Monte

I’ve been anxious lately with the many changes happening in my life—exciting changes like my new career, moving into my own apartment, and dating again for the first time in three years.

I’m looking at my first apartment today during my lunch in a beautifully renovated building in downtown Dallas. I told my mother that I was looking for a place with hardwood floors, an updated kitchen, and plenty of natural light, to which she responded, “Wow. You really are gay.”

My ideal rent would be somewhere between $750 and $900 which I figure I can easily afford with my new salary. While I would like to spend the least amount of money possible, I’m also determined to live a life of comfort and not the life of a college student. I have a successful career and want to live as such.

Dating is interesting. At times it can feel as exciting as a kid in a candy shop; and then at other times it can be discouraging to realize that there really are few people who are genuinely interesting.

On Match.com, I didn’t realize that even though I’m a paying subscriber who can send emails to other members, other members must also pay in order to read the messages you send them: “Hmm. Is reading this guy’s email really worth paying the $17 a month?”

And then there’s Plenty of Fish. Unfortunately, the majority of those fish are druggies.

I have found one free dating site that is extremely nice called OkCupid. I’ve been finding a number of nice people there, and the site is gorgeous and actually fun and is as much of a social networking site as it is a dating site.

Good times are ahead.

So much for my earlier assumptions. Seeing James this afternoon spurred feelings in me that I’m now finding difficult to reconcile. There was discussion of possibly staying together under the assumption that things would be different when I move out of the house and closer to him. We’re in limbo right now as I wait for his decision.

Today at Match, we participated in a “team building” event at a nearby Dave and Busters—it turned out to be a thinly disguised happy hour. I wasn’t going to go originally; instead, I was going to stay at the office and get some work done, but when two-o’clock rolled around, the office emptied out and I was one of a handful left. Reluctantly, I went.

There was a buffet of food waiting for us at the event along with free drinks and games. Being one of the new guys at the office, I had no one to tag along with, so I ended up trailing several groups of coworkers like a lost puppy. Eventually I tried a few of the games myself—single player, of course. I did find one game that was absorbing, The Lost World, which involved shooting dinosaurs on a screen while sitting in a dark booth surround by curtains. It was like a little refuge where nobody could see how poorly I was at the game.

As out of place as I felt, I know it was the right choice. My boss came up to me, patted me on the back, and told me he was glad to see I had changed my mind. I’m beginning to learn that large companies value a team spirit—something I horribly lack. It was good that I showed up. I even had a beer like one of the guys!

My friend Burin sent me a text message two weeks ago about a job opening at Match.com for a User Interface Engineer. I thought, “Oh, what the hell. It wouldn’t hurt to try.” So I sent the recruiter a copy of my resume that same day, and she responded by asking if I’d be available for a phone interview.

That same week I spoke to a woman from human resources at Match.com and answered all the typical interview questions like, “Why are you looking for a new job?” and “What do you like about web design?” and “Are you able to legally work in the US?”

The phone interview went well, and a day later I heard back from Match again, this time requesting that I come in for an in-person interview. I was ecstatic; however, I wasn’t looking froward to telling my current boss of six years that I was job hunting. That Friday after the office closed and everyone had left, I sat down with my boss and explained to him that a job opportunity had come up. He looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He asked, “What can we do to keep you?” and I sheepishly responded, “Oh, it’s not about the money or anything… I’m just looking to move on and advance my career…” all of which is true. Of course, I’m not going to tell him the other reasons I’m leaving: no benefits, delayed paychecks, below average pay, no growth, and so on.

Things seemed fine when we wrapped up our little meeting. He told me he understood that everyone’s time eventually comes. Later I found out that as soon as I left the office, he called one of my coworkers and freaked out on him.

