Category: Work

On Friday, I posted about all of the odd jobs I've had. Today, I'm going to post about my "career."

After finding out that I really liked software more than hardware, pretty much the only good thing that ever came out of working for TransEra, I enrolled in school full-time at Utah Valley State College. My wife worked way more than full-time to support us and I scheduled classes in the evenings so that my wife could be home with our son. I stayed home during the day as "Mr. Mom." Once I had most of a programming class under my belt, I applied for my first programming job. Here's the rest of my career:

• InsurQuote - I was hired as a "quote routine programmer." InsurQuote software was used by independent insurance agents to be able to enter rating information once and then be able to compare different companies' rates. I wrote routines in a mangled version of Pascal to generate the rates based on information in insurance company rating manuals. Despite management being a bunch of pointy-haired bosses, it was a great springboard for my career and I worked with a lot of really cool people that are friends to this day. This was the first job I ever had with benefits like paid vacation and health insurance.
• Utah Valley State College - While attending college, I started teaching lower-level programming classes. It was nice because I could have a credit of tuition waived for every credit I taught. I love teaching and would teach full-time if I could make any real money doing it. I taught a class a semester until a year or so after I graduated from UVSC with my BS in Computer Science and Information Systems.
• Independent Contractor for Utah DCFS - A friend at UVSC lured me away from InsurQuote because his father-in-law was contracting with the Utah Department of Child and Family Services to work on the database that contained details about all of the allegations of child abuse. Originally, I was supposed to be able to work from home, which would be perfect for a part-time college student that needed to work full-time. It turned into a 5-day-a-week commute to downtown Salt Lake during the "luge" days of the I-15 reconstruction prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics. The first snowy day, I went crawling back to InsurQuote to see if they had any open positions. I HATED that commute.
• InsurQuote - They took me back and I worked on a couple of different teams, eventually interviewing for and accepting an offer on the coveted "Research and Development" team. At least, that's what I thought. Due to some very poor communication, I wasn't told that the R&D team couldn't afford to pay me what I was already making, so I left the old team, set up with the new team, and then a few days later, when the mistake came to light, I ended up back on my old team. Angry and disgruntled, I started interviewing at other companies right away.
• Dentrix Dental Systems - I was hired to work on a product called "EasyDental," which was a cheaper, watered-down version of their main product. I basically ported changes from one code base to another. I didn't really feel creative, so I asked if I could transfer to another team. Due to some strange HR policies, I couldn't transfer until I had been in my current position for a year. I ended up transferring to another job at a different company.
• Campus Pipeline - A friend from InsurQuote recruited me to come to Campus Pipeline. This was an incredibly fun company to work for. They had a miniature golf course all over the office, they had video games, ping pong, and Foosball in the break room. If you stayed after 5pm, they brought in dinner. It was a high energy start-up company that was a lot of fun. They also gave me stock options and really hyped that. I was commuting to downtown Salt Lake again though, which stunk. Fortunately, they opened an office in Orem a few months later. Unfortunately, my friend left to go to another company not long after the Orem office opened.
• PageLaunch.com - The same friend that recruited me to work at Campus Pipeline recruited me again to come work with him at PageLaunch.com. This was also an incredibly fun place to work, but for completely different reasons. We used free software (LAMP-Linux, Apache, MySql, and Php) to create a lot of software in a very short time. It was great until decisions based much more on emotion than on business sense caused the people I most enjoyed working with to no longer be employed. When I found other work and left the company a couple of weeks later, the company went under because nobody that had created any of the code or understood how it worked was left to continue.
• NACT Telecommunications - When I left PageLaunch, I had two different offers from two different companies. I accepted the offer from NACT over the other offer because I was sick of the .com boom/bust, and wanted some stability. NACT had been in business for 10 years and profitable for more than 7 of those years. Yet only a few weeks after I started working there, my boss started telling us that our next release (which was still vaporware) needed to be out in a few months or the company would let us all go and buy software that already existed. This made me nervous enough to again, look for work. This was during my FINAL semester at Utah Valley State College, so I could start qualifying for some better jobs that required a 4-year degree.
• Symantec Corp/Altiris/Symantec Corp - I worked on a team that supported a security contract for the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). We were a team that was distributed all over the country, and had quarterly team meetings in fun places like Key West. Five years later, Symantec closed my office, so I found another job at Altiris that was then purchased by Symantec a few months later. Symantec, with its stock options, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, and stellar benefits package was very very good to us.
• Utah Valley State College/Utah Valley University - While at Symantec, I started teaching Developmental Math classes and really loved it. I missed teaching, and I still wish I could make a decent living at it. I'm still teaching there today.
• LDS Church - A friend recruited me to work at the LDS Church. I loved working for the LDS Church. I mostly worked on an application for people to apply for roles in movies produced at LDS Motion Picture Studios in Provo. I was a contractor though, not a full-time church employee. Due to some mix-ups with my contract renewal, I started to feel some job instability.
• Ancestry.com - This is where I work today! I interviewed here when my contract renewal was still uncertain and they made me an offer that I couldn't refuse! I work for the team that develops and maintains pretty much everything under the "Search" tab on ancestry.com.

