New job

Started a new job yesterday. I am back in the position of learning from scratch.

This new company has a strong emphasis on the organizational culture:

• How to write the code
• How to get a task
• How to work on it
• How to report it
• How to email
• How to communicate

And more…

I can tell from the tools and the code base that the company has roots deep into the C/C++ Eco system, despite the work itself being in JavaScript. This means different tools and mindset then in most other JavaScript places I encountered.

Something I’ll have to get used too.

Commute time

But the mind boggling thing to me is the commute time.

2.5 hours for each direction. 5 hours a day. Half a day goes for every workday.

Yes I know it before I took the job, but knowing is not the same as feeling. Yesterday was the first day in a long while where I haven’t seen any of my kids awake at all. I left before they woke up, and came back after they already fall asleep. Why this morning I left only after I saw them leaving for their day.

Transportation

I rolled out a car since for it will be Russian Roulette with almost fully loaded gun.

I know I will fall asleep on the wheel. The only questions are when it will happen, and how badly I’ll be hurt.

This leaves public transportation, that is less then friendly.

Current rout

• Home to bus station - same as with my previous work, mostly by car when my wife drop off the kids.

• Bus to the train station - same as with the previous work. Sadly the bus usually arrive just as the train leaves so I have to wait for the next one.

• Train to a more central station,where I’ll wait for the train that will get me to work

• Train to train station closest to work

• bus or shuttle to work

And the ride home is the same in reverse.

I just realized I forgot to measure the times for each segment. I’ll do it in the next few days and report it.

Mitigations

There are mitigating factors.

I can start the work on the train. Most days there is enough space to work. I have the laptop with everything I need on it. I just need to organize it, something I plan to do this week.

This should give about 90 min of offline work in each direction.

Future

I plan to improve the first and last parts by moving back to the bike.

A new train station is planned closer to my work that will eliminate one step from this route.

The real mitigator is, working from home. I do not plan on working totally from home, history thought me thus is problematic for me, but a few days a week will be great.

Rewrite

I am rewriting this post, more annoyed then I was when I first wrote it, since I lost it over network issue along the way. Mobile is not a good enough tool, yet.

I been saying goodbye for a while now. I am referring to goodbye from my work place.

It started when I started to look around for other options. I know there are other options out there, in theory, but to actually see the opportunities created a mind shift.

Why settle for what I have now when I can have more?

Then began a slow process of letting go. Letting go of responsibilities to others that were more eager to take it. Letting go of fights, that I know I was right in them, but were not worth the fight. Letting go about caring for the code under my fingers, since I already know my time there was limited.

This process of letting go fueled by every, less than perfect, incident that working has, only my mind was already spotting the bad over the good. So every argument, every email helped fuel my good bye.

Then came the offers. Over time the offers became better, mostly due to filtering bad offers earlier. The better the offer the more tempting it is and it is harder to say no to them.

And when the right offer came along, it took only one more incident to seal the deal.

Thus started the visible goodbye.

Formal notification, tasks to complete, knowledge to pass on. The informal notification to people I have been working with, taking personal stuff home, returning company stuff back etc… The closure meetings with the managers. A goodbye celebration, with speech that I had no idea what to say in. The formal goodbye checklist, with all its stops.

And still to the last hour, I am a part of the team. I check my mail and think what to respond for the company, for the team. I find how I can pass one more bit of info I neglected to mention earlier.

The one action that made the symbolic cut was: removing the company account from my phone. No more work emails, chat conversations. No more direct links.

And yet I felt the need to write this post.

Goodbye and thank you

Especially for the team. You have been important to me, and I know you will grow.

I am looking forward to meet you all in the future.

For any one who does not know, I am about to switch job.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

I have been at the current place for two years. Trying to do my work as best I could. Made progress both at work and personal.

The big question I have been asked is “Why?”

And the truth is, I have yet to give a full answer to that, even to myself.

I am leaving a job where:

• I am told by everyone that I am appreciated - Flattering for sure.
• I enjoy the people I work with - No soul mates, but I can talk to and enjoy it.
• The office environment is great - with toys directed to my taste.
• The commute distance is fairly small - 30min in each direction usually, and it can get up to 90min on rare occasions.
• The company product makes business sense to me, and I think the company will succeed even more than it does now. It does have sides I do not like, and they grow over time.
• The development process in the company and the team is in a constant improvement process.

And I switch to a new job where:

• I will have to prove myself all over again.
• I will work with new people, those I met makes great first impression, but I bet there will be people I will like less then others.
• The office environment looks comparable, and there is the prospect of doing the work from home over time (this also has downside since history show me I perform better at the office rather than at home)
• The commute time is about to be tripped, and I just heard over the radio it will get harder due to construction work in the railway.
• The product has its issues, but is more to my liking, but I do not know first hand how it is being developed, yet.
• The development process I have been presented with looks great, and more structured, but I will have to learn it.

So why do it?

The HR person I talked to points the finger at how HR companies behave.

As soon as they get a negative answer that is less strong than “get lost!” they start to smell the blood in the water and circle the candidate with offers until one of them sticks.

The description fits the behavior I saw, but does not fit my situation. I did started this cycle of offers, but I terminated it before I got the offer I eventually went for, and that one did not came through an HR company.

When I talked to my current boss (and to others) I talked about the things I did not like at work: management decisions I did not like, development decisions I disagree with, product directions not to my taste. All those are excuses and not reasons. They are all true, but none of them was enough to cause me to leave my work earlier and they were true a month ago just the same.

So why? Was there a good reason?

I am not sure. I know it was boiling in me for a while, and took time to happen. All those small things did nag me at the back of my head, but recently it got to the point that the decision to leave was already done, the question was when and where to. When the proper offer came along, it only took one more incident of discomfort to push make it the answer to both questions.

Timing is everything 😉