped to the top of the car we made our way back across the Bay Bridge, the securing straps humming in the breeze as if to confirm our relief at being done with the ordeal.
But that's not the truth, is it? The ordeal isn't nearly done. Getting the doors was just the first challenge in what is starting to become an Odyssean adventure. There's four of those things sitting outside right now, waiting to have their twelve layers of paint removed. And that's the real trick; they're sporting enough layers of paint—latex, acrylic and sumptuous lead—to warrant an archaeological dig in order to find the wood hidden beneath. The Great Organiser, being ecologically minded, ditched the proven yet highly toxic Jasco as the preferred paint stripper in favor of a citrus-based gel. In the past few years it seems as if citrus cleaners have become the panacea for all our ills. No doubt there's someone online who's flogging a citrus based ointment that is assured to make my hair regrow. I should check it out. Now when it comes to removing decades' worth of paint the orange peel extract just doesn't cut it, and heavens, we tried. It'll take off about a layer or so of anything latex based but beyond that it's slow going at best. Surveying the gradual progress I informed the Great Organiser that I was returning to the hardware store to pick up a heat gun. Seventy five bucks later I was back and wouldn't you know it, those things actually do the job; bugger the detail work, that's a job for our old friend Jasco. I've since bought a liter or so of that stuff too.
Stacked like dominos ready to totter over, the four doors are now leaning against each other in the back yard, begging for the hours upon hours of further attention they're going to need if ever they're to migrate their way into the house. Towards the end of Friday afternoon I wrote a brief email to a colleague at work wishing him a good weekend whilst mentioning that I was looking forward to some relaxing. Yesterday, whilst blasting away with a heat gun in one hand and a spatula all gummed up with melting paint in the other it occurred to me just how blatantly false that statement had turned out to be. What I'd hoped would be a chance to recharge the batteries over the course of three days turned into the beginning of a home improvement project that threatening to consume whatever free time I care to think I might have. I guess I've only got myself to blame.
Monday, April 16, 2007
The Sleep Debt Payoff Cycle
There's a thing in my life known as the sleep debt payoff cycle. The way it works is during the week I run myself into a sleep-deprived state courtesy of a schedule that has me arising at 6am to leave for work. If we lived in an ideal world I'd get to bet at no later than 10pm each night, affording myself a comfortable and doctor-prescribed eight hours of rest. In reality that never happens. Invariably there's something else I find myself doing that keeps the clock ticking way past the witching hour, whether it be updating my iPod or ensuring Julia gets a bit of my attention (she deserves it). So come the weekend I want my rest and a I want a lot of it. Sunday morning swings around and bed seems like the best place in the world. I'll let myself drift in and out of sleep for hours on end, allowing myself to be just plain lazy. It's great and I know it's going to come back and bite me the arse eventually. That "eventually" is Sunday night. I couldn't get to sleep—not for hours. I spent most of the night barely dipping deeper than a light slumber, awakened by any slight movement of the cats who routinely park themselves at the end of the bed. The alarm goes off at 6 but I'm already awake. The new week has begun and the cycle starts anew. It's a cruel joke.
The hours I keep are largely a function of my job and for that I can really only blame myself. Nobody forces me to get up at 6am and nobody forces me to drive 50+ miles to work each day. There's a huge element of personal responsibility immersed in this problem and it's incumbent upon me to fix it. I'll just stop going to work.
The hours I keep are largely a function of my job and for that I can really only blame myself. Nobody forces me to get up at 6am and nobody forces me to drive 50+ miles to work each day. There's a huge element of personal responsibility immersed in this problem and it's incumbent upon me to fix it. I'll just stop going to work.
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