Treading water.

Tags

Life, Mindset, Thoughts, Work

Things could be better, things could be worse. This pedestrian standard along with boredom is indeed a disease of the 20th century. You would think that after spending three months traveling and two months of demob at home, that there would be a sense of revitalization. But there isn’t; here I am, just treading water.

Part of the reasoning to head out for a longer trip was to preempt any mid-life crisis and the ever-suffocating lack of desire and fulfilment. Nothing changed and my choices have continued to dissuade any headway. I’m open to the possibility that I’ve reached my peak and the punctuation in pushing my extremes is no longer necessary, or required. I need really convincing of this. I’m not going quietly.

At the end of last month, I took a partial step backward by accepting a position that offers substantial pay and rewards my patience and push-button prowess, with the ability to pay off the remaining travel expenses within 7 weeks. After this time, I’ve got to find the determination, drive and will to get out of the QA holding cells I keep locking myself in and develop new tactics toward the most fulfilling way I can continue to pay the bills. I had hoped to make this transition after getting back from Europe but I’m still taunted with its evasion.

The majority of my negativity, is the by-product of unmedicated depression (I suffer from self-recognized periodic depression and self-medicate by riding the storm). I won’t even start on my relationships but as part of my make-up as a human, I’m hard-wired to continue thinking that I’ll end up living life alone and I’m OK with that. The people that know me the best accept my complexities, even if they don’t understand them and it would be unforgivable of me to not acknowledge the importance they play in my life.

For the next month or two, I’ll tread water less and grasp the will to float more. I should be laying back and listening for ships on the horizon, that indicate the best passage out of this sea. Sometimes, we can be deafened by the sound of our voices asking too many questions.

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Discovering hidden work passions and some self-belief.

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Employment, Job, Media, Passion, Personal Development, QA, Self Belief, Thoughts, Video, Work

It’s been a long time since I felt passionate about work. Back in the days when money was more important to me than setting myself up for a stimulating solid future, I used to take whatever was offered and find myself bored within a very short space of time. Landing a job in streaming media back in 2002, things started to stir in me but yet again in recent times, have been pushed to the back-burner when work veered into other, less dynamic directions. Those stirrings were (and still are), about Video and QA.

During the current economic woes, I’m almost certainly about to find myself back in the position of unemployed but this time brings a big difference. Taking myself to task over correctly learning about the SDLC, QA principles and tools, I’ve discovered the embers of the previous fire that have not only started burning for my education, but have also been proactive in reaching out to hidden corners and pushing parts of myself back to the community – that’s something I’m feeling an element of pride about.

The ‘hidden corners’ could actually be the main focus of my re-discovered passion and perhaps just the canvas I’d been looking for in the past. I’ve always had intelligence, but often lacked the communicative process to get across my thoughts to others. After coupling my QA learning with another blog and some video presentations, I think I finally have a bridge to that communication process. Creating video overviews of all things QA has been exciting to learn as it is to produce, with the deeper I get into all things quality, the more my brain moves.

Of course it really doesn’t have to be QA; it’s all about this time, now, and discovering how the visual elements that enable me to become a better employee are actually opening up my vision of things I can achieve, while instilling a bit more of the self-belief that used to be so lacking. Now to just keep letting it go, and see where that creative flow takes me.

Timing and the art of personal finance.

Tags

Coding, Flights, Money, Thoughts, Work

Some things are meant to inform and other things just make you do the fuckity dance. The dance started gently a couple of weeks ago, when I saw the flight to Phoenix I’d like later in the year reduced by $55. Now the dance is in full swing, with the further reduction to $204 which makes the saving a total of $114. I just know this price will suddenly shoot back up, when I come to purchase tickets next month. I’d buy the bloody things this week except I’m paying for my flight to Tennessee.

I got all giggly over some magical words from my boss this morning, the words ‘let me know when code is complete and I’ll deploy to our servers’ and ‘great job!’. My code is complete, it’s being deployed! OK so into perspective, the code is a crappy hack’n’slash, cut’n’paste that a teenager could piss all over, but it’s my first official deployment of code.