And that's it. I've worked at a lot of jobs. I job hopped for a while, but it's been a good career so far and I still really love what I do.

So what did I do in 2010?

• I tried playing racquetball again.  My elbow didn't like it much, so I realized that racquetball is probably out for the rest of my life--at least, right-handed racquetball
• I slept in a burrito during another "Klondike Derby" with my younger son, then slept in a burrito yet again for my older son's "Denali Base Camp."
• I performed in a benefit concert for the Syd Riggs Scholarship Foundation.
• I earned my Wood Badge beads.
• I left Symantec and started working for the LDS Church
• My older son turned 16 and started driving, causing a spike in both blood pressure and insurance premium.
• I spent a few days on the Green River, canoeing 68 miles.
• I spent a week in San Diego with my family--a very fun family vacation.
• I camped with my scouts at Camp Bartlett near Montpelier, Idaho
• My younger son got a full set of braces
• I was made a development lead at my new job and was given a new project to work on
• I sold the last Saturn I will likely ever own and I purchased my third Subaru.
• I took the scouts to a "Centennial Camporall" in commemoration of 100 years of Scouting in the United States.  Early morning temperatures were lower than the winter campout in January.
• I shunned NaBloPoMo
• I cooked the perfect Thanksgiving turkey.
• I took up smoking--I smoked a couple of chickens.

What am I planning on for 2011?  A lot more of the same.  Scouting will continue to take up a lot of time.  I'm still enjoying it a lot.  However, tomorrow is younger son's Birthday, and he won't be in my troop any more.  I wonder if it will be the same without him.  I'm planning on doing a lot more cycling this year.  I need to get in shape or I'm going to end up on The Biggest Loser someday soon.  So I have several long rides planned, starting in February.  I'm also planning on playing my guitar more in 2011.  I miss making music when I get away from it.

I'm also hoping to learn how to smoke lots of things this year.  Before 2011 is over, I want to feel confident in smoking ribs, turkeys, brisket, and pork shoulder.

This June will be my 20th wedding anniversary.  20 years??  It's crazy.  I was married shortly after my parents' 25th anniversary.  There are a couple of family things that I need to focus on this year too.  I only have a couple more years left and my older son will be heading out on his own.  If I don't focus on the family things now, the opportunity will pass me by completely.

My life is good and I'm looking forward to the opportunities this year will bring.

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.

You have probably noticed this disclaimer a couple of times now:

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.

My employer requires that when I mention that I am employed by the LDS Church, that this disclaimer is added to my blog entry.

It's a small price to pay for such a great job and such a great work environment.

A lot of people have had questions for me about my current employment, and I have noticed that a lot of people have the same questions, so I thought I would answer your questions here:

Q:  Who is your employer?

A:  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. the LDS Church, or more informally, the Mormon church) has two corporations, one of which is called the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  If I were a regular, full-time employee, I would be employed by this corporation, however, the LDS Church currently has a hiring freeze in place, so I am employed by Employer Solutions Group as a contract employee.  I'm hoping that this hiring freeze thaws and I will be hired on as a full-time employee of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop.

Q:  Do you have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to work where you do?

A:  Yes.  I have to be a member in good standing.  Were I to somehow become disillusioned with the LDS Church, I would not only be leaving the Church, but I would also be leaving Church employment.  Were I to do something stupid that would cause me to no longer be in good standing (we're talking stupid as in pretty serious sinful behavior like, say, adultery), I wouldn't automatically lose my job, but my employer would discuss my standing with my local ecclesiastical leaders, and based on the path I was taking (Am I working towards getting myself back in good standing with the Lord?) I could be allowed to continue my employment with the Church.

