Category: General

Lately I have noticed quite a few people in online communications on blogs, blog comments, facebook posts and comments and the like typing "here, here!" when they heartily agree with something.

Example:

Mr. Brilliant Person: I think that everyone that reads this comment should be crowned king of the world and be given a zillion dollars.

Ms. In Agreeance: Here here!  Where do I collect the cash moneys?

Ok, so I've noticed it for a long time.  Years ago, in a particular online theater forum, that happened a lot.  A couple of friends and I together came up with the title of this post, probably at a theater rehearsal, discussing the written misuse of this phrase.

So, to clear things up, I now present the proper usage:

Hear, hear!

When spoken, it's no different at all because the words "hear" and "here" are homophones--words that are pronounced the same, but differ in meaning.  When written, there's a big difference.

So, to clear up exactly WHY "Hear, hear!" should be used instead of "Here, here!" I present the meaning behind the phrase as plagiarized from Wikipedia:

Hear, hear is an expression used as a short repeated form of hear him, hear him. It represents a listener's agreement with the point being made by a speaker.

It was originally an imperative for directing attention to speakers, and has since been used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as "the regular form of cheering in the House of Commons", with many purposes depending on the intonation of its user. Its use in Parliament is linked to the fact that applause is normally (though not always) forbidden in the chambers of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

It is often incorrectly spelled "here here", especially on websites and IM.

The phrase hear him, hear him! was used in Parliament since the late 1600s, and had been reduced to hear! or hear, hear! by the late 1700s. The verb hear had earlier been used in the King James Bible as a command for others to listen.

My first introduction to this particular phrase came through Bill Cosby.  I can't find the skit or a transcription online, but he talked about different people at parties.  He mentioned a British person that would always say, "hear, hear!" and then he wouldn't say anything.  What was I supposed to hear?

So, there you have it.  If you agree with this, you now know how to properly respond.

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I've only ever lost a significant amount of weight by ignoring what they say.

I'm on the obese side of fat these days. My excuses consist mostly of health and injury stories. I tore a tendon in my elbow more than a year ago and I haven't been able to do the two things I enjoy most that keep me from getting fatter: cycling and racquetball. Racquetball may be out of my life forever now. I'm pretty sad about that. Cycling is fortunately back in. I now have the strength in my right hand to actually brake, so I have less fear in riding all over the place.

My other excuse is that food just tastes do darned good and I'm too darned good at cooking delicious things. I know I've been eating way too much and what I've been eating isn't really that good for me.

So now I've decided to try again to eat a little less and move a little more. I've actually been riding my spinning bike at home somewhat regularly for a couple of months now and I've been trying to cut back on how much stuff I shove into my face. Nothing. No results. I've been weighing in about the same since I started that.

Since I know my own body better than "they" do (you know, the ones that say that breakfast is the most important meal), I've decided to skip breakfast every day until I have dropped the 50 lbs of fat that are making me obese and unhealthy.

Go ahead. Cite studies if you will. I know me better than those studies. Tell me that I'm stupid, but not all of the 50 lbs of disgusting fat is inside my head. Tell me that what I'm doing isn't right, and I'll tell you to mind your own business.

Most of the people that tell me those kinds of things are skinny people that have no idea what fat people like me deal with on a regular basis. Most of them have been cursed with such things as high metabolisms or small appetites or some combination of the two. Most of them probably have the willpower to exercise every day of their lives, or they have some sort of compulsion to do so that I just haven't found in my life, even though I have tried. If you're not a fat person, I really don't think you understand what it's like and what we go through. You may have found that breakfast is the most important meal of the day FOR YOU. You may know what works for you, and that's great.

I know what works for me. I've already shed about 6% of the weight I want to get rid of in a week.

I don't think I'm ready for this. My older son turned 16 years old today. I took him to the Driver License Division this morning where he received his driver license. It's crazy.

It doesn't seem like it could possibly be 16 years ago that he came into our lives. At the time he was born, we were living in a tiny 20-foot by 24-foot apartment in south Orem. I was working at Jones Paint & Glass in Provo, cutting vinyl pieces used for window frames. I would come home every day covered in what looked quite a bit like snowflakes.

