{"id":2567,"date":"2018-01-24T12:02:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T20:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2018-01-24T12:02:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T20:02:57","slug":"flashback-part-90-of-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2567","title":{"rendered":"flashback, part 90 of n"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn\u2019t say much about the project as it was happening, partly because I generally avoided talking about work business on here and partly because there just wasn\u2019t time. \u00a0But it was just exactly this time last year that everything really went sideways and pear-shaped, and my conflicting urges \u2013 to be a stupendous badass and to be left alone \u2013 really got me deep in the shit. \u00a0I avoided punching this particular tar baby for as long as I could, but I wound up stuck worse than Br\u2019er Rabbit ever did, and there wasn\u2019t any briar patch to beg my way into instead.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a combination of every single work trauma I\u2019d ever had to that point: excessive-to-the-point-of-actual-pain physical labor, arbitrary deadlines, an ill-defined project with incompetent leadership, tons of extra bodies of the \u201cnow does anyone hear speak Windows, with some difficulty?\u201d variety (including, famously, one contractor who just wandered off after I explained the process and decided he would do something else). Not to mention ridiculous hours, horrifyingly bad nutrition, and severe inattention to personal maintenance (i.e. a hipster neck beard of the sort I\u2019d normally shoot myself in the face rather than wear). \u00a0Normal duties, which of course I was still on the hook for, fell further and further behind. My shoulder, which two rounds of steroid injections had mostly sorted, was soon hurting worse than ever…<\/em><\/p>\n

– Feb 12, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was five years ago that I got dragooned into assisting with what is now recalled to memory as \u201cthe encryption project.\u201d I don\u2019t think I grasped at the time how much of a pivot point that would be in my life. It was like I\u2019d coasted on one year of borrowed time after turning 40, but then everything went to shit at once. The exodus from the Bay Area of all my local friends kicked into high gear, my physical health hit the wall, and that was about the time I first started to notice that Caltrain was becoming an untenable way to get to work. (Not least because I found myself going between the third and second busiest stations in the system and then having to take a 20-minute shuttle bus ride each way to boot.) My recurring shoulder pain, my disillusion with Shallow Alto specifically and the Bay Area in general, the rise of the bicycle menace, the rapid-onset depression about my career path and future opportunities – it all started spinning out of control in late January, 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I honestly didn\u2019t use to be this way. As late as 2012, when there was still a coffee cart at the Caltrain station in the mornings and I basically never saw anyone riding right down the VTA platform past the \u201cNo cycling, skateboarding or rollerblading\u201d signs, I was blogging about how much I enjoyed being up in the city and filling my \u201cwhat have I enjoyed in my life in this year\u201d list with notes about drinks on Polk and chasing fog through the Avenues and checking out one craft cocktail place after another and spending weekends in a borrowed apartment on King Street near the ballpark. By 2014, I didn\u2019t really have anything I enjoyed in the city anymore. This Valley turned hot and it turned nasty and it turned ever more dickish, and it was pretty obvious that I was on the wrong side of what counted. And I\u2019m white, and male, and reasonably well off. If turning 40 is all it takes to put you on the outside of Silly Con Valley looking in, how much worse is it if you\u2019re female, or the wrong ethnicity, or not even tangentially inside the tech bubble?<\/p>\n

In a way, it worked out for the best. Three years of abject misery eventually turned into a make-good with more money for less work while retaining the same sort of \u201cdare you to fire me\u201d job security. I\u2019ll never get rich, I\u2019ll never get options or stock, but there\u2019ll be plenty of vacation and I can do a hell of a job with 66% effort. And as I age into the back half of my career – knowing full well that retirement isn\u2019t really on the cards anytime soon, if ever – I\u2019m taking the off days now, taking the vacations now, making that conscious effort to build my life on something other than work because I know the rifles of the EUS aren\u2019t walking through that door and finding another place isn\u2019t going to be the miracle cure. I don\u2019t know how many fresh starts I have in me at this point, and I don\u2019t know how many I\u2019m up for undertaking – I\u2019ve had a couple fresh starts too many for building continuity and the kind of community and base I wish I\u2019d developed by now.<\/p>\n

Instead of hitting the reset, make the best of what\u2019s in front of you, or else be prepared to deal with the enormity of pulling up sticks to move to Ireland. I guess that\u2019s the lesson at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn\u2019t say much about the project as it was happening, partly because I generally avoided talking about work business on here and partly because there just wasn\u2019t time. \u00a0But it was just exactly this time last year that everything really went sideways and pear-shaped, and my conflicting urges \u2013 to be a stupendous badass … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “flashback, part 90 of n”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}