Things Continue To Happen

The next part in my series of various reflections on my impending move falls on what happens to be my last week of work here in the Bay Area. That's hard to imagine at the moment, since ever since I stepped foot back here at home, all I've known during my weekdays was my commute into Oakland to work at a little known defense contractor named SAIC.

August 31, 2009 was my start date. June 3rd, 2011 will be my ending date. 641 days. 641 days I have been employed (enslaved?) by them. Officially, this job was my first foray into the real world (my previous full-time jobs all being internships), so despite my very open and unrestrained gripes about the position, there'll always be a sense of nostalgia when I look back on this.

I suppose we did still have our share of inside jokes...

I can't say that the experience was completely harrowing for me, but I do feel like a small part of me has died by working in these mundane conditions. Whenever I describe the nature of the job and my coworkers, there's a unanimous sense of disbelief that there would be such a concentration of boring people doing low-skilled technical work in one place. Didn't you go to happy hour? No, and in fact one year our holiday party had an open bar, and most of the people drank pineapple juice instead. Didn't you hang out outside of work? No, and when our company attempted to have work functions outside of the office, people had nothing to say to each other and started talking about work again. Well, you were there long enough, did you make a good amount of money and did your career there advance at all? No, in fact our boss had a meeting with us one day to explain to us that our job had no chance of a pay increase beyond what they gave us already (an extra $.10!) and that this isn't the job where advancement opportunities are available. Terrific. I hit the glass ceiling at an entry-level job.

And while it hasn't exactly quite hit me that I am reaching yet the end of another era of my life, I have been reflecting on what it is I'll be walking away with from this job. Then I really think hard about it and I realize I probably won't come away with anything useful. The job consisted mostly of low-level busy work, and it was only a matter of time before I completely snapped and burned out. I only hope that my burned out ambition and overall complacency can all be alleviated before the new gig.

In the meantime, here's to temporary retirement!


"Oh I don't mind your robe being there. It reminds me of you whenever I take a shit in your bathroom "
-BS