My interview was on the Monday of the following week. I drove up to the nine-story office building 30 minutes early, parked in the garage, and sat there in the car sweating and going over the possible questions they’d ask. 15 minutes till 10, I rode the elevator up to the eighth floor, the doors opened, and I stepped into a chic lobby with a neon-lit, glass, receptionist’s desk. On the far side of the room, a spiral staircase surrounded by a rock garden led to the top floor. To the left, a glass wall looked out over the Dallas skyline.

I introduced myself to the receptionist, a young girl around my age, who had me take a seat in the posh waiting area where alternative rock music played. 15 minutes later, I was greeted by a guy from human resources who led me to the lounge area to get some water.

The lounge was huge and covered almost half of the eighth floor and featured a full-sized kitchen with free waters, sodas, and Starbucks coffee, a dining area, and clusters of sofas and chairs with ottomans. The whole lounge was surrounded with windows with a phenomenal view.

Soon after, I was led through a maze of desks and computers to a conference room on the ninth floor. The two of us sat down, and he asked me some general questions. Next up, a User Interface Engineer came in and asked some technical questions and left me with a little test.

The test was pretty basic, but my nervousness and the fact that I’ve never written HTML or CSS with pen and paper threw me off, and I realized later that I made some pretty stupid mistakes. It was this test that made me very uneasy about the interview, and after three days of not hearing back from them, I was beginning to lose hope.

And then last Thursday I got a phone call and it was Match. My heart was pounding, and as soon as she said that the team was impressed with me, my cell phone died. I ran out to my car, plugged my phone into the charger, and called back. I got the job!

I have an awesome starting salary with health benefits, paid vacations, a 401k, car and property insurance, and bonuses based on performance. I had to try hard not to scream “yes” when they asked on the phone if I’d be interested in the position.

Finally, after six years of working at the same company, I’m moving on to bigger and better things and actually feel excited about my career again.

I’ll be starting my new job the Tuesday after Labor Day.

In three days, I’ll be a college graduate with a bachelors in Communication Technology. Holy shit.

Some big changes are coming in the next few months, and my job is the first on the list.

My job, I’ve come to acknowledge, is a dead end. Today I got an instant message from a friend and former classmate who will also be graduating with me this semester. He’s currently interviewing for a web development position with the parent company of Travelocity. I was blown away when he told me that he requested a salary of $60,000 a year. I thought this was an insane amount of money, but he didn’t see it that way. In fact, he was disappointed that he hadn’t asked for $65,000. He then sent me a link to www.indeed.com and pointed out that web designers in the Dallas earn an average salary of $60,000 a year! I never dreamed that I could be earning this much money, but then again I never really put much thought into it. It seems bizarre to think that I could be earning twice what I make now doing the same work.

So I let that marinate all afternoon, and ultimately decided that I’m going to quit my job. I can’t help but feel guilty about this, because I know that as soon as I leave, the company will crumble. I don’t say this to boost my ego—it’s the truth. My boss has created an environment where most of the day-to-day operations fall on my shoulders, and I’m certain he couldn’t possibly find someone to replace me who’s willing to take on all of my responsibilities for what little pay I receive now.

My boss is aware of this. Last week he asked me what my plans after graduation are. I smiled at him, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know!” To which he responded, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to renegotiate your contract.” So he gave me a two dollar raise. The next day, our paychecks were delayed (again) due to lack of funds, and I thought to myself, “Hell, he could’ve offered me a $100 dollar raise and it would have made no difference!”

The delayed paychecks are one thing. The thing that chaps my ass is that he never says anything regarding the delay. It’s happened so often now that it’s become commonplace. He doesn’t say a God damn word. He offers no apology, no promise of when he thinks we’ll get paid, nothing. It’s his complete lack of concern that infuriates me.

To add to my frustration, today I checked up on the 401k plan that I signed up for back at the beginning of the year and discovered that the company has not contributed a dime! The account is just sitting there empty because management can’t afford to match the contribution.

I’m tired of maintaining loyalty to a company that shows no respect for its employees. I quit.

