Well, the Australia job has dried up for now. The two principles and I know we will all work together at some point, but their needs right now do not correlate with my skills quite right. It'll happen. Just not this year. The EV company job doesn't exist ... yet. But they are hiring rapidly, growing, just got a big VC capital injection, and my friends there are still interested in finding a role for me. So probably nothing before January, but the ball is still in play there. In the meantime, it is clear my current (new) management has no idea what to do with me, and no plans for me at all. My direct manager has just decided we need to have a "summit", where all 6 people on the team fly to the same location in mid-November to have in-person meetings for 4 days. IN FLORIDA. I asked him WTH they are thinking, having our team congregate in the COVID petri dish of Florida? What's the business case for that location? He said, "It's OK. You don't need to come. If there are meetings you need to be involved with, we can set up a Zoom for those." WTF?!? So my whole team is getting together for 4 days of intensive meetings, and "if" there are any meetings I need to attend, they'll set up a Zoom? And one of the guys on this team has just recovered from COVID. I'm baffled. And done. Sent an email to HR to talk about these issues and how I separate from the company, if that's the right path for me to go. Which means I'll be out of work for the rest of the year, because nobody hires during the holidays. And they especially don't hire generalists (like me) during that window. But I'm going to Sedona, AZ tomorrow to sit at a pool at a resort in 70+ degree weather and look at night skies with zero light pollution and drink mai tais (or whatever the AZ equivalent is) around the pool, and get massages, and get as far away from this work/mental state I can. So that's nice. :-)
I am in Sebastopol, CA in an AirBnB right now. New job had a department off-site. It's a whirlwind trip, flew in Monday, informal meetings Monday evening, semi-formal meetings Tuesday morning, then a party bus tour of two different wineries all afternoon, dinner in the evening, and late nights both nights. I'm the last one to fly out today... kinda wondering if an Uber will actually come all the way out here to get me... fingers crossed. New gig is going so well I have to pinch myself. It's been a while since I've been in the startup world, and this is the first one I've worked that has Silicon Valley money. It's a little weird and I'm adjusting... but I love it. It's a good Wednesday folks. my foggy morning view:
I gave work four weeks notice last Monday. So far it's all going well. My manager said he wasn't surprised which is a little annoying because hey if you know your employee isn't happy shouldn't you do more? But he's listening to my concerns I think out of genuine interest to do better. My team lead, my direct supervisor, continues to be a weak leader. He's done only cursory reassignment of projects. Giving them four weeks may be a double edged sword. Plenty of time to transition, but it's also plenty of time to procrastinate. My manager said he told my team lead "he gave you four weeks, he isn't just abandoning you," which was my intent. I'm glad that's been recognized. A number of people have reached out to chat which has been nice. By the time I leave, it will have been 17.5 years at this one employer. I'd happily have done another 17.5 before making a retirement plan, but I think they're in decline and fear if I don't take some action I'll end up dragged down with. I told one of the people that called to talk "what if I find myself in my 50s behind industry peers with few transferable skills?" I wonder if I'm being too candid and possibly burning bridges, but I think if they don't address the issues I see it won't matter if there are some hurt feelings. I wouldn't go back, anyway. My hope is my departure can stimulate some discussion and action. The people I've talked to have been "yeah I get it."
Midterms all done! Biostatistics was brutal but the others went well. I got a part-time student job with the federal government and the background checks and training are going slowly which, federal government so it's expected, but it's still very annoying. Partially my own fault I waited until after midterms to do most of it, but there's way more than there needs to be. But I might be eligible for a COVID booster because of it so that's sweet. That girl from a few weeks ago came back and said she felt ready to go on a date. We've been on a few now and they've been really fun. Haven't dated since pre-pandemic so it's nice to be doing that again. Also partook in a baking competition in a friend group, October's theme was pumpkin and I made pumpkin mousse and won. November's theme is pies. If anyone has good recipe ideas I'm all ears.
