(sidebar rant ... midlife crisis?)

I think I am getting some good training for my new job in how to deal with losses. Last night, as I was trying to optimize the hard drive on my Mac, an error occured which destroyed all of the drive's volume information. I spent most of last night with intermittent sleep trying to find a solution for this problem. I was able to determine that all of the files are still there, but the volume itself is no longer bootable and cannot be fixed. So, here are the steps I have taken so far to try to salvage the information.

1) I had to go out and purchase a $180 external drive this morning in order to copy all the information from the old volume/drive. Sure the 250GB drive is overkill, but I might as well make sure everything can fit.
2) I am in the process of running the data recovery software for the 4th time. This wouldn't be bad, but it takes nearly 4 hours to scavenge the drive each time. The first time I accidently closed the file window once it finished - that was stupid, but I found out once you close it, the file information isn't persistent. The second time I did it, I made sure I had my old external drive hooked up. I was actually able to salvage some files. However, after transferring half of my MP3s to the drive, the data transfer became very slow. I didn't know whether to attribute that to the external drive nearly being full, or a memory issue since I was booting from disk. That is why I figured I would buy the new drive and see if I could eliminate one of the problems. So, before I bought the drive, I started a 3rd pass. It finished up right before 1pm, and I had the new external drive hooked up ready to go. Only problem was that the drive was formatted as FAT32, so it wasn't showing up with the data recovery software. The 4th pass I think should be a good one. I created a separate partition on the original drive and installed Mac OS X Tiger on it along with the data recovery software. Now, I have eliminated the memory issue (which I read about on a message board or two) and the drive problem. Come 5:30pm or so, I should find out exactly whether I will be successful or not in the salvage. At the very least, if I can't get everything, I will get the most important stuff and be happy with that.

You are probably wondering if I was smart enough to have a backup. My last backup was from August 2005. I could probably live with that, but I am going to try and get as much as I can from the salvage since I am having to work from home anyway these last couple of days (more on that in another post).

I have definitely gone through the six stages of grieving within the last 24 hours. I don't know whether I have truly come to terms with what the outcome may be, but I will get there - one way or another.

This personal data loss has really effected my outlook on my last few days on the job as well. It is such a nice day outside, so I decided to make a sandwhich, sit on the porch with my dog, and have lunch. I spent time reflecting on the last five years of my life and the job I am 3 days away from leaving. I have such a terribly empty feeling inside - it is awful. After college, I had a degree to show for all the hard work, and I felt really good about the volleyball coaching skills I had acquired. After my years of teaching, I left and even though I didn't care for the whole school bureaucracy, I still felt good that I had helped kids in their lives. The pay wasn't good, but at least I was doing something good for society. I am getting ready to leave the technology company and I have nothing but material possessions to show for it, and truthfully, that doesn't make me happy at all.

Furthermore, I have been sitting in front of my work laptop all day and I have received 2 instant messages from co-workers: one asking me if I wanted to go to lunch, the other asking me for some help on a patent the two of us submitted nearly 2 years ago. I have received a total of 5 work emails, but they were all mass distributions - nothing directed specifically toward me. Reality is finally setting in. People have written me off. I'm a short-timer. All the stress of deadlines and management was never really worth it. The wheels grind on without me. Not only that ... they grind on smoothly. I was but a cog in the big machine and in all truthfullness, the success or ilure of the work I did, means absolutely nothing to the rest of mankind. Unfortunately, the job I am switching too is even more meaningless to society, so what will I think about that? Is this a mid-life crisis? Am I too young for one of those? Well maybe not .. my dad passed away when he was 62 and I am in my early 30s ... yeah ... maybe this is a midlife crisis.

Regardless, I have made my decision and I am happy with it. I will get my Mac fixed one way or another and I am going to enjoy the rest of the week and my new job ... come hell or high water.

First Impressions

I had a busy weekend, so I didn't have a chance to update my story. I am currently sitting in a meeting for a new project my manager put me on. The project is code scanning for an Open Source project my department will be participating in. I have no experience with this at all. So, iI am in my last week of work and am being put on a brand new project .... nice thinking! And if you think this line of thinking is ridiculous, just wait till you hear the rest of my story.

So, I left off last time having submitted my resume and questionnaire to the trading company. The next morning I went into the remote work location and frequently checked my personal email account for a response. Shortly before noon, I received an email from the company, saying they were interested in meeting with me for an interview! Wow! I mean I felt pretty good with my resume and my responses to their questions, but I had no idea they would respond to me that quickly. I ended up calling the company after lunch and set up an interview that next week after I had returned. I felt so proud of myself for submitting my resume, spending the time on the questions, and putting myself out there. I was beaming ... glowing .. and feeling pretty good about myself the whole trip home!

