eyelessgame

One of our weekly meetings often starts with the officiant asking if anyone's heard a good joke. So yesterday I told Robert's joke about the atom, prefacing it by explaining he'd read it in a physics book.

Everyone laughed. "I'm going to remember that. It's worth repeating," one guy said. All were impressed that a nine-year-old not only understood it and thought it was funny but also could explain it to a seven-year-old.

They just mostly stared, however, when I mentioned that he is insisting that I explain relativity to him (he saw it in a book from the school library, but he needs it more thoroughly explained and needs to know why it works the way it does.)

You experience a lot of life and it leaves less time to write about it, I guess.

Nvidia is intense but cool. Low incidence of craniorectal inversion; I like it there a lot. It was mysteriously easy to just take advantage of their 7 PM dinner and work long -- but since I had people dinnering me Tues and Thurs and Fri, I still worry that it's not long enough. (They work /hard/ there.) Plenty to do, plenty to learn, friendly people, and I'm not thrown immediately into anyone else's critical path, so I'm not feeling pressure yet except self-imposed (to excel, impress, and in general be good at what I do).

I missed the kids, though; by Friday I missed them terribly, and that's even with a visit on Tuesday. At least next week it's just Monday and Tuesday out and then off to Disneyland till Sunday night. (And then it's back into a week without them. 'Make it count' is what I'm living by at the moment, which is another reason there hasn't been much log.)

My attitude seems worth another bit of comment. It occurred to me that I never really wanted to be working at Malibu; before that, neither PacAcc nor Intensifi had anything resembling high expectations (it was easy to figure out that the projects were doomed no matter what I did, and I was essentially marking time). I was excited by the TRT environment for a while, and I did work long and hard when I had good people to work with, but ultimately things collapsed and I was marking time there too. And before that, I was really too young, and my boss too much of an ogre, for CSS to be something to really grab me.

This is different. Nvidia is not something to pay the bills and balance against home life; I want to /excel/, and make an impact that's felt. Maybe it's that for the first time I'm working for a successful company; more than a little of it I'm sure is that by doing this arrangement there's no direct competition between family and work (if I'm 140 miles from family, there's no reason to rush out the door, is there). Maybe it's just what I wrote a week ago: break's over.

Anyway, kids are done with quiet time now. Break's over.

Nvidia
Opportunity to move (+/--/??)
More interesting job (+)
Hard work to the point that it's a bit intimidating (-)
Better cow orkers (+)
See bay friends from time to time (+)
Telecommute 3 days/week after two months (+)
Two months in the bay (---)
One week in six in the bay (-)
Nvidia stock (+/+++?)
Health insurance (++)
Permanent (+)
401K (+)
PTO (+)


Cirrus
More status quo (+/-)
Less work (+)
See kids and Sherilyn every day (++++)
Clearly some office politics (-)
No telecommute (-)
Contract; no bennies, no stability (--)
Marginally more money (+)
Very little coding (--)


The family is on such a different axis than the rest of this that it's not so simple as adding up the plusses and minuses... but this does clarify my thinking. The only downside to Nvidia -- the only one -- is the family time. If I make them a clear priority for the time I'm not in the bay, and do what I can to get them out to visit me when I *am* in the bay... ingh.

I will cope. But what if after three weeks the kids and the wife are just wrecked?

Then, I guess, we come to the point of either quitting or putting the house up for sale -- neither of which I would particularly want to do when the wife and kids are wiped out... but it would at least be a strategy to move out of a hole.

Ya know, I should just not post anything until I make a decision. Bungee moods are just, well, y'know.

I feel better about Cirrus, first of all, having spoken to the boss guy and convinced myself it's not simply tech support.

Second, Nvidia called me with a 50% telecommute offer. (After an initial startup period of one month solid out there and some number of weeks at four days a week out there, we'll move to two days per week plus one week in six in the bay.) They have to approve it; it's nonstandard, they say.

I was reminded by Harold of a good question by the Nvidia manager; "make sure he's still interested in the job, not just the environment." I did have a question that got itself sidetracked by the whole local-offer hooha last week (whether I was being hired as a build engineer, because if I am I think I'd rather do tech support; I write software for a living and, as a rant from a few months ago said, it would be NICE if someone would pay me to do what I'm good at, since it needs doing and people make money from it.)

