So, much of my time since the great cross-country move has been devoted to trying to secure a new job. I had intended to do this before moving, however, my old job decided to throw me a curveball and curtailed my seemingly courteous 2-month-plus notice into about 3 weeks. I understand why, and don't begrudge them, but it sure shot my planning all to hell. So, schedules got moved up. The move happened before the job, which meant that even after all the chaos of moving, I still had the hell of searching for a job lying in front of me.
I had an interview on the 15th with what would be a dream job for me - excellent company, good product philosophy, and a position I described in said interview as "like going shopping for cakes, and finding one made entirely of icing."
It really is. It's UI design - what I liked most about my previous jobs, but was usually a side or afterthought, or just developed with such a deadline that I always felt it didn't get what it truly deserved. Thus, icing on a cake. This was a job that was all icing. Trust me, it makes sense.
I had to create a 45 minute presentation for this interview, which is not something I have ever had to do, and it took what seemed like the bulk of 4 days to prepare.
The preparation was worth it - if for no other reason than I now have some miscellaneous portfolio stuff resurrected and up for show.
Since the interview, I've had a lot of people wish me well, a lot of people who know companies like it or the area tell me I'm totally in. People who are simply friends back home cheering me on, with the usual "they'd be crazy not to hire you" kind of upbeat but ultimately air-filled puffery that I know I don't react well to when I'm genuinely on the line on something.
I have had a rather caustic reaction to any such confidence or even speculation that assumes too much for my taste. This is because of who I am and my life's history of having the things that I'm really invested in not pan out. I found I was not alone in this feeling when years ago I saw the following on television, in a wonderful episode of The West Wing:
TOBY
Put it down. Everyone in this room let me have your attention, please. The law of our land mandates that Presidential appointees be confirmed by a majority of the Senate. A majority being half plus one for a total of what, Ginger?GINGER
51.TOBY
51 yea votes is what we see on the screen before a drop of wine is swallowed! Because there's a little thing called what, Bonnie?BONNIE
Tempting fate?TOBY
"Tempting fate" is what it's called.
(Starts collecting champagne glasses from people)
In the three months this man has been on my radar screen, I have aged 48 years. This is my day of jubilee and I will not have it screwed up by what, Bonnie?BONNIE
By tempting fate.
This is exactly the reaction I would have given the people who were so sure I was "in" before having seen that episode. Having seen it, I didn't even have to exert any effort - I could wholesale borrow the caustic pessimism so aptly exuded by Richard Schiff. I could rail on people prematurely celebrating on my behalf - not out of actual superstition, but knowing that the memory of the celebration would be all the more bitter to me if the job didn't pan out.
Fate, it seems, was not so sorely tempted.
This Monday afternoon I found out I got the job, and after aging approximately 24 years in the 2 months I have been unemployed, it was finally my day of jubilee.
I don't start until mid November, which means I can finally have the vacation everyone has assumed I have been on - when in reality I have been stressing myself out, biting my nails and aging approximately a season a week for a while now.
For anyone who may be reading this who has gotten the crabby side of me that was collecting champagne glasses, you may now drink up. That's what I've been doing, and why it's taken me 2 days to make a post about it.
[toby, how 'bout now?]
So, the last post may not seem all that informative - it was designed to simply be a test of the database, to make sure everything was functioning properly once again.
I'm going to leave it up, because even if it's for stupid technical reasons, I resolved a long time ago to never take down posts and delete history, and this would open up a precedent.
Aaaanyway.
So about a week ago the box on which patrickcentral.com lives was rebuilt by my hosting company, in a process that did not go too well. You can read about it at this link, but it requires you to create an account on the forums, which I doubt anyone reading this will do.
Long story short, they broke the hell out of Perl in the process of rebuilding stuff, and a lot of my homemade perl image compositing scripts got broken. This was fixed quickly, which was good, because I was directing a potential employer to one to see how awesome I was at creating perl image compositing scripts.
What was also broken, unbeknownst to me, but now knownst to me and as such becoming knownst to you, was my blog software, which is driven by mostly perl scripts.
What followed this becoming knownst to me was a harrowing series of ultimately fruitless support tickets, and ended with me upgrading the software and then manually hacking about 10 separate files - all of which will be broken again the next time Six Apart decides to push out some new version, but I'm back.
And there's a new comic to prove it.
This experience has gotten me once again dangerously close to jumping ship to Wordpress, because I have just never had to put up with this crap on the several Wordpress installs I've set up. Maybe its a PHP vs Perl thing, I dunno - I always liked Perl, but this shit is getting out of hand. Perl simply cannot be this fragile in a production environment, even on my shitty little corner of the internet.
Also, I absolutely hate Movable Type 4's new interface, which was one of the few ways I still considered it superior to Wordpress.
Then again, Lazy Patrick wants to chime in here and point out how much work would be involved in converting this blog, the comic, and their respective layouts and feeds and whatnot into a Wordpress system.
In fact, in my mind, he does so, and then brandishes a gun. I balk momentarily, and then he hides it and shows me a bag of Doritos and an ice cold Pepsi.
I cautiously reach for the Doritos.
He smiles, and puts the gun away again. At least for a while.
[shhon of a bhhhhiiitch]
jesus christ what an ordeal
*update* comments are broken, but that is the least of my worries.
*update* comments are no longer broken, but remain butt-ugly. On the bright side, they've been re-captcha'd, which is a cool idea.