On Thursday, November 10, I attended the interview, and my first impression of the trading company was less than spectacular. I walked into one large, open office area of darkness with just the glow of hundreds of monitors illuminating the room. I saw traders hunched over in front of 3 or more monitors a piece intently focused on what was their life blood. The sound of a live news feed from the exchange floor was being piped in over speakers. CNBC was being shown on numerous televisions mounted on the walls. I was immediately overwhelmed and intimidated. My first thought was, "Could I really work in this environment every day for a living?" My initial response was "No", but I figured I was there and I might as well carry out with the interview. First, I had a meeting with the HR director and that went very well. There were the normal, personal questions and questions about trading, but mainly, I think they were trying to find out what type of person I was. The first interview went well. The second interview was with the director of finance, and it didn't go as well. He presented his concern that my analytical background of math and computer science was going to be a hindrance in this position rather than a benefit. Apparently, there have been others like me who have tried to be successful with the firm, but have found it very difficult to make a quick decision. They overanalyze the situation and as a result miss numerous opportunities. All I could tell him is that although I find myself doing those same things, I will have to realize that I cannot be successful doing them and force myself to make a change. I believe he was satisfied with the response and the rest of the interview was relatively average - not necessarily good, but not bad either.

The last part of the interview was the most interesting part. It was a test of multi-tasking skills and pattern recognition. I will probably go into further detail with these tests in another post, but let me just say it was about an hour and a half of some intense skill testing. It was all computer based and was extremely unique. The HR director said there was no way to study for it and she was correct - you either had it or you didn't. It was actually one of the most original tests I have ever taken and left me wondering how I scored. Like I said I will probably go into further details about these tests later, but I must continue my story.

So, I left the company after a half day of interviewing and testing with mixed emotions. The environment scared me, but the test I had taken was just awesome. Plus, if the skills I had demonstrated during the test were actually relevant to the work I would be doing everyday, then maybe this would work out for me. However, the job wasn't the "holy grail" I had thought it would be. Would I be better off just day trading with my own money and going through the learning curve on my own? Truly, what benefits would I have going with a company like this? Unfortunately, I started second guessing myself and that frustrated me even more. Regardless, it was not up to me to make the decision anymore and based on my second interview, I didn't want to get my hopes up too high.

The next week came and I didn't hear anything for a couple of days. As a result, the negative thoughts started haunting me. I started focusing a lot more on the negatives on the job than the positives, and actually talked myself into not accepting a position if one was offered to me. Late that week, however, I finally got the call I was looking for:
"David, this is ???? from ????. We would just like to say that we were very impressed with your interview and your test results and would like to officially extend an offer for you to join our firm."
"Wow, that is great. I am very appreciative, but before we go any further I have a few more questions."
"OK? Sure .. go ahead."
"Well ... I have been thinking and talking to some people and they question why I shouldn't just do this on my own with the money I had saved up to support myself during your "learning curve". I mean, why should I join the firm and have to split profits if I can do it on my own and keep everything?"
"Well ... David .. we thought you were interested in joining with us and that is not necessarily a question I can answer."
"Yeah ... I mean .. I guess I don't really know what is like to be a trader. Maybe I can make a better decision if I could shadow someone for a half or whole day. Then I could make up my mind."
"OK? Well .. I think I can arrange that. Let me get back with you when I can find someone you can shadow. In the meantime, I am going to hold off on the sending the offer to you until your mind is more made up."
"OK ... that sounds good I will look forward to hearing from you soon."

So ... that didn't go as I had planned at all. My comments were stupid and scared them, and now I risked them calling me back and saying:
"Hello David ... our first impression of your quick decision making ability was confirmed and we are not interested in having you join after all. Thank you for your time and best of luck in the future."

What had I done? Stupid, stupid!

So now ... another waiting game. Would they call back? What would they say?

.... you know the routine ... answers in the next blog entry.

OK ... so a little interruption from my story. I just found the Mac OS X Dashboard Widget for Blogger and am trying it out right now. If this actually works, it will be great!

A Wild Hair?

Picking up from where I left off ...

The temporary assignment required me to travel to another city - the city where my (bad) manager was actually located. I was to spend 1 week in that city, work (remotely) for 3 weeks at home, and then finish up the last week again at the other city.

The first week I was there, I had the pleasure of eating lunch with my (bad) manager. On the trip to the restaurant, he asks me the following question: "How is this temporary assignment helping you work toward your career goals?" Wow, was he actually caring about my well-being and my career? I was floored! I figured that since he asked, I would tell him. I told him the publication was requiring me to work with solutions architects and people in technical sales, and I was really interested in pursuing these areas within the company. He seemed to acknowledge that statement by saying something like: "Yes, I think that is something that you are capable of doing, and you would be good at it." I honestly thought he had turned the corner in terms of care and compassion. At the very least, I had opened the door. He knew I was interested something else.

