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Doing the right thing?
11 years ago
Part of me is not sure what to think most days. I understand the world isn't black and white, but when I make a mistake I tend to take it out on myself more than I should. Or else I make a mistake and think "Well, I screwed up and its all my fault." The dragon keeps telling me to give myself more credit, but I don't know how to do that sometimes. I'll give an example of why I feel the way I do.
Two weeks ago, the dragon started waking up at 5 AM to leave by 5:30 for work at 6. Unfortunately, this had the side-effect of waking me up at the same time. No matter what time I got to sleep it dislodged me from my sleep cycle. By Friday I was feeling like a zombie since I could not get up and get to bed at my normal times. Obviously, that week my performance at work wasn't optimal. Last week I had sent some of my code for review to the lead developer on my team. It was code that was written during the “tired week” as I term it now. To put it in plain English, I had accidentally copied a line of code that caused a query to work, but it was a copy of the previous line. I didn't know that until the lead developer pointed it out and reamed me for “wasting his time”. Excuse me? First of all, I sent this code to you for review. Second, I happened to have a bad week of sleep deprivation and while I said nothing to anyone about it, I'm not wasting your time with something I did accidentally.
And here is where I started to beat myself up. I felt it was my fault for not getting my sleep schedule on a better track before that week was over. Then the dragon said to me later that day that mistakes happen and I should give myself more credit. Let me explain something before I go on here. Writing code can get to be a lot like writing a paper or a book. You look over the work so many times that you grow too close to your own work and you fail to see mistakes unless they cause some disruption in the application you are writing. That happened to me that day. There is also another point which I must make. This isn't the first time something like this has happened where the lead developer has said I have been “wasting his time”. It has happened many times before this and then he always comes over five minutes later and apologizes and says he was just trying to shape me to be a better coder. Sounds more like an abusive, drunken husband sobering up and trying to console a crying, helpless wife. If it was a one-time thing with a one-time apology I would consider it water under the bridge and I'd try to improve myself. Instead I just started to think of all the reasons I was dumb and didn't check for that error. I strived to be the best student I could be while getting my computer science degree. I held positions of leadership in the computer science club at my college. All of this confidence in my head deflated by some developer who can't control his emotions and thinks that a simple verbal band puts everything back to normal.
My company somehow stays afloat despite being in the red since the housing market crash in 2004. They still did not see a profit this year and to tell the truth they are at least $300,000 in the hole. Everyone is under lots of stress to try and pinch pennies where they can because they don't want to see the company fail. So I am in the wrong? I keep wondering if I should get another job at another company. Are all IT jobs like this with irrational, opinionated people at the helm or is there actually credence to my thoughts about getting myself to a more positive workplace? I choose not to be anyone's friend at work because I don't feel mentally that I belong there. These are all 40-50 year olds who's idea of fun is cleaning the house with their heterosexual spouse and taking the kids to baseball practice. I am gay and have no kids. I have different interests than them. It was hard enough managing my stress level with being constaff for a convention. I couldn't tell anyone at work about it. Yet everyone could tell I was preoccupied. I wouldn't have told them what kind of con it was, but explaining something as simple as a convention goes over their heads when all their money is tied down in kids and houses.
So, I will continue to job hunt quietly and I'm not sure what else to do. With any luck, by December maybe I'll have a new job. This also however means no MFF for me. I'm sorry, its never been my favorite convention, but the cost of going is pretty high as well.
Two weeks ago, the dragon started waking up at 5 AM to leave by 5:30 for work at 6. Unfortunately, this had the side-effect of waking me up at the same time. No matter what time I got to sleep it dislodged me from my sleep cycle. By Friday I was feeling like a zombie since I could not get up and get to bed at my normal times. Obviously, that week my performance at work wasn't optimal. Last week I had sent some of my code for review to the lead developer on my team. It was code that was written during the “tired week” as I term it now. To put it in plain English, I had accidentally copied a line of code that caused a query to work, but it was a copy of the previous line. I didn't know that until the lead developer pointed it out and reamed me for “wasting his time”. Excuse me? First of all, I sent this code to you for review. Second, I happened to have a bad week of sleep deprivation and while I said nothing to anyone about it, I'm not wasting your time with something I did accidentally.
And here is where I started to beat myself up. I felt it was my fault for not getting my sleep schedule on a better track before that week was over. Then the dragon said to me later that day that mistakes happen and I should give myself more credit. Let me explain something before I go on here. Writing code can get to be a lot like writing a paper or a book. You look over the work so many times that you grow too close to your own work and you fail to see mistakes unless they cause some disruption in the application you are writing. That happened to me that day. There is also another point which I must make. This isn't the first time something like this has happened where the lead developer has said I have been “wasting his time”. It has happened many times before this and then he always comes over five minutes later and apologizes and says he was just trying to shape me to be a better coder. Sounds more like an abusive, drunken husband sobering up and trying to console a crying, helpless wife. If it was a one-time thing with a one-time apology I would consider it water under the bridge and I'd try to improve myself. Instead I just started to think of all the reasons I was dumb and didn't check for that error. I strived to be the best student I could be while getting my computer science degree. I held positions of leadership in the computer science club at my college. All of this confidence in my head deflated by some developer who can't control his emotions and thinks that a simple verbal band puts everything back to normal.
My company somehow stays afloat despite being in the red since the housing market crash in 2004. They still did not see a profit this year and to tell the truth they are at least $300,000 in the hole. Everyone is under lots of stress to try and pinch pennies where they can because they don't want to see the company fail. So I am in the wrong? I keep wondering if I should get another job at another company. Are all IT jobs like this with irrational, opinionated people at the helm or is there actually credence to my thoughts about getting myself to a more positive workplace? I choose not to be anyone's friend at work because I don't feel mentally that I belong there. These are all 40-50 year olds who's idea of fun is cleaning the house with their heterosexual spouse and taking the kids to baseball practice. I am gay and have no kids. I have different interests than them. It was hard enough managing my stress level with being constaff for a convention. I couldn't tell anyone at work about it. Yet everyone could tell I was preoccupied. I wouldn't have told them what kind of con it was, but explaining something as simple as a convention goes over their heads when all their money is tied down in kids and houses.
So, I will continue to job hunt quietly and I'm not sure what else to do. With any luck, by December maybe I'll have a new job. This also however means no MFF for me. I'm sorry, its never been my favorite convention, but the cost of going is pretty high as well.