We had an appointment to go to Payson Community Hospital the evening before my son was born. I remember getting ready to go to the hospital. I was taking a shower and I remember thinking that my life was about to change forever. Never again would I not be a parent. I remember being excited to meet my first child.

A storm came through the valley and the low pressure threw a bunch of women into labor. My wife and I ended up waiting quite a while, because women in labor obviously come at a higher priority than women whose laber is supposed to be induced. It was pretty late at night when we were finally brought to a labor/delivery room and the process began.

Older son was finally born at 9:32 the next morning. I didn't have a clue then how much he would change my life. I probably still don't have any idea.

Today he can drive without having a parent in the car. I'm certain he's been plotting and planning his first date. I remember how old and grown-up I felt when I received my Driver License. Did I look as young as he does to me? Probably more so--I was only 15 at the time.

Happy Birthday, older son! I'm excited for the years ahead. I'm proud of you for who you are and who you are continuing to become.

I'm posting this from my new iPad. So far, I really REALLY like it. It's an incredibly fun new toy. I don't know that it would ever replace a laptop for me, but WOW! It's a solid little device for a first generation thing.

Go get one yourself:

Zagg iPad Giveaway

From Wikipedia:

Foodie is an informal term for a particular class of aficionado of food and drink.

Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news. Gourmets simply want to eat the best food, whereas foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food. For this reason, foodies are sometimes viewed as obsessively interested in all things culinary. There is also a general feeling in the culinary industry that the term gourmet is outdated. "Foodie-ism" is a modern, popular way of engaging food culture for the general population.

I love working here already.

So far it has been much less stressful than my former job.  This is most likely due to the fact that I don't have the weight of all of the responsibilities I had in my former job.  It took most of two weeks working full-time to try to document just the parts of my job that nobody else knew much about.  Honestly, I heaved a big sigh of relief when I walked out of Symantec on the 16th.

Of course, one of my former team members contacted me twice last week for help.  Fortunately, both times I was able to send back a quick email that seemed to help him find the problem.  So far so good this week--he has been silent.

So here are the things I like so far about my new job:

• During my orientation, I got paid to watch a video of Gordon B. Hinckley talking about his 70+ years of employment by the LDS Church.  Neat!
• Monday mornings start with a devotional.
• Team meetings begin with prayer.
• I'm working on a pretty exciting project.
• I work with some pretty fantastic people.
• It seems as if every time I get up from my desk, I run into someone else I know from Symantec, from my Ward, from other previous jobs, or even from theater.

Sure, I've only been here a handful of days, and I know that as I have more responsibilities here, I'll have more stress, but so far, I'm loving it.

Things that I don't really like about my new job:

• The commute

And really, the commute isn't that bad.  It's something that I can certainly handle long-term.  I'm still getting used to it.  Hopefully, I'll join a carpool for the summer.

So... was the a good decision for me?  No question!

Disclaimer – The views expressed here are the opinions of DeShawn Smith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Employer Solutions Group or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I know I have complained a lot about Symantec lately, but now that I'm no longer an employee and now that I no longer have to worry about being laid off, downsized, right-sized, or let go, I'm no longer affected by the bad.  Obviously, I wouldn't have stayed with Symantec as long as I did if there hadn't been a lot of good.

In July, 2001, when I started with Symantec, I was living in a 1710 square foot house.  I had tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, credit card debt, and car loans.

I was given a bunch of incentive stock options when I was hired by Symantec.  In the next three years, the price of the stock went up, up, and up!  There were three 2:1 stock splits.  My stock options became valuable.  We were able to pay off student loans, credit cards, other debts, and we even paid a landscaping company to landscape our home.

I also participated in the employee stock purchase plan.  For a while, I could purchase Symantec at the lowest price in the previous three years, discounted 15%.  This meant another pretty good chunk of money every six months that we could use to pay off more debt and make other home improvements.

