Rollercoaster.
Aug. 7th, 2004 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icebluenothingSo Thursday morning I had a job interview, and they offered me a contract. Cross your fingers for me -- at this point, it's more like an audition than a job: they're not sure if I have the technical skill they need, so they want me to work for a couple of days, see how it goes, and then keep me on if it goes well. Nerve-wracking, certainly, but exciting, and definitely worth quitting my job at JoAnn's for, since that was going to only last about another month anyway.
The job is with Blue Utopia, who are developing sites for Democratic candidates. The site I'm working on is jayinslee.com, and I'm really excited about that, since Jay Inslee is one of the few politicians I actually give a damn about -- he really seems to grok the Internet and its issues and implications, and he's done a lot for privacy laws and the like.
The only reason they weren't sure about me is that their site -- which is currently kind of broken and needs a lot of work -- is written in PHP, and I've never worked in that language. I have, however, done a lot of work in Perl and some in ASP, and PHP has elements of both, so I was confident I could pick it up. I left the interview, had a celebratory lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
windbourne, and went and let myself into retcon and treebyleaf's apartment so I could use their 'Net connection to study PHP for several hours.
After the lovely dinner thattreebyleaf made, and after managing to stuff just enough knowledge of PHP into my brain to completely overwhelm and terrify me and convince me I was totally in over my head, I went home. Needed an early night, after all. Needed to get my sleep, for the first day at a new job, especially where I'd have to be concentrating a great deal. Very important. Essential. I get to bed a little before 10:00pm.
At 11:30pm,treebyleaf calls me, to see if I'd heard yet -- josefinek had been found dead in her apartment. I had already heard, but I appreciated the call; I never knew josefinek well at all, but I always liked her a great deal and enjoyed our few conversations. I can't believe, yet, that I'm not going to see her any more, studying some thick technical book at the Mercury, working to cure cancer while dressed to the nines. ... I have a little more alcohol and go back to bed.
At 2:30am,monotmoe calls me. Can I take her to the hospital? She'd woken up with her back in intense pain, had called a medical hotline, and the nurse wanted her to go to the hospital, and she can't afford an ambulance. I quickly assess my condition -- yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm awake enough to drive safely, so, yeah, I head out.
I get there and she's in pretty bad shape. She needs to go to Harborview and she doesn't know where that is, so I look up the address and head out and try to find the place. I get there, not entirely directly, but without getting too lost, and we go in to the E.R. to talk to the triage nurse.
There's no one at the triage nurse's desk, so we wait about 45 minutes. Nothing for me to do but sit there, blink blearily, give her a shoulder to lean on, and watch the Wings marathon on Nick-at-Nite. I hope they can see her soon, I caught myself thinking, I need to get home and get some sleep .... But I stopped myself. Hey -- enough of that. Would Superman worry about having to get up in the morning? No, sir, he would not. Would Bruce Wayne? Would Hal Jordan?
The nurse finally came back, talked to the person ahead of us in line, and then saw Mo, got her info, went to get her a bed while Mo checked in. As they told Mo they were ready for her to come back, I apologized to her -- I had to get going, I couldn't stay any longer .... Mo understood and urged me to go get some sleep.
I get home at 5:00am. My alarm is set for 8:00am. Okay, I think. Okay. Three more hours. You can do that. You can be functional on three hours of sleep. I have some more alcohol, listen to some quiet music, try to relax, have some more alcohol, try to find a comfortable position, try not to think about how much I need to get to sleep ....
Eventually I must have drifted off. At 6:30am my cell phone rings. It's Mo again, calling to tell me she'd had some muscle relaxers and been sent home, and was safe and sound. (Now, I've told my friends repeatedly to call the cell phone at any hour, that it won't wake me, so I don't blame her in the least for this; my sleeping must have been very shallow for me to hear it.) I go to bed for the fourth and final time that night, and then my alarm rings at 8:00 and I head off to my new job.
And of course, I did just fine. I stayed awake, coherent, focused, and I was able to take completely unfamilar code and make it sit up and beg. I am, after all, a freakin' rock star.
The job is with Blue Utopia, who are developing sites for Democratic candidates. The site I'm working on is jayinslee.com, and I'm really excited about that, since Jay Inslee is one of the few politicians I actually give a damn about -- he really seems to grok the Internet and its issues and implications, and he's done a lot for privacy laws and the like.