Well, not yet anyway. My plan is to start a new job after I get back from my week-long vacation in New York next month.

More changes to come.

Our first family computer was a Macintosh Performa 405 which my father bought for Christmas in ‘93. My life changed as soon as we tore the wrapping from the box which, at the time, was almost as big as me. It was a sweet machine: 16 MHz Motorola processor with .25 k L1 cache, 4 MB of RAM, 256 k of graphics memory, 80 MB hard drive, 1.44 MB floppy drive, and a 13-inch color display running System 7.0.1 (the Macintosh operating system). A sweet machine indeed.

Actually, my first experience with computers was the Commodore 64, but a command prompt isn’t of much interest to a 6-year-old. The Macintosh was the first time I had ever seen a graphical user interface, used a mouse, and used more than just the arrow keys on a keyboard (I have a fond recollection of my mother teaching me how to put spaces between words using the spacebar and how to capitalize letters using the shift key).

That computer really did change my life. From the moment we opened the box that Christmas morning, I was hooked. I’d spend hours upon hours in front of that tiny, 16-color CRT clicking and exploring (and breaking). Even when I wasn’t in front of the computer, it was always on my mind. Many times in elementary school, whenever I’d become bored with multiplication lessons or a reading assignment, I’d secretly doodle little drawings of computers on scratch paper. I’d draw the monitor and tower equipped with floppy drive and CD-ROM drive; I’d even draw the mouse and keyboard with all of its keys.

When I wasn’t drawing computers, I was drawing mockups of applications, icons, and entire screenshots. I swear, if I had known at the time who Susan Kare was, she would have been my childhood hero.

Still today, I love mocking up applications in Photoshop. Sometimes I pretend that I’ve been tasked with designing the next version of Windows, and I’ll spend hours creating icons, windows, menus, scroll bars, toolbars, and other graphical widgets—literally, hours! But my interest goes beyond cosmetics. I like rethinking how people interact with software, and I like questioning traditional GUI conventions.

It’s embarrassing to admit all of this. Most people would probably not understand.

I had never acknowledged my interest in GUI design as anything but a bizarre hobby until recently. A friend and fellow classmate and I were discussing what we’d be doing after graduation, and I told him I was thinking about getting a masters degree in Computer Information Systems Management, to which he bluntly responded, “That’s trash.” I laughed. I wasn’t at all offended because I knew he was right. The last thing I want to be doing ten years from now is sitting in an office planning a corporate network and administering databases, but at the time, CISM seemed to be the only thing remotely applicable to my career. So then he told me about Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Basically it’s the study of how humans interact with computers and technology and encompasses computer science, behavioral sciences, and design.

And that’s when it clicked. Maybe this passion of mine can be more than just a bizarre hobby.

When I was a sophomore in college, I took Introduction to Advertising Design as required by my major, Communication Technology (just a fancy term for Web development). During the first week of class, the instructor took a poll to find out what the students in the class were majoring in. Out of approximately 25 students, only four including myself were studying Web development. The other students were all in either journalism or public relations.

I thought this was strange. Why would journalism and public relations majors be required to take a design class?

Today, I learned why.

If a company has no advertising or design staff, the design decisions are made by the communications department.

My company is currently redesigning a website for a city in East Texas, and today I spoke with the city’s communications advisor who wanted to make an ass-load of changes to my original design. Actually, I take that back. The original design had already been picked apart by the former communications advisor. This new twat was only tearing apart the little that remains of the original. So for 30 minutes, Suze, who sounded to be about 12-years-old, which ticked me off even more, went on and on about how the blues should be bluer and the reds redder and the navigation should be replaced with “graphical” buttons and so on. Suze loves to use the word “graphical.”

By no means am I a great designer; however, I do have a pretty good idea of what looks good and what doesn’t, and it’s frustrating to have to constantly take design advise from communications majors, the same idiots who I sat beside in Introduction to Advertising Design for an entire semester, the same idiots who didn’t know Helvetica from Arial.