Before Symantec let me go in 2006, I was able to purchase the house we now live in, which is more than double the size of our previous home.  When I was "downsized," I used the severance package Symantec offered me to finish the basement of my home.

Financially, Symantec has been very good for me.  Now, the only debt I have is my mortgage, and it's a lot smaller than it would be had we been paying the minimum payment every month.  My employment with Symantec, even up until the end, has been a financial blessing.

Symantec's other benefits have been very good as well.  I had LASIK surgery five years ago.  The medical benefits have been great.  The dental benefits have been good as well.  The orthodontic benefits have paid for two sets of braces for my two sons.

While working for Symantec, I was able to see Castle Neuschwanstein in Germany.  I was able to dive coral reefs off of Key West.  I saw aircraft carriers in San Diego and I went four-wheeling on the San Andreas fault near Palm Springs.

The past nine years have been good for my career.  I received my Top Secret security clearance from the Defense Security Service.  I earned my CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) certification.  I worked in large enterprise environments.  I gained practical experience in Java, C++, C#/.NET, and learned to use a variety of databases.

I have worked with some very smart, very fun, and very cool people.  I look forward to crossing paths with many of them through the rest of my career.

The good really has outweighed the bad.  In the end, I'm very grateful for the experiences I've had at Symantec.

Yesterday, I watched a steady trickle of former Symantec employees carry their belongings to their vehicles, turn in their ID badges, and drive away.  Yes, Symantec "downsized" another group in the Lindon office.

It's just plain crazy.

How crazy?  Well, I came up with an analogy that might explain the situation a little better.

Laying off employees--especially the employees that actually create and produce the products that the company sells--in order to cut costs and please shareholders is quite a bit like opening your carotid artery because you have very high blood pressure.  The "cure" will certainly work in the short term, but it will cause other, more serious problems in the long term.

A friend that I worked with in Symantec's American Fork office (incidentally he's an American ex-patriot living in France and still a Symantec employee) had the following to say on the matter:

A long time ago, "good" companies figured if they kept their employees happy everything would work out better for everyone.

Then someone got the bright idea that "the customer is always right" even though that often caused bad friction for employees.

And now, supposedly "good" companies care only about their shareholders, which leads to decisions that are often bad for employees, products, and even customers.

Ironically, since you can never guess what's going to make shareholders happy, it's all a crap shoot anyway.

That makes a LOT of sense to me.

So now that I've said my piece, I think I can leave this alone.  The one thing I have HATED about working for Symantec is the constant laying off of good people for business purposes.  I don't expect my new job to be perfect, because it's still going to be a business and it's still going to be full of imperfect people and the politics and issues that inevitably arise in interpersonal business relationships.

I am NOT going to miss watching good people leave the business for the good of the shareholders.  I am not going to miss watching my company bleed itself out to solve a high blood pressure problem.

Goodbye, Symantec.  And in this particular sense, good riddance.

Five years after having my LASIK procedure, my eyes are still doing very well.

Today I went in for a "well-care" eye exam before I lose that particular benefit from Symantec.  (Yes, there ARE things about Symantec I'm going to miss.)

My eyes are alllllllllmost 20/15 still.  They're better than 20/20, and that's really what counts.  Five years later, I'm still happy I had LASIK and given the choice, I would still do it again in a heartbeat.

Hooray for modern technology!

Change is officially on its way!  I can now be less cryptic.

Symantec Corporation and I have a relatively long history as far as employer-employee relationships go.  I first heard that Symantec had a local office from a friend in my previous Ward.  He told me that I should give him my resume and come work with him.  This was back in November or December, 2000.

In the fall of 2000, I had gone through a bit of job instability.  I was working for an Internet startup company called PageLaunch.com.  A very good friend was the head technical guy (CTO if you will) and I had become friends with the CEO.  The company was funded by a venture capital firm that would fund startup companies here and there.  PageLaunch was located in the corporate offices of the venture capital company.  It was a good job...