The only reason they weren't sure about me is that their site -- which is currently kind of broken and needs a lot of work -- is written in PHP, and I've never worked in that language. I have, however, done a lot of work in Perl and some in ASP, and PHP has elements of both, so I was confident I could pick it up. I left the interview, had a celebratory lunch with
windbourne, and went and let myself into retcon and treebyleaf's apartment so I could use their 'Net connection to study PHP for several hours.After the lovely dinner that
treebyleaf made, and after managing to stuff just enough knowledge of PHP into my brain to completely overwhelm and terrify me and convince me I was totally in over my head, I went home. Needed an early night, after all. Needed to get my sleep, for the first day at a new job, especially where I'd have to be concentrating a great deal. Very important. Essential. I get to bed a little before 10:00pm.At 11:30pm,
treebyleaf calls me, to see if I'd heard yet -- josefinek had been found dead in her apartment. I had already heard, but I appreciated the call; I never knew josefinek well at all, but I always liked her a great deal and enjoyed our few conversations. I can't believe, yet, that I'm not going to see her any more, studying some thick technical book at the Mercury, working to cure cancer while dressed to the nines. ... I have a little more alcohol and go back to bed.At 2:30am,
monotmoe calls me. Can I take her to the hospital? She'd woken up with her back in intense pain, had called a medical hotline, and the nurse wanted her to go to the hospital, and she can't afford an ambulance. I quickly assess my condition -- yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm awake enough to drive safely, so, yeah, I head out.I get there and she's in pretty bad shape. She needs to go to Harborview and she doesn't know where that is, so I look up the address and head out and try to find the place. I get there, not entirely directly, but without getting too lost, and we go in to the E.R. to talk to the triage nurse.
There's no one at the triage nurse's desk, so we wait about 45 minutes. Nothing for me to do but sit there, blink blearily, give her a shoulder to lean on, and watch the Wings marathon on Nick-at-Nite. I hope they can see her soon, I caught myself thinking, I need to get home and get some sleep .... But I stopped myself. Hey -- enough of that. Would Superman worry about having to get up in the morning? No, sir, he would not. Would Bruce Wayne? Would Hal Jordan?
The nurse finally came back, talked to the person ahead of us in line, and then saw Mo, got her info, went to get her a bed while Mo checked in. As they told Mo they were ready for her to come back, I apologized to her -- I had to get going, I couldn't stay any longer .... Mo understood and urged me to go get some sleep.
I get home at 5:00am. My alarm is set for 8:00am. Okay, I think. Okay. Three more hours. You can do that. You can be functional on three hours of sleep. I have some more alcohol, listen to some quiet music, try to relax, have some more alcohol, try to find a comfortable position, try not to think about how much I need to get to sleep ....
Eventually I must have drifted off. At 6:30am my cell phone rings. It's Mo again, calling to tell me she'd had some muscle relaxers and been sent home, and was safe and sound. (Now, I've told my friends repeatedly to call the cell phone at any hour, that it won't wake me, so I don't blame her in the least for this; my sleeping must have been very shallow for me to hear it.) I go to bed for the fourth and final time that night, and then my alarm rings at 8:00 and I head off to my new job.
And of course, I did just fine. I stayed awake, coherent, focused, and I was able to take completely unfamilar code and make it sit up and beg. I am, after all, a freakin' rock star.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 12:34 pm (UTC)Plus, you're awesome.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 12:42 pm (UTC)Congrats on the new contract, and I'm glad that you were there for someone in need.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 03:18 pm (UTC)Congrats on the contract!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 04:16 pm (UTC)Let me know how it goes. I'm getting more and more unhappy with my present job.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 05:40 pm (UTC)I still need to buy your book.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 07:58 pm (UTC)Me = been telling people that you are the awesome for over a decade and closing on 2.
Me = at the Vogue tonight if you want to stop by.
In your element again.
Date: 2004-08-07 10:46 pm (UTC)Will I see you out on Friday?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 10:53 am (UTC)*cough*
But didn't Hal Jordan flip out and wipe out the rest of the Green Lantern Corps?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 08:55 pm (UTC)