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I had a very “Office Space” moment at work today regarding where and how I park my truck. For reference, I typically park as close as I can to the side door nearest to my cube and my truck is a Chevy Silverado 2500.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Dan - “Hey Jason.”

Jason - “Hey Dan, how’s it going?”

Dan - “Good. Say, I’ve been meaning to tell you this.”

Jason - “Okay”

Dan - “Someone once said something to Jerry about his truck, because, you know, some people come flying through the parking lot.”

Jason - “Okay”

Dan - “They said it was hard to see around his truck. You know, if you park next to one of those trucks it’s hard to see around them when you’re backing out.”

Jason - “Right”

Dan - “So, you know, that’s why I back my truck in now. So, you know, that the back of my truck doesn’t impede people when they’re backing out.”

Jason - “Okay”

Dan - “So, you know, I thought you might want to know that. Nothing big, just something to think about.”

Jason - “Yep”

Some people are unbelievable.

I have a mirror attached to the corner of my monitor. It helps me notice people walking up to me while I have my headphones on. One of the side affects of it is seeing all the foot traffic that passes by my cube every day. And also, the over abundance of people that stare into my cube while I work. I can’t blame them, I have the same horrible habit.

It seems no matter where I work there is always a shortage of men’s bathrooms. When I worked in Plymouth the company was mostly women. I think the breakdown was something like 65-75% women. You would think with a smaller per-captia ratio that the men’s bathroom would be more readily available, but it wasn’t. Granted, the women were hurtin’ worse. They had it so bad they were forced to use men’s bathrooms when no one was looking (and when no men occupied it). And we all know how my gender tends to leave the state of bathrooms.

Businesses in the warehouse district have it tough. The old buildings were built in a time when a single shared bathroom per floor was common and the density of workers was light. I work now with twice as many men with the same amount of stalls as did Plymouth. It’s pretty much booked from 11am to 3pm during the day. Thus, we have to get creative sometimes.

I had a discussion this morning where we compared the quality of restrooms on the other floors versus our own. Although we couldn’t come to an agreement whether 5th floor was better than 8th floor, we did decide that anywhere was better than the one we have. The local repository invokes the same emotions as do the dank restrooms of St. Paul bars.

This past Friday came the annual company holiday celebration. I have a tendency to switch jobs in the later part of the year, which creates for a somewhat awkward holiday party. I have met many people but I can’t say they completely grasp the full jason experience. The party was fun, food was great, the wine flowed like water.

The party was held at the recently rennovated Walker Art Center. The new building, added last year, looks a little odd. I’ve heard it referred to as the metal fish tail in Minneapolis. I think it looks like an angry man.

I was a little nostalgic heading down there again. We used to live directly next to the Walker in an apartment complex. I used to walk through the sculpture gardens every morning on my way to work.

The inside of the Walker is beautiful and much like walking through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. When we exited the evalator from the parking ramp there were no signs to indicate where we were supposed to go. We weren’t in the main lobby of the Walker. We were in a wing of an exhibit. The only people available for questions were ticket agents. The ticket ladies kindly directed towards the main lobby by suggesting we follow the brick pathway. So we followed it directly into an exhibit on flight, not exactly the main lobby. We stumbled around, but eventually found the main lobby.

We took the elevator to the 8th floor for the reception. Suspciously we noted the elevator had no 5th floor stop. It went from 4th floor to 6th without a stop. Very John Malkovich if you ask me. We drank and drank until we were ushered out for dinner. At that point we were instructed to take the elavator to the 5th floor for dinner. But the elevator we were piling into had no 5th floor. So 20 individuals crammed into an elevator going nowhere began to hypothesize on just how to get to the 5th floor.

“Go to the 4th and walk up a flight!”

“Go to the lobby and take the other elevator!”

On and on they went while the elevator went nowhere. We ended up heading back down to the lobby, walking back through the Walker, to the original set of elevators, the set that brought us from the parking lot.

