I sincerely want to thank everyone who’s called asking about me, and everyone who’s expressed their concern about what’s been going on. I realize I haven’t been exactly forthcoming with information about my status heretofore, and most of that was due to some minor gag orders being placed on me by the people involved. I still can’t reveal too many specifics, but the bottom line is that as of Monday afternoon, I am once again unemployed.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about what’s been going on, actually. The situation has been quite unbalanced out of my favor for some time now, and being that I meant to get a head start on this and get my ducks in a row before the eleventh hour, the fact that it took this long to get an answer was a bit disappointing. Still, I understand the decision and more than that, it’s been made abundantly clear to me that this was nothing personal. I hold no ill will whatsoever, and quite frankly I am happy that I’m leaving on such good terms.
Our industry– IT, that is– often has to deal with a significant amount of ethical quandaries. I’m not talking the large-scale, stock-options-as-toilet-paper level moral dilemmas. Rather, on an individual, one-on-one basis, every employee of a company has daily problems that can be dealt with ethically or amorally. It is ultimately up to the individual how to proceed, and whether or not an action could be interpreted as being self-serving or serving everyone’s best interests. Nine times out of ten, what works out in the individual’s favor coincides with the company as a whole. On occasion, it doesn’t, and those are the most important times to be sure that the actions you choose are above reproach.
I tend to place a lot of weight on my words and my promises. If I say something in a business context, it’s reasonable to assume that I mean it. This makes me a dangerous poker player (because nobody can tell when I’m bluffing or not) but it also makes me a reliable employee. Any actions I take to violate this integrity serve not just to erode my reputation with the immediate targets of the breach, but to cast into doubt my entire past. “He lied about this… what else has he lied about?” The fact that I don’t have to do this makes me far more comfortable.
I have opportunities that I can pursue; in the meantime, however, there are a few projects that I’ve been neglecting for far too long. While my search continues (yet again) I will be working on those, and I’ll keep you all posted as much as I can with regards to how things are proceeding. Actually, as it turns out, I have an interview first thing on Wednesday morning, so while I don’t want to rush anything, I may have less time to devote to those projects than I think.
The plus side, really, is that all of this happened after the site fees were due, so TFO.net is going to be around for at least another year, folks. I still intend to keep it up as long as I am able to, and to continue this daily writing experiment. As I’ve threatened before, I may even return to doing a podcast or even (heaven forbid) a video podcast. We just don’t know.
Whatever may come, I thank you all for sticking by me and for your support. May you be at peace.
Still holding, but for the moment I would like to point out that the new “Complete My Album” feature for the iTunes Store is, to quote Borat, “niiiiiiiiiiiice”. Really, it was the only thing holding me back from buying the remainder of “Straight Outta Lynwood”.
I realize the Twitter thing stopped telling me the time; unfortunately I’ve got no way of debugging it, and Twitter itself has been kind of odd lately. Patience.
Oh, and without a doubt I’ll give you all some solid information on what’s going on tomorrow. Promise. Really, this time.
……..you know, this should really come as absolutely no surprise to you all that I would manage to slack off two days in a row. Still, I feel like providing something on a Wednesday, so here:
Yeah, another “nothing of interest happened yesterday” post. Well, maybe not “nothing”– I started a new character in World of Warcraft. Yes, having only made it to 20 as a Hunter I decided I wanted to divide my attention further. So now I have a level 20 Hunter and a level 6 Warrior. Spiffy.
I’ve got a couple interesting tricks up my sleeve in the near future, folks, so stay tuned.
Nothing like a nice spring afternoon after work. Sitting in a very comfortable cheap folding chair in my backyard-type area (more like just outside the patio door) with the laptop, reading and thinking about writing… Podcasts streamed from my main computer… Just…. yeah.
Well, I did it. 24 consecutive hours (actually, 30) with no significant computer usage (debit-card scanners don’t count, right?). Shutdown Day was a great success for me.
For your information, I did NOT start rolling around in and splashing the internets all over myself at midnight. ….I was asleep then; it was, however, the first thing I did upon waking. Oh, sweet, sweet electronic crack….
Actually, it taught me an important lesson about how much of my normal routine is dependent on computers and other advanced electronic gizmos. I lumped video games in with computers because, well, they are computers; still, that didn’t stop me from wanting to fire up WoW or City of Heroes. Even reading, watching DVDs, or listening to the radio– the old-style radio– I kept thinking, “Hey, I ought to go look that up on Wikipoh right, I can’t do that”. It kind of threw my pseudo-ADD into sharp relief.
It was actually a pretty good Zen exercise, too; I never once found myself completely hung up on the idea of wanting to use a computer. The urges came and I let them pass, knowing that harping on them was quite harmful. If anything else, it told me that I could at least do that; so when a seriously bad thing comes along, I should at least be able to try to let that go and not worry too much about it.
Oh, and it did get pretty bad after a while. I won’t lie to you; I did spend a significant amount of time reading the Megatokyo books cover to cover. I’m an addict, true, but I stuck to the promise, so…. yeah. I feel better.
Anyway. Since I didn’t have time to seek out new and exciting Bailout for you folks yesterday (in the one minute that I was online– actually, that went up five minutes before midnight and was post-dated, so I’m surprised it worked), you get nothing but my blithering this fine morning. I will try to have something for you later in the week.
Inconsequential Update: I got my first rejection letter! YAAAAAAAY! ….. Don’t fret, folks. It’ll take maybe a week to sink in, but eventually it will and I’ll get super depressed. For now, let me enjoy my moment of having inflicted mild irritation on an editor.
Friends, I must admit to you all now that I have been neglectful. Over the course of several months I have grossly mishandled a delicate creature left in my care; this specimen was cruelly locked in my closet since my arrival in Pittsburgh. I admit that there were extenuating circumstances, but that should not be seen as any sort of an excuse. The fact that I only learned of my carelessness whilst digging out a tie to wear only exacerbates my shame.
However, fear not. My innate benevolence towards all living things has, at times, served to allow me to make amends when I find that I have wronged another life. The balance of all life, you see, is important to me. Thus, when faced with the limp, dare I say ragged form of that which confronted me, I knew immediately what I must do. I knew that I must give back what I had so cruelly taken.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the fruits of my labor. I had the tools, I had the technology. I could rebuild it, better, stronger, faster. May I now introduce…
…the Cyber-Jigglypuff.
RPGamer reports that XSeed, who published Wild ARMs 4 in the US, has announced a localization of Wild ARMs: The Vth Vanguard for “the third quarter of 2007″. It will, predictably, be retitled simply Wild ARMs 5.