But I doubt "build engineer" is all Nvidia wants from me. I'll verify this, but I'll still assume it's true because otherwise the question has a clear answer... so I'm spending the weekend thinking carefully about the kids and Sherilyn and what this fifty percent schedule will mean. I don't have an objection to it in theory; I just worry.

Mostly I worry about Bobby. While I was working for Malibu and not getting home till seven PM, he got sullen and recalcitrant. He's improved markedly in the last two months (while I've been home), largely into a more informed and mature cheerful personality. I would rather take a shitty job than lose that.

Then again, I'd rather leave a job that was causing him development issues than not take the job on the assumption that it possibly could. I can't spend my whole life with the single decision point 'well, what if this affected the kids?' -- kids are resilient, and more to the point generally communicate change over time, so if something has the potential to damage them long-term, I will hopefully notice it before it can't be undone. Bobby's sullenness had something to do with Joshua and with kindergarten, anyway; he doesn't only revolve around me (thankfully).

So if this sounds like I'm leaning toward the Santa Clara position, well, I am. Not toppled over into it (for one thing, there's still the possibility that HR could say no -- or ask for three days a week) and certainly not ecstatic about it like I was about Intensifi. But there's a growing determination that this is not for kicks, it's to make something of myself and participate in a success story.

It's surprisingly easy, too, to say to myself "after tomorrow's games, my life is going to shrink for a while to work, Sherilyn, kids, and house. Gaming is going on hold." Ars Magica is a struggle to run and has been for a couple months; D&D is still lots of fun and doesn't take much prep, but even with the story I'm trying to advance it's still more a board game than a realized fantasy world. And of course I killed off the KoCS players last week, so that campaign has reached a natural suspending point.

The thing with BOM is going forward at company-speed, which is not at all like person-speed (this certainly isn't like Cesar's fault or anything). I meanwhile am probably going to get an offer from Cirrus today or tomorrow. Cirrus is brain-numbing tech support that hopefully will turn into designing and writing at least a little code some day. It will pay well because the support is hard to do -- supporting people who are porting code.

Among the possibilities I see now:

• Do my best to negotiate with Nvidia for a telecommute before I commit to anything else, even if Cirrus falls by the wayside.


• Go to work for Cirrus. It's contract-to-full, which means I should have no hesitation leaving it if I find something I'd clearly rather do.


• Work for BOM, a contract that I am envisioning-without-evidence to be a three to six month contract that pays better than Cirrus, and meanwhile keep looking for a permanent position.


• Find that BOM is really a part-time contract, and do both Cirrus and BOM for a while.


• Take the BOM (or Cirrus, or both) position(s) and meanwhile negotiate with Nvidia.


• Take the BOM (or Cirrus) position, tell Nvidia I can start in June (it's implied they will accept that), and start planning to move to the bay.


• Turn everybody down, keep looking.

Every single choice has disadvantages, but at least I have choices... I'm still thinking, and I belive everyone -- including Cirrus -- will at least let me think over the weekend. Meanwhile, I have to get responses from all three; I can't choose without more information.

And meanwhile meanwhile, I can always keep looking at the job boards and mailing more resumes.

Teched at Cirrus. More on that in a minute. For now, since Cirrus went reasonably well, after thinking on the drive home about iTopia I realized the only reason I was trying to string them along was for ego; I wanted the idea of having four companies all offering to me. Since I had already discounted them in my mind, I figured I'd call them and decline so they wouldn't have to talk to me tomorrow.

So I call. I give my spiel, about how I know their time is valuable and after thinking it over and after attending another interview I felt there were other places that would make a better fit for me, and rather than take more of their time I'd thank them for their consideration yada yada.

The HR person I'm on the phone with responds. "Oh, that's all right. (Manager guy) reconsidered you over the weekend anyway, and decided he would prefer someone with more telephony experience."

I'm basically stunned speechless. First off, sure they'd want someone who interviewed better, but I have eight years of telephony experience; how much did they think they were going to get? Second... oh my word that's rude. If the interviewee turns you down, you say thank you and goodbye and best wishes, you don't tell him "that's all right, we didn't want you anyway." I'm sure she didn't mean to be rude, it was the tone of "see, this is working out great for both of us" -- but still. I was way too amused -- and way too glad I'd turned them down first -- to be offended.

iTopia is now off my radar. Good riddance.

