seemingly random thoughts on a rainy tuesday evening.

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.
- Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Music (with video).

Lyrics (for above video).

No excuses (in case the first one wasn’t enough).

Good luck.

a tale of two bridges.

Of course, there were some great people where I worked, just as there are in all organizations.  One man in particular helped me out, more than he will ever know perhaps.  In addition to being there for us in a time of great need, he had said to me many times that I was a good writer.

We may not have always seen eye-to-eye professionally, as he is a self-admitted workaholic, and I was not happy at the company, but on a personal level we understood one another.

I first met him early in 2000, about two and a half months after I started with the company.  He was working on a very high profile project and I was loaned out to his group because I had experience in power electronics.  Apparently someone thought that my experience translated over to nuclear grade cable penetrations, when there was absolutely no commonality between the two!

In any case, I was a quick study.  I was handed a very raw database and after several months work, I turned it into a useful tool and produced the required documentation to allow that part of the project to proceed.

I received a commendation on my performance appraisal that year, indicating that I had performed work that would have challenged a senior professional, even though I was still a junior engineer.

When the project wrapped up 18 months later, I moved on to other work, but still not satisfied, I ended up applying for a position under the same man late in 2002.  He had taken the reins at what was arguably the most important group in the company, and the work sounded interesting.

Things being slow as they are at large companies, I did not start my new assignment until the spring of 2003, and as they say, when it rains, it pours.  I had been simultaneously looking for work in larger centers for some time, as we wanted to move closer to our fertility specialist, and I received a very lucrative offer not long after I started my new assignment with my old boss.

I spent about two weeks wrestling with the decision, as I did not want to let my boss down, but having already been burned a couple of times at the same company for being loyal, in the end, I decided to resign my position and take a chance somewhere else.

I was not sure what my boss would say when I broke the news, as I had only been on the new assignment for about three months.  To my surprise, he said, “I knew that one day you would move back to the city”, and he proceeded to tell me the story of when he and his family uprooted to follow a dream.

They too had taken a chance, though they went much further away – California – and in the end, they returned, as he had maintained good relations with the company.  He had not burned the bridge, and neither did I.

That was the first bridge.

Unfortunately for us, the lucrative offer we pursued turned out to be the one which led to many missed paycheques and a rather lean Christmas.

The thing about bridges, though, is that you can sometimes go back across if you don’t like what’s on the other side.

I had maintained a dialogue with my former boss through the summer and fall of 2003, even trying to help his son’s girlfriend find employment where we were, and as I sat in my office in late December, trying to think my way out of the mess we were in, I sent him an email to wish him Merry Christmas.

I figured that even though things did not look good for us, I could at least spread some cheer to people I knew.  Not long after I sent the message to him, I received a reply, and at the very end of the email, he said if I ever wanted to return and work for him, that he had a spot.

Perhaps he knew something was out of sorts with me, or perhaps he just needed someone to help out, as things were rather hectic in his organization and my old position had still not been filled.

I went home that night and talked with Cathryn about it, and we decided to take him up on his offer.

About two and a half weeks into January of 2004, we had a tentative offer to return to my old company, which was good, as I had still not received any pay from my new company.

I had not received a paycheque since mid-October, and it was mid-January.  Since I had not received any compensation, I was not really in the mood to do much work.  My new boss called me into a meeting Friday, January 23rd, and asked me what was going on.  I knew something was up, because the meeting was at 7 am, before anyone else was at work.

He very bluntly questioned my loyalty to the company – after all, I had been coming to work late, and leaving early.  He said to me that if he were in my shoes, he’d be working as hard as he could so that he would be in good standing when the money finally started flowing again.  He suggested that I go home that weekend and write a memo explaining why I felt I should be allowed to continue to work there!

I listened to him speak for about an hour, and at the end of it all, I told him that he had a lot of nerve questioning my loyalty, when the company owed me almost three months back pay – not a single penny of which I have ever seen.

It was all I could do not to laugh in his face.

I resigned Monday morning, and left at noon.

I started back at my old position the first week of March 2004.

That first bridge had come in handy, but what about the second bridge?

Well, the other thing about bridges is that sometimes you just have to burn them.

Ten minutes before I walked out of my office, I remembered that my employment agreement stated that I was “to return computer equipment in the state in which it had been received”.

As the computer had been given to me with no data on it, I did the only logical thing.

I formatted the hard drive.