I saw much more of the Walker that night than I thought I would. If they wanted me to see everything they had to show off then the layout worked. I felt worse for the ladies wearing high heels. I know Courtney would have wore better shoes if she knew she’d be walking around on a brick road for a good portion of the night.

I had my first code review at the new job last week. It’s always a little intimidating the first time around. I’ve spent the first 3 weeks trying to feel out standards, best practices, etc… It was also the first code review in a long while where I was not the one making the critiquing. All in all, it went very well. I was quite happy with the process and the constructive critism given. Most comments were simple styling preferences, the logic of the code was correct.

The first question I was asked during the review was, “What’s the byte size of the object?” I was stumped. I have never had to worry about bytes and bits before. Call me new school, call me ignorant, but in a managed environment one just doesn’t worry about the size of objects created. The first project I’ve worked on is in C++, which I haven’t done in nearly 8 years, and is an unmanaged language (no garbage collection, memory management, etc..). Hence the question about byte size is quite important. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the nauances of an int versus short when utilizing precious memory space.

When I switched jobs I knew I was getting into a different position than I had been doing for the past couple of years. I changed from being a lead developer to a code jockey again. It was a tough decision for me to make. I enjoy being a leader. I like to design solutions. But I growing tired of working with the same systems day in and day out. I spent 4 years struggling to solve the same problem. I decided to throw in the towel for a new adventure.

I don’t regret my decision to take a new job. I am in a more technically structured company. I am more comfortable than I have been in a long time. Stress has melted away. But it has been an adjustment that is taking some time to grasp.

One of the changes I’ve had to deal with when I migrated to Minneapolis is management of security cards. Yes, I have received no less than 3 security cards which get me in to and out of places I need to be. I have the following:

The waver - This little blue card gets me into the parking ramp. I wave it in front of a black metal pad and the gate goes up for me.

The swiper - This speckled blue card gets me into the office building and up to the appropriate floor. To my surprise, not only do I need this card to enter the building but the elevator won’t even budge unless I swipe the card through the reader. This card gets swiped through a red/green lighted reader.

The magentic wallet - This card gets me actually into the office after I exit the elevator that required “the swiper”. I’m not sure the color or current location of this card but it must be somewhere in my wallet because all I do is hold my billfold up to an unmarked black pad and the door unlocks.

After passing the 4-year mark at my employer I decided to seek adventures elsewhere. This week I started a new job, working down in the warehouse district of Minneapolis again. The work is more technology-focused and a little more organized. It’s a good step up from what I have been doing for the past couple of years.

I was sad to leave my post in Plymouth, though. I will miss the good bunch of people working over there. They are working their tails off to change a company’s entire outlook on business. It’s a hard uphill battle to wage. I just ran out of steam.

Incidently, I now work directly across the street from a previous job I had 5 years ago. While interviewing for this job I kept starring into the window of the room where I used to sit. “There’s the bathroom I used,” I kept thinking. Unfortunately for them, it looks like the pool table is no more.

Tomorrow is payday. I love going to the bar on payday. It just seems right. Nothing beats walking in with a brand new paycheck in hand and asking for their finest brew.

Thanksgiving came and went quickly. I enjoyed my fair share of turkey and family. I tried to bulk up as much as possible for the onset of winter, which came quicker than I think any Minnesotan wanted. It’s here now. Time to change jackets.

I’m a little overly concerned about Christmas gifts this year. Last year Courtney and I went nuts buying people gifts that we liked that we thought others would too. It’s a good way to shop, just look for cool stuff you like and find someone to give it to. But it seems a little passŠ this year. I’m also not one of those people who have all my shopping done in September. I’ve got 4 weeks to get it all done.

The guys at work finally caught on to the web cam and hacking it. This is the result of about 4 minutes of wasted work time and some good laughs. I highly doubt this will be the end of the defacing. I’m just glad no one has caught me yet with my finger up my nose.