So Cirrus will probably make me an offer unless they think I'm overqualified. The only problem is, the position is more tech support than software programming, and after realizing that I got rusty in four months of QA at Malibu, I'd have to be pretty hard pressed to take another non-programming job. (It's code support, since they sell their source to other companies who need to port it and add to it, and you wind up helping them write their code, but it's not writing code itself.) They hope to make the position involve more software writing over time, as they better document the code they're selling.

They're also clearly dealing with engineer ego issues, office politics, and craniorectal inversions in their marketing-engineering relationships. But the people are good, and smart, and friendly.

I think I rank them below BOM.com in desirability. The question now is whether Nvidia in fact offers me a job, and whether it promises to make use of my skill (or whether it's just a glorified build engineer).

Tomorrow may tell a whole lot more. I'd like to hear from Cesar and Alfonso though...

Of the current potential opportunities in the queue, this is how I came upon them:
- a friend brought in my resume
- initial contact from an ex-cow orker
- via a recruiter's post on dice.com
- serindipitous email from a friend needing contract work

Of the longer-range active things in my queue (continuing to worst-case plan that all four of the above might yet come to nothing), two ex-employers have said "we may/will have contract work available soon", and a neighbor (parent of my kids' friends) is shopping my resume around people he knows at Agilent after failing (thru bad timing) to get me considered for a position at HP where he works.

It is a worthwhile thing to recognize where most of these leads come from. The world really does run on personal contacts.

Okay. To appreciate what I'm about to say, read my previous entries (back to the original iTopia and Nvidia interviews) for context. At the moment, Nvidia and Cirrus and BOM are all expressing some level of interest.

Now reread the iTopia comments. No, really. Reread them.

Now, they didn't do a particularly competent job at running the interview; nevertheless let it be said clearly. I really sucked at that interview. Face to face, I came off as someone who'd padded every single item on his resume. I couldn't solve a single coding problem they put to me. I was challenged to describe at least six different things I said I was good at, and I couldn't talk about any of them cogently. There were moose whangs hanging off the ceiling. If I were them, I not only wouldn't have hired me, I would have contacted everyone who I knew had a copy of my resume and warned them about this faker, and kept a transcript of that interview as a valid defense against being sued for defamation.

This is the context in which I bring up what just happened.

I just received email from iTopia. It says: "If you are still interested in work could you please ring our HR Manager over the weekend to discuss the opportunity of a contract position."

I fail to grok. I fail even to parse. Whatthehell do they want me for? Are they really so bad at interviewing that they managed -- in today's job market -- to drive away all the other potential interviewees? I am way too curious not to call them.

So that makes... four. (All of which could still conceivably fail to turn into employment.)

Someone has evidently whacked me really really hard with the karma stick.

It took a week, but Nvidia finally broke their silence. They liked me! Woot! They want to talk to me some more, sometime next week.

And then in the "famine to feast" department, I just phonescreened with a person from Cirrus, who are doing a wireless product and need help with some of the application management software they build. Phenomenally good interview; good chemistry, nailed the tech questions, and seemed to have exactly the right experience up and down the line. They'll be bringing me in for a half-day tech interview in the near future, possibly also next week.

My word. The turnaround in the last twenty-four hours has been just dramatic. I am stoked and happy and wow. One more phone call to take, from the Nvidia supervisor who didn't get a chance to meet with me last time, and then -- what a way to go into the weekend.

Next week is what it's all about.

Back from Nvidia.

I could yet be turned down just because they needed someone that much better to justify my requested arrangement and my lack of specific expertise -- like I said before.

And there's two questions I'd like to have back -- one with some basic pre-calc vector math that I muffed (I stripped the gears trying to shift suddenly, see...), and one algorithm design where I should have asked more questions instead of flailing for a while. And of course I can't read minds and know if I otherwise impressed them like I believe I did. Strike that -- I got a number of 'whoa, nice' comments. I know that much of what I did really did impress them.

But offer or not, it doesn't matter -- I already won. I proved what I had to prove. My best shot may or may not overcome the built-in disadvantages of this particular interview -- but my best shot was damned good.