My mood worsened when I got an e-mail at the end of the day from a client who requested I come in and meet with the president of the company. Great. Design advice from a president, now.

I woke up early to the sound of my parents screaming and decided that I would spend my day outside of the house, away from the tension.

It was a beautiful day, so I came up with a little outdoor project for myself: bike riding. But first, I had to fix my bike. For over four years, its sat abandoned in the garage with two rotting tires. I googled “fix a flat bike tire” and watched a short video on what kind of inner tubes to buy and how to take the tire apart and put it back together. I went to the store, bought the tubes (and some poinsettias for my office), and came back to the house and fixed the bike.

Fixing things makes me feel so empowered and masculine!

After I finished, I rode around my neighborhood for over an hour. Such a beautiful day. Piñatas swinging from trees; families of ducks waddling in rows; swings and seesaws; and trees shedding leaves of fire and sunlight. The beauty could have cheered even my mother up, if she had just taken the time to step outside.

It’s clear that she’s depressed. When you ask her what’s wrong, she says, “Nothing.” But then she quickly adds, “I’m just tired.” It’s funny how everybody uses “I’m tired” as a way to drop a conversation. My mother may very well be tired, but I know the real reason why she’s been acting like a jerk towards everyone today.

It’s her job. She’s 50 years old, has three degrees including a masters in business, is experienced, and yet she works at a call center.

When I asked her what was wrong earlier, she was sitting on the living room floor paying bills.

“Nothing—I’m just tired.”

But in back of her mind she was fretting over money and blaming herself.

I feel sorry for the situation she’s in—the situation my parents are in.

I wish she had been on the bike with me today.

If I did have a MySpace or Blogger account, one of those services that lets you post your current mood with every entry you write, my current mood right now would be pissy, and beside “pissy” would be an emoticon with a red face and upturned lips. Everything and everyone seems to be pissing me off today.

I guess it started early this morning when I took an exam in music appreciation, which you’d assume couldn’t possibly be that difficult, but it was. What’s worst is that I couldn’t even answer the extra credit question: “What is the professor’s name?” I’ve never bothered to learn any of my professors’ names. Of the six classes that I’m taking now, I only know one of my professors’ names, and I’m pretty sure I’m pronouncing it wrong.

And then I came down to the art school cafe and decided to clean up some of the files on my computer. I started by pruning the folder that I keep my work files in, things like website mockups, images, and logos. And as I skimmed though all of the thumbnails of documents from the past five years, I became extremely depressed to realize that there are very few projects I’ve worked on that I’m proud of. They’re either half-assed, last minute rush jobs or designs that were at one time really great until the client or my boss got a hold of them and tore them to pieces. I realize more than ever that this job is a rut, and I need to get out as quick as possible.

I’m fed up with it. I don’t want to do it anymore. Not one more day. I’m through. Done. Finished with my job.

I use to tell people I hate my job, but I like what I do, but I can’t say that anymore because I can’t remember a time when I still did what it is I use to do that I liked to do. The creativity has been all but sucked dry from my job to the point where I’m seriously considering changing the job title on my email signature from “Web Designer” to “Just put it on my desk.”

I’m one person doing the jobs of three people (and getting paid the salary of 2/3 of a person). In addition to Web Designer, I also the play the roles of IT-Officer-in-Training and Project Manager, and we sit around at our team meetings and wonder why nothing gets done. It has nothing to do with competence or responsibility—it’s about resources, and I cannot do three jobs at once. I’m starting to realize that Chris, a former employee whose job I now do), was not incompetent like management would have me believe. The truth is he was burnt out to the point where he just didn’t give a shit anymore, and I’m afraid I’m slowly starting to adopt that same attitude.

I will admit, however, that part of the reason why this situation has never been resolved is because neither I nor Chris ever brought the problems to management’s attention. We’re both too afraid to rock the boat, but more importantly, we’re both too unwilling to raise our white flags, admit defeat, and ask for help. And that’s my fault, I know. Stupid pride.