...until the president of the venture capital firm made some purely emotional decisions.  He ended up firing the CEO while my CTO friend was on vacation.  When my friend came back from vacation, he met with the venture capital guy and ended up getting fired during that meeting.  Suddenly, I was the only one left in the very small company that knew anything about the product we had created.  The venture capital guy who had made all of these emotional decisions quickly met with me and offered me a rather large raise.  At that point, I didn't really care that much about the money.  I was terrified that I would be the next one to go.  I did the sane thing and sent resumes out everywhere.

A couple of weeks later I had received a verbal offer from another software company, so I sent an email to everyone in the company, especially the new company president, the venture capital guy, and I shut down my computer and walked out.  About a week later, they shut off the lights at PageLaunch.com and that particular venture ended for good.

Unfortunately for me, the verbal offer never turned into an actual offer because the company that I was supposed to move to suddenly had a hiring freeze.  I was suddenly without a job and didn't have a single prospect.  I did what any sane person would do in my situation.  I freaked out.

I called on the resumes I had sent out previously and within a couple of days, I had two job offers.  One was for a job I would really have enjoyed a lot.  The other was for a job I wouldn't really enjoy as much, but it was at a company that had been in business and had been profitable for more than ten years.  I took the offer for the stable job.

Within a couple of months at the new "stable" job, my manager was telling us that the new version of the software (which we had barely started creating) needed to be out by a certain date or we would ALL lose our jobs because the company (mainly a hardware company, not a software company) would use off-the-shelf software.  My stable job became unstable very quickly.  I did the sane thing and sent out more resumes.

My friend that worked for Symantec told me that they had a job opening again, so I gave him a copy of my resume.  I interviewed with several people at Symantec.  One of the hiring managers was out sick the day I came in to interview, so he hadn't met me yet.  I waited a few days and then called back to follow up.  The director of development told me that the timing of my call couldn't have been better.  He said that the people that interviewed me were in his office at that moment and that they were making a decision.  He said that if I could come in right away, the last person I needed to meet (who obviously wouldn't vote to hire me because he hadn't met me) would meet with me and THEN they would make the decision.  I cam in, interviewed, and they decided to hire me.

I started working for Symantec at the beginning of July in 2001.  I was hired to support the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) project.  One of the requirements of NMCI was to use all Consumer Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software.  No software would be developed specifically for NMCI.  Since Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), the software developed in the American Fork office of Symantec, would have no bigger customer than NMCI, the ESM team decided that it would be good to have a development resource dedicated to NMCI.  When NMCI had requests for bug fixes, new features, or needed something done quickly, I could make these changes.  Since these changes would go into the main ESM product and would be released to everyone, the COTS requirement for NMCI was still met.

My first three years at Symantec, I worked with the NMCI team and enjoyed it tremendously.  The stock options, employee stock purchase plan, and higher salary than I had ever before earned helped us to pay off student loans, landscape our home, and even buy a new car.  However, after the first three years, things started changing.  Our site director and all of the development managers were suddenly fired.  There were several rounds of layoffs over the next couple of years.  I survived each round, but I began to feel less and less stable in my job.

On the day that I received my "thank you" gift for five years of service at Symantec, there was an all-hands meeting in which Symantec told us that the American Fork office was closing and that ESM would be relocating to Houston, TX.  I was told that my job would be ending on December 19th that year (2006).  I would receive a bonus if I worked until the end of September, and another bonus if I worked until the 19th of December.  I thought it was more important to get a new job, so I interviewed at a few companies and received a couple of job offers--one from a print layout company in Springville, and the other from Altiris, Inc. in Lindon.

I took the offer from Altiris, accepted my severance package from Symantec (which I used to finish my basement) and moved on.  I was hired to develop a Software Development Kit (SDK) for Altiris' Notification Server platform.  There were a couple of problems early on at Altiris, mostly due to my manager at the time.  He didn't give me any of the training that I needed so I floundered for a little while.

A few months after I started working for Altiris, they announced that Symantec was purchasing Altiris.  My first reaction brought back all of the feelings I had when Symantec laid me off.  I was NOT happy and thought seriously about sending out more resumes.   But after thinking through things again, I realized that Symantec was a known entity--that I understood their processes, their benefits, and a lot of other things that you have to learn when joining a new company.  I calmed down and stayed with Symantec.  Since I had been away from Symantec for less than a year, they "bridged" my tenure.  I kept my original employee ID number and my original hire date in July, 2001.

