Time Doth Flee
Just realized I’ve now been blogging on MSDN for a bit over two years- that covers two OS releases [Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7] and WDF releases [1.7 and 1.9]. To bow to the Dead again- a long, strange trip it has been. I started out wanting to write troubleshooting stories (something like Mark Russinovich often does). But unfortunately, I found many of my best efforts turned up bugs in products that haven’t been shipped yet, and their owners typically don’t want such things disclosed or discussed in a public forum. So I’ve wandered a bit all over the map, intellectually and topically speaking, since then.
I’ve got more important things to write, though, so I’m tempted to leave this post at its current state. It’s been over two years, now. But I ain’t done- not yet!
Why I Work (part of it, anyway)
So for a moment, I’m going back to my “life at Microsoft” series…
The bulletin board in my office is quite a bit of narcissism- one photo of my daughter, and the Halo3 calendar someone from Bungie gave me- opened to a picture of the Master Chief and the Arbiter, of course, since it’s for last year. Also the outside cover of an InuYasha CD full of Kanji and an old poster for the Steve Pope band [which I played in when I was a Caltech undergrad]. The rest is all pictures of myself- from Caltech, from my years at IBM, from the Laundromat. One is of very unique construction, and forms a nice background for the rest of today’s story.
It’s a very high-tech etching, basically- constructed as follows:
- I’m contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter who had written a book about Windows NT and had mentioned me in it [because I left Microsoft to run a Laundromat, and it seemed to be an interesting burnout story]. I’d mentioned what a disaster the laundry was for me, and he wants to do “a cautionary tale” about it.
- As part of that process, along with the interviews, he takes a few pictures, including one of myself (short hair, glasses, and just a moustache) and one of the Laundromat.
- An artist then combines those two photos and produces a detailed pencil sketch of them.
- When the article is published, the sketch accompanies it.
- My brother John scans this artwork, and uses it to create a “glass master” [how he got permission, I’m not sure I want to know]…
- He then gets permission to use that to produce several printed circuit boards with this image on an IBM manufacturing line in Endicott, NY [again, he said he had permission- they must have really liked him!].
So yes, (a) I was the subject of a Wall Street Journal story (but not the kind most people would want) and (b) I’ve got an IBM printed circuit board with my picture on it- several of them, actually [one I keep at home actually also has the engraved signatures of almost everyone in my immediate family].
I keep them partially for the memories [and their uniqueness, of course], but also to remind me of the costs of some choices. That venture bankrupted me in all but legal state [I could file, but I did not]. On the heels of that, I got divorced, and then hit a series of short-term jobs punctuated by periods of unemployment. I was debt-free, but had a lot of future obligations (child support and so on). Unemployment didn’t pay enough to cover child support [I could ask to have it reduced in such cases, but I wanted to take care of my daughter]. So I was counting the months and weeks I could get through with negative income before I was truly homeless, and not liking how small those numbers were.
That was the state of affairs when I came to Microsoft. So I’ll be frank about it- there are a lot of reasons I work here, but a paycheck is most certainly one of them. And the pay is good.
I’ll skip the details, here- but I’ve come a long way financially, since then. I’ve still got some very old computers that should be replaced, and some furniture in even worse state- and I still try to live pretty frugally [that was part of the reason I originally began not eating during the workday, over a decade ago]. But I’ve replaced some items already, I’ve got a decent savings cushion put together, my only debt is a mortgage which will be paid off well ahead of schedule, and I skip meals because it’s become an occasionally useful habit, instead of a necessity.
My present is definitely tolerable, and my future becomes ever more secure. That matters to me,and because I can remember when both were much more uncertain, I recognize Microsoft’s role in that.
I suppose one key for me here is that this isn’t really a case of trading pay for some other intangible or tangible inducement. The environment is good, the work is challenging and exciting- and relevant and meaningful.
So for the moment, I’ll celebrate not just having a job [which I realize is a problem in and of itself for some people today], but having a good one- in spite of all my past mistakes and current shortcomings.
Next time, I’ll get back to something more technical, because I do realize this sort of article wastes most readers’ precious time…
I’ll see if this publishes this time around (I wrote it quite a while ago, but occasionally things don’t work very well around here)- if it does, I should note I can also celebrate a birthday tomorrow…