But, God, do I ever need help. I just can’t manage all of this shit anymore. I can’t continue driving to Fort Worth to work on one project for three hours and then drive to Arlington to work on five other projects and go to school part-time. I can’t do it anymore, and I don’t want to.

Where is there a dark tent when you need one?

This job is killing me. I’m not a creator anymore, I’m purely a doer: someone who does what they’re told with little to no input and no creativity. There’s really no time for creativity anymore with all the fixing I have to do—I’m just a doer and a fixer.

A client of ours appointed me to redesign their online calendar application which my company had originally developed. So I did some research and cited some other online calendar applications to improve upon what we already had. I reorganized and simplified the user interface, I cleaned up the graphics and threw in some thoughtful features like automatically generated maps of event locations and a dynamic details pane. The process was very exciting for me and a much needed change from the normal routine of doing and fixing I had grown so accustomed to. And in the process, I discovered that I really am passionate about interface design and “user experience.” When I showed the mockups of the newly redesigned calendar to the client, they were instantly impressed with the proposal. In fact, their exact words were, “Tell [your boss] I want it, and I’ll pay whatever he needs to get it.”

My boss, however, did not share in the client’s excitement. Actually, he was irritated and immediately started pointing out things (he thought) wouldn’t work and said that the project would be much too difficult to undertake. It wasn’t the response I was hoping for, and it got me to thinking, “Why do I work for a company where creativity is shunned and the product’s usefulness is sacrificed for the sake of ease?”

Now I understand I’m not a programmer, so I’m in no position to judge exactly how feasible my design is; however, I am certain there was nothing in my design that was beyond the scope of logic.

I’m now on my second cup of Lady Grey.

We have a new guy at work now doing sales. He moved into my old cubicle with the Mac mini that my boss had bought especially for me which now sits unused. From my office window I saw the new guy sitting in his chair staring down at the floor with nothing to do. Apparently he was waiting for “IT” to set up a “box”. Curiously, that’s what IT calls them. They’re never referred to as computers or PCs. I guess calling it a PC would imply it’s for personal use which might give the employees the wrong idea. So we have austere and professional names for them like boxes, workstations, and machines.

So while IT was busy setting up the “box” for the new guy (which apparently is an all-day thing), I thought I’d speed the process along by offering up the Mac mini. I setup a user account for the new guy, showed him how to log in and access the Internet, and I never heard a peep from him the rest of the day. The next afternoon, I looked up from my desk and saw IT carrying the “box” over to the new guy’s desk. My office door was closed, but I could hear the new guy ask, “What’s the difference between this and the one I already have?” And before IT even had a chance to respond (with some bull shit excuse), I jumped up from my chair, swung my door open and yelled, “Nothing! There is no difference, and don’t let them tell you otherwise!”

I realize my reaction may have been a bit extreme, but let me point out a few things: 1) The Mac and the “box” do the same exact things, 2) the Mac was there when it was needed, 3) both computers have Microsoft Office, and 4) the new guy will not be using any Windows-specific applications. So why replace an already functioning solution with another? IT gave the same tired excuse: “If it breaks, I won’t know how to fix it.” Are you not a God-damned computer geek? It’s a fucking computer—you troubleshoot it the same damn way you would any other computer. Don’t tell me you can’t figure out how to setup email and Internet, which by-the-way is the only thing the new guy will ever use. And that’s what pisses me off the most. No one ever bothered to ask the new guy what his computing needs would be. No one even bothered to ask him if even knew how to use a computer, which he doesn’t. That’s what I hate about IT departments today—the complete disregard for the users and their individual needs. They just slap the same damn image on all computers, hand them out, and walk away.

In a nutshell, the Mac would have been the best solution for the guy, but no one gave a rat’s ass.

I’ve finished my tea, so goodnight.