It's been quite some time since my last post. So I figured I should put something out here so Blogger doesn't think I died or something.
I'm right now siting at a bar in the Denver airport waiting for my flight to start boarding.
But that's the end of my story, let me begin at the beginning.
About 2 months ago now I got a phone call on my cell. Totally out of the blue and unexpected I was being asked if I would be willing to entertain the possibility of leaving my comfortable position at The Bank and move to a small, young company. The company had the benefits of being small, young, growing like a weed and being pushed as the go to partner for security monitoring by an exceptionally large and prosperous company we all love to hate.
The next day nobody could piss me off. There's nothing quite like somebody you respect as really knowing their stuff calling because they want you to work for them. An interview and trip to the office later and I'm pretty well hooked. We worked out the details of an offer I simply couldn't refuse and I put in my notice. They encouraged me to put in an extra week as a courtesy to The Bank which I also agreed was for the best. To top it all off I left that week to head off for a week of vacation. Promising new job, a little more financial freedom and vacation all at once? I must have dome something right in a previous life!
Once I finish off the rest of my time at The Bank, which seemed to pass instantly and drag on forever at the same time, I showed up at my new office. Oh I actually get my own office now? Start poking around and find that they simply haven't had a systems admin and there's a ton to be done from that perspective as well as the job they hired me for. Within the week I felt like I was contributing to the Team (very unusual for me to feel that way in my experience).
The hours have been flying by. This is the busy season so there's been a lot of work to do and not enough hours to do it in. We rush to complete a project that the Aforementioned (not so) "Evil Empire" hired us to do because they looked to us as the experts. Then I fly to Redmond, the seat of the Empire.
The Empire's dominion is everything you could think of it to be. They set me up in the product lab and gave me a run through of the tool they use to build their lab environments. My jaw drops, the clouds part, the sun shines, angels sing and life becomes so much easier. Of course it'll be available internally everywhere in the Empire in a year or so and not to see the light of day outside for a few years. 15 minutes of "work" later my lab is building itself with nothing for me to do but watch and listen to the people around me.
It was amazing, the tool and the conversations both. These people were me. (NOTE: Had to shut down and actually get on the flight. Frontier has a cool feature, along with doing the Jet Blue thing and offering DirectTV in-flight, they have a channel that shows your current position, speed and altitude. I'm presently at 458 MPH at 36472 feet ASL.)
Where was I? Oh yes, listening to the people around me in the lab. They were talking about random stuff related to testing the products the lab was centered around. Their conversations were very technical and enthusiastic. They had fun playing with their toys, reveling in the chance to make life better for Tech Geeks everywhere. I ate lunch and had drinks with various Peon Geeks as well as Product Managers and architects. All of them truly loved the products they were working on. They expressed a desire to understand how their products were used in the real world and what the deficiencies were. It is apparent that the rumors of the Empire taking good care of it's people are true. Refrigerated cases with Sodas and juices were on every floor, every office had been uniquely marked by the inhabitant, there were pool tables and foosball tables that one would occasionally during lunch or near the end of the day see see Geeks playing at while discussing what they were working on.
There was an obvious desire to "tell all" but alas every company must keep it's secrets about what lays ahead. What we did learn was both exciting and encouraging.
The future looks bright for the Corporate IT Geek. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to be involved even at the fringes of the groups who are the movers and shakers of this industry.
Signing off from 520MPH, 40647 Ft ASL somewhere over Colorado, K5WTF