For the next couple of weeks, I worked on the publication and I enjoyed myself. It was something new and technically invigorating and much better than the previous project I had been working on for the past 2 years. Eventually, I had to make my return trip, though, and this was where "it" happened.

A little background ....
I had become very passionate about the stock market over the past several months. Similar to the OCD behavior I had with cable TV back in 2002/2003, I started reading a lot of books on the subject of technical analysis, and I loved it. This level of passion was what had been missing in my life for the longest time. I had always heard of day traders, but never thought I had the capital to really be serious about it. Instead, I played around with options and swing-trading, and experienced some success (and failures as well). All in all, the mathematician in me was intrigued that there were theories out there that believed you could mathematically represent or predict the emotions of fear and greed in the stock market. That was awesome! I had to learn more, but the only way I could do that is to consume myself with it on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I had a job that just would not afford me the luxury to do so.

One night during the second trip, I was in my hotel room watching TV and surfing the web on my laptop. I had been viewing quite a few trading web pages when I got a "wild hair" to go to CareerBuilder.com and do a search for "Trader". Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but I was surprised to see quite a few results. I narrowed down the search to just Texas, and couldn't believe the result. There was a posting for a Proprietary Trader and the location was my home town. Who knew that something like this was going on right under my nose? I visited the firm's website, and realized I owed it to myself to learn more about this place and the job. I fired off an email, and the next day I received a questionnaire to fill out. So, every evening during that trip, after work, I went to my hotel room and poured my heart and soul into the questionnaire. I must have spent 8+ hours drafting, editing, and perfecting my answers. By the last evening, I was finished and I sent the questionnaire back.

Now ... it was a waiting game. Was I getting my hopes up? Was this just a totally "wild hair"? Was I actually serious about pursuing this as a career? Would they even be interested in me? Was I crazy? These were all questions that were going to find answers very soon.

Wash, rinse, repeat ...

The one thing that can get a little old when leaving is telling your "story" to everyone over and over again. Now, I am definitely one who loves to tell a story, so that isn't the problem. The problem is the perfectionist in me. Each time I tell the story just isn't quite as good as the time before. However, maybe I can actually perfect it through this blog, so here it goes:

I suppose my decision to leave stems all the way back to the summer of 2003. Things just weren't the same for me when the company cancelled the set-top box project I was working on. I loved that project. Not only did the computer technology interest me, but I really enjoyed the whole cable industry. I took it upon myself to become the cable TV expert in the group (and I don't mean knowing the programming schedules of all the old 80's sitcom reruns). I bought 2 books and read them cover to cover: OpenCable Architecture and Modern Cable Television Technology. Together, roughly 1,200 pages of informational bliss. I loved it and constantly searched for news and developments in the industry. Needless to say, such OCD behavior was recognized by the company and rewarded as I received my first (and only) promotion. However, it was all downhill from there.

From there I had a short-lived residence on a project involving disconnected portlets. That lasted 2 months. Then I got placed on the project I had been on for the past 2 years. I won't go into specifics about that project, but let's just say that it was the "nail in the coffin" for my career. For 2 years, I drove to my 5:45am morning workouts thinking, "what else could I possibly do with my life?" It was a solid 10 minutes of career reflection 4 times a week, but I came up with nothing.

Last September, it became apparent the 2-year long project was dying a slow death. Some involved were clinging on to hope. Others cut the cord and bailed out as they saw what was coming. I decided to do something in between and requested a temporary (5 week) job opportunity helping write a technical publication. The topic of the publication was a technology into which I was interested in transitioning once my current project was finally canned. I figured I would position myself as a natural candidate to move into a position with my experience from the publication. After all, this is how "the game" is played, right?

BIG Problem: The power of a (bad) manager. Naturally, a good manager who knows where the road is headed would give their employees opportunities to better themselves and get themselves out of the upcoming debacle. Well, not my manager. He sat on my request for participation for at least 2 weeks and wanted to deny me the opportunity because he said he was worried "my skills might be needed" during that time. Yeah, right! So, I did what any determined Generation X employee would do - I went to his manager and got her approval instead! Come to find out later, that was a move that caused him to actually respect me more than what he had. It is sad when a leader only respects his followers based on what political clout they carry or what political moves they are willing to make.

Coming next time ...
The publication experience which led to "The Revelation"

"The First Day of the Rest of Your Life"

For me, that was Friday, February 17, 2006 - the day I decided to officially give my 2-weeks notice at my current employer, and embark on a new journey in my life that is going to be one helluva ride. The notice had actually been several months in the making which I hope to recount here in the next few weeks.

I begin my new job on March 6th. I will be a proprietary day trader in the Stock Market. At this point, the statistics say only 3 out of every 10 people make it. Will I beat the odds or become another statistic? Only time will tell, and I attempt to chronicle every step of the way through this blog.

So, stay tuned, check back often, and enjoy this life of mine I call "The Duck's Pond."