Banana cream pies can be elevated by putting a quarter-inch-thick layer of chocolate ganache between graham cracker crust and banana pudding. It's a seriously easy pie. Graham cracker crust (graham crackers'n'butter), chocolate ganache (dark chocolate chips, heavy cream), greenish banana slices laid down in a pseudo-grid, fill all with banana pudding, instant is fine. You can legit top it with reddi-whip. The recipe almost doesn't matter. Nobody "loves" banana cream pie. Throw a fuckton of ganache in it and suddenly they do. There's a lesson there.
...is the lesson that people like ganache and not pie? Is a pie still a pie once it's primarily ganache? Hm.
If you have access to a food processor, this pie crust recipe from Kenji is really good. I'll never use store bought pie crust ever again. It really elevates any pie filling you put inside.
Today a cousin of mines son died from a fentanyl overdose. So young. So much ahead of him. His mothers only child. Awful stuff.
I went for a working weekend to Szczecin, meeting half-way with folks about a paper. Everything but the commute was great, the worst personal encounter I had there wouldn't register through the Warsaw Douchebag Background Radiation. It was also cool to finally meet everyone in person, first time with some. Easily the biggest colab I've been a part of, too. There's still some stuff to iron out, though we did the heavy lifting on-site. But the commute was murder. 13 hours each way with an unmasked crowd in a bus, two attempts at stealing my luggage (jokes on you, it's mostly maths!), shouting match with some Ukrainian wannabe-toughguy convinced that "sit by the window" means "I take both seats," and because logistics trumps logic, had stop in Wrocław. Not to scale, but it's kinda like going from New York to Atlanta through Chicago. Yeah, yeah, I know, you Americans no doubt have your stories about overnight driving a pickup you found in a lake from Oregon to Maine or some shit, but I for me this was an Odyssey. Might expand more, but I need to go back to my office hours. Take care, everyone!
Yikes. Conflict can be exhausting, hope you were able to recharge at/after the working weekend.Not to scale, but it's kinda like going from New York to Atlanta through Chicago.
I'm mostly recharged now, thanks. My schedule is very flexible, and the lab team was more than understanding, so taking yesterday off wasn't much of a problem. I usualy feel too guilty to take much of an advantage of it, but this time it was necessary. Though I have a past with poorly worded comparisons, hence feel compelled to stress "Not to scale" bit: Poland is only the size of New Mexico. 800 km (500 mi) each way is still a lot, but I only used those cities to sketch geometry.
The session that I add leaves is going to make or break this one. I went to a visitation last night. It was my late father's friend. Sometimes you are a proxy for the dead. She was a good soul. Stepping up to the urinal at the funeral home, I had a moment of deja vu and realized it was the same place my grandfather's viewing was at about 23 years ago. I am having a time with Swift. It just hasn't clicked for me yet.
Lots of changes happening at work. One team member leaving at the end of this week, another transitioning to part-time, and a new person started on Monday of this week. We talk about a lot about de-risking but not a lot about how to do it, how to bring innovation forward in a small way. So that's going to be one of my biggest pushes in a week or so. Maybe my lack of sociability lately/through the pandemic, but thinking maybe approaching a situation which should be tread lightly. Climbed with an acquaintance from social media whom I've talked to at least virtually on climbing/running before, and then went to a group run she's been organizing. 15ish people in shit weather and running trails in the dark was super fun and was surprised to see that many people given conditions. But then got a message almost right after asking about climbing again and with a smilely face. She has a boyfriend + I have a girlfriend but still, gotta keep the right intent and make sure lines don't get blurred.
I had booked this week off as vacation time from work, we didn't really have any plans to go anywhere but I've been feeling cooped up in the house and was looking forward to spending some time out and about in the fresh air doing normal stuff. The one thing I did have planned to do was go see DUNE on the big screen. On Monday we heard that several of my sons classmates had contracted covid, he developed some symptoms and had a positive test on Tuesday, so he had to isolate. I also had a mild sore throat on Tuesday and not wanting to get anyone else sick I also isolated. The end result is that my intended week away from work ended up with me spending ~4 full days and nights living/eating/sleeping in my home office :D I could have cancelled the time off and just worked, which is probably what I should have done, but I was so pissed off I just spent my days fishing in Read Dead Redemption and reading books. Getting test result today, hopefully negative, if it is I think ill go dance naked in the streets or something to make up for lost time.