five years
Posted on Thu, January 28 2010 at 5:46 pm
we had an all-hands quarterly/end-of-the-year meeting at my company this morning. it was pretty much the standard stuff: financial review, business review, and looking-ahead strategy stuff. at the end of it, they recognized the people who had worked here for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years. my name was up there for the 5-year tenured people. yup, my 5th year anniversary came in july of 2009. so we got our pictures taken, and we’re supposed to receive a gift of some sort, like a plaque or something.
technically, i’ve given 8 years to this company in some shape or form, if you count my 3 years at T, which this company acquired. but i left T to go pursue my riches at two networking startups (which i didn’t find, btw), so i guess they reset my clock.
man, these past five years have gone by pretty quickly. i first joined this company to work with my old boss and my old coworkers, but since then, all of the coworkers have since left, leaving on my boss. i like him a lot, but he definitely takes some getting used to if you’ve never met him. he’s good to me, that’s for sure, and i like working for him. it’s funny how all the managers from T are still here, but all the engineers have left. am i missing something here?
basketball was very tiring. for the first time since i can remember, i stayed until the very end. i was TIRED. we played three 3-on-3 games, to 11, 11 and 7 points. i made the call on the last game to 7, because i would have had a heart attack if we played to 11. in the end, i was just so exhausted that i stopped playing defense. i made quite a few jumpers, and i even made one good fake/dribble drive for a layup. but i really need to keep doing this (i.e. staying until the end) to build up my stamina.
last night, at around 2am new york time, my friend amyM called me. she had a little bout of insomnia, so we chatted for like 20+ minutes. we talked about our dating lives, and we shared our stories and stuff. i love amyM. we go WAY back, to our junior high/high school days back in dallas. our moms were elementary school classmates, i think. she’s quite a cool, unique individual, and i am very glad that i have her as a friend. i just wish i could see her more often, as the last time i saw her was in 2003 during my east coast tour. i might fly out to NYC in april to see her among other new yorker friends.
one of my favorite memories of amyM was teaching her how to drive. when she turned 15 or 16, her parents wouldn’t buy her a car or let her take driving lessons, so i took her to the UTD (university of texas at dallas) parking lot, and i plopped her in front of the wheel in my car. and for the next half hour or so, we puttered around the parking lot. i taught her how to drive, brake, reverse, and maybe even park. it was definitely a bonding moment for us. i will never forget that.
WHERE ARE MY TAX FORMS??!
it’s hard handling a mortgage as a single person. i swear, i don’t think i’m cash flow positive. we’ll see how much i get back after i do my taxes, but i really don’t think i’m breaking even after my mortgage, HOA dues, property taxes, etc. i really need that DINK (double income no kids) action.
here at work, i am the lunch instigator. when i’m not around (i.e. playing basketball or having lunch with other people besides my coworkers), my coworkers don’t know what to do for lunch; they all eat at the cafeteria downstairs. i keep telling R to round up the gang when i’m not around, but he never does it. what, am i glue at the office that holds everyone together for lunch?
stress is a weird thing. it makes even the most steely people turn into mush. i bring back the story of when i tried to reel off the top 20 of SYTYCD at kyden’s red egg and ginger party. i mean, when i’m in the shower by myself, i can rattle off those 20 names like it’s nothing. but when charlin was staring me down, i started stammering, and my mind went blank. yeah, stress. pressure. it makes even the best of us fools.
i’ve never reacted well to stress. i remember back in 1998 or 1999, when i was working at T, and i hadn’t taken vacation since i started my job. i had a serious nervous breakdown. and it came at the worst time, when my parents were visiting. my mom saw me right outside my company and started bawling in the parking lot. the thing is, my brain is more sensitive to stress than most people, i think. it’s just the way i’m wired, i guess. call me fragile.
i’ve had nervous breakdowns after that one, and after a long break from them, my latest one was last year, when i was coding that LTI block (the one that was over 21,000 lines long), and i broke it one day. that was horrible. it was the same night as the SYTYCD season 5 finale, and i remember watching it and not feeling a single thing. i was just numb. and the whole night in bed, i was in a living nightmare hell throughout. i wound up taking the next day off and the subsequent weekend to recuperate.
it’s a good thing i’m not a doctor. i was pre-med in college, but there’s no way i could have ever handled residency. 72-hour shifts in the ER? no fucking way would i have ever been able to get through that. i think engineering suits me just fine (despite its occasional pressure-packed moments) because i can take frequent breaks and even ask for time off if i absolutely need to.
ask you might be able to tell, my work isn’t too stressful right now. i’m writing this, and it’s not even 6pm yet. i’m going to go home soon, and i’m going to make an important phone call tonight.