I still didn't like my manager, but after a year of working with him, I was told I would be working for a new manager.  Instead of sending out resumes (I had decided I couldn't work for this manager any more), I decided to give the new manager a chance.  It turned out to be a good thing.  I really liked my new manager and things went very well for the next couple of years.

The problems started when my team changed from the "SDK Team" to "Developer Services."  Now, in addition to developing the SDK, we were also to help/support other teams both inside and outside Symantec that use the SDK.  I kept developing software full time at first, but gradually, my daily tasks moved farther and farther from development and more and more towards support.  I let my manager know on a regular basis that I was hired to be a full-time developer, but it didn't really change how things were progressing for my particular job.

In August, 2009, in order to help me make up for the knowledge deficit I was still dealing with because of my previous manager's lack of help, my current manager and i decided to have me support a rather large contract.  This would help me learn the platform for which I was developing the SDK.  I took on this responsibility for two reasons:  1)  To improve my own knowledge and 2) because the person who supported this particular contract would be on vacation for a couple of months.  I also took on this responsibility with the caveat that I would be able to return to full-time development.  This change was supposed to be temporary--only six months in length.

It's been almost a month longer than the six months in length and my job still hasn't moved back to full-time development.  At this point, I don't think it ever will, and I'm not ready to move away from development at all at this point.  There are some other smaller issues that I could live with, but the bottom line is that I'm a software engineer.  I want to develop software.  The "support" part of my current job drives me absolutely batty.  Things aren't going to change.

To top everything off, Symantec had another "Reduction In Force" on Tuesday.  More than 70 people were given pink slips.  It was the ninth reduction in force that I went through at Symantec, eight of which I survived.  Symantec purchased Axent in 2000.  Axent is no more.  About 3 years later, Symantec purchased PowerQuest.  As of Tuesday, PowerQuest is no more.  Symantec purchased Altiris in 2007...  Do you see a pattern here?  I certainly do.

So after nearly nine years at Symantec (more or less), it's time for me to move on.  I have accepted a position with the LDS Church as a software engineer and I will be starting there on Monday, 19 April.  There are a couple of things that I will like less than my current position.  I will have a longer commute--about 30 minutes when traffic is good.  It's still not bad.  It's just about double the commute I have currently.  The other thing is that the LDS Church is currently in the middle of a hiring freeze.  I will be working as a "contingent" employee, which means that I will be working for a contracting company called Employer Solutions Group.  I'm not exactly excited about being a contract employee, but I have been told that if I'm a good employee (and I'm not worried about that), I will be brought on as a full-time employee of the LDS Church as soon as the hiring freeze is lifted or when there is a position that opens up if someone were to leave and thereby open up a position.

There are a lot of good things, or obviously I wouldn't be making this change.  First of all, I'll be working for a "company" that I can believe in.  I will be working in the "Content & Media" group.  Every six months at the LDS Church's semiannual General Conference, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 documents are created.  I will be working on the system that will be used to enter, edit, store, annotate, and retrieve all of these documents for many different things such as print media (The Ensign) and the web (lds.org).  The people I will be working with will be people with my same beliefs and values for the most part.  I'll be making more money, and I will even get benefits like medical, dental, and paid time off, even as a contractor.  I know quite a few people that work for the LDS Church in the Riverton office, so there will even be familiar faces there.  I also don't have to worry about the possibility of Symantec purchasing my  company again.

I'm very excited about this next stage in my career.  I believe it will be a great place to continue my career.  There will be things about Symantec that I will miss.  Their benefits are great.  I'll miss the annual bonus plan.  I'm going to miss being able to purchase Symantec software at cost.  I will mostly miss the people that I've worked with.  I'm excited to get to know a new group of people that will hopefully become good friends.

Change is difficult, but hopefully this change, like so many in the past, will be a good change.