So, it's been a while since I've had a chance to update. A lot's been going on, and I've not been able to keep everyone up-to-date with everything going on in my silly little life. So here goes an attempt to relate what's been going on.

Socialtext

So my emo-hair-tossing entry a week or so ago was in response to some events that occurred that caused me to retract my acceptance of the Socialtext job, and retract my resignation at UITS. Let me tell you how much that made me want to kick puppies.

Thankfully, things got sorted out ( For now; if you want the obnoxious details get in touch with me), and I'll be starting my new job on the first of August. A lot of the stuff that's going on is in the realm of "sketchily confidential company information", and since I just signed an NDA, I'll refrain from spewing it all here for now. Once I work for them I'll probably have a better idea where the line is for what I can (and should) disclose on a public blog such as this. I will say things are good now, and I'm optimistic that they will stay good.

I'm pretty nervous about starting work at Socialtext. This is the first real (non-educational) company I've worked for in seven years, and the first full time job I've ever had outside of the time I've spent at UITS. It's going to be weird transitioning from getting up and heading in to an office, to getting up and heading to my own office. It's going to be a weird transition period, but I have high hopes. I like the people I'm working for and with, and I enjoy the industry. So I guess I'm not all that worried.

Speaking of my office, Jenn and I spent last weekend swapping the contents of our rooms. I now have an office to my very own. It looks like a sty right now, so pictures will have to wait till I've at least attained some level of sanity. I like having my own space, and I look forward to using some money to eventually make it a nice work/play space for myself. I need to get some nice shelves, I forgot how many books I have accumulated. I got rid of approximately 7 trash bags worth of crap I no longer needed during the move. A lot of it was really old debris from life before I met Jenn and it had no real significance anymore. I found the experience cathartic.

Random thought; I need to figure out what I'm going to do about a new laptop for work. I've been rocking my Dell D620 for a year, and I love the line. I'm debating between keeping a similar machine in a similar form or moving to a Dell M1330. Socialtext sent me an email that strongly urged me to get a Macbook, but I'm not feeling much like drinking the kool-aid. I'm really leaning towards the M1330, it's stunning and is sporting LED back light, slot loading cdrom and other niceties. Only problem is that I might not be able to get one till a month or so down the line.

UITS

I've been going through a four week resignation notice at UITS, it's been a little uncomfortable and tedious. I feel bad that I quit, came back, and that I am now quitting again. I wish this had gotten handled better. I think that these events introduced a lot more friction than I was hoping to create in my leaving. So far my old manager has been a great sport about the whole thing, and my new manager hasn't said a word to me in weeks. So there's that.

I have my last EdCert class next week, and I'm not looking forward to driving up to Indy three times, and then having to go up there on Friday as well for some LSP appreciation event they are throwing. Should be a mind numbingly good time. However, I'm kind of looking forward to teaching the class. I always enjoyed the class, I just hate driving for an hour and getting up at 5:30am.

As I clean out my cubicle here at uits, I feel sad that I'm leaving. I had a lot of fun times here (and, yes, a lot of horrible times). I've grown up a lot while working within these walls, and so I tend to wax sentimental about my time here. I think it's a good thing I'm leaving, even if I ultimately come back for some reason.

Jenn wanted me to keep a list of the stuff I found in my cube, and I'm keeping an informal list of the randomness on the wiki at http://wiki.weirdo513.org/?title=CubeContents.

So today I found out that my job as I know it, no longer exists.

So before you freak out, I did not and will not "lose my job". But, the job that I will have in a week or two will not be the job I had last week. Essentially the group I work for, the Unix Systems Support Group got shattered in the most recent UITS reorganization here at IU. My group no longer exists, and two of the team members will join a three people from another division that got shaken up, and form a 'New USSG' under the moniker of the Grid Infrastructure Group.

Myself and a colleague got shifted to a different department altogether. Basically what happened is that my group did a lot of grunt work for the division, as well as doing all of the Unix and Linux help desk support for the campus. So now they have split the grunt work and support off into different divisions at UITS. This means my job has changed from 'Sysadmin/Programmer/Linux Support/Teaching" to "Support/Teaching" which feels immensely less useful to me furthering my career. I got to meet my new coworkers today, and they seem like nice enough guys, and like 3-4 years ago it would have been an amazing opportunity, but I think it's not quite what I'm looking for in a position right now... But, nothing is known about anything related to the new position at this point so it's hard for me to really make any kind of assessment.

I'm not sure what I am going to do at this point, I have another coworker encouraging me to apply for a sysadmin job in his department, and a friend encouraging me to apply for a job with his private company, so I'm not without options at this point. The whole 'not having a job' situation isn't what I'm worried about in this whole mess.

Both myself and my coworker who got moved are of like mind in that we didn't leave our last jobs to work in this new department, we came to work for specifically for the USSG, and while that doesn't mean much for a lot of people who read this blog, it means a lot to me to finally be working for this group. It's pretty depressing to finally get to a place where you're happy and content (albeit underpaid) in your job, to enjoy your work and be excited to come in to work, to enjoy your coworkers and your boss, and to look forward to each and every group meeting because you know it's going to be punctuated by intense laughter only to have that taken away.

My manager keeps insisting that everything is going to be alright, but I have been here too long too be at all optimistic about these kinds of things.