Q:  But wait...  Isn't requiring membership in the LDS Church for employment against some sort of governmental Equal Employment Opportunity something-or-other?

A:  Actually, no.  According to the EEOC web site:

Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. The exception applies only to those institutions whose “purpose and character are primarily religious.” That determination is to be based on “[a]ll significant religious and secular characteristics.” Although no one factor is dispositive, significant factors to consider that would indicate whether an entity is religious include:

• Do its articles of incorporation state a religious purpose?
• Are its day-to-day operations religious (e.g., are the services the entity performs, the product it produces, or the educational curriculum it provides directed toward propagation of the religion)?
• Is it not-for-profit?
• Is it affiliated with or supported by a church or other religious organization?

Q:  Where do you work?

A:  I work in the new Riverton Office Building (ROB).  Up until late last year, a lot of the Church's technical employees worked in the North Office Building in downtown Salt Lake City.  The thought of that commute gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.  The Riverton Office Building is about about 25 miles from my home.  The commute is about a half hour each way, and I have joined a carpool with three others in my neighborhood, so I only have to drive to work one week a month.

Q:  Don't you get tired of wearing a white shirt and tie to work every day?

A:  No, because I don't have to wear a white shirt and tie to work.  The dress standard for the ROB is business casual.  If I were to go to a meeting at the Church Office Building (COB) downtown, I would need to wear a white shirt and tie AND a suit coat.  Hopefully, I won't need to go to the COB until I lose 10 or 15 more pounds, because I don't really fit into any of my suits at this time.

Q:  Did you have to take a pretty hefty pay cut to work for the LDS Church?

A:  My pay is actually pretty competitive.  The compensation philosophy of LDS Church employment is as follows:

In addition to being a great spiritual experience, Church employment also has monetary benefits. Church compensation systems are designed to reflect comparable pay levels in the relevant labor market, while acknowledging a measure of consecration.

Q:  What are you working on?

A:  Every six months, the LDS Church holds their General Conference in which the leaders of the LDS Church speak to the Church and to the world, giving counsel, direction, and spiritual guidance that is needed in today's world.  The conference is held over two days and is comprised of five two-hour broadcasts.  These broadcasts are interpreted live in dozens of languages.  Following the broadcast, transcripts of the conference are printed in LDS Church magazines, are published to the web, and are printed in booklets that are sent to areas that could not receive the broadcast.  I am working on systems that will be used for storage, revision, translation, and publication of these conferences.  Our goal is to have the transcripts of these conferences in a publishable format within 7 days after the broadcast in all of the languages into which conference is translated.

If you have any other questions you would like to have answered, post them in a comment.

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.

Miles driven: just under 1700 round trip

Days of vacation: 8

Hours spent on the USS Midway: 5

Books read: 4 or 5

Times we ate at Harbor Fish & Chips in Oceanside: 2

High and low temperatures: about 70 degrees and 60 degrees respectively

Days at SeaWorld San Diego: 1

Kites flown on the beach: 2

Number of comments about my REALLY COOL kite: 2 dozen

Number of car problems: 1

Number of States driven: 4

Days we played on the beach: 8

Number of days that older son would have liked to stay on the beach: infinity

Number of "Burger Dogs" consumed: 6

Number of times we passed the San Diego LDS Temple: 4

Number of happy vacationers that WANT TO GO BACK: 4

It was a fantastic time.  We didn't over-schedule our time.  We just did what we felt like when we felt like doing it, which makes it the BEST kind of vacation.

The car trouble wasn't anything major because we didn't get in an accident.  The Air Bag light stayed on intermittently while we were in San Diego, and I thought it might have just been the humidity, but when we came back, I had it checked out.  They checked all the wiring and reset the codes in the computer, but a couple of days later, the light came back on, so we just spent $611.55 for a new driver's side airbag module--a part that we honestly hope NEVER to use.  The rest of the cost of the repair comes later when they charge us another hundred bucks to install the thing.

It was hard to go back to work this week, but not as hard at my new job as it would have been at my old job.  I didn't feel a sense of rising dread as I came nearer and nearer to home.

*happy sigh*

Now to get ready for Scout Camp...

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.

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.

Back in January, I posted cryptically and mysteriously about change.  By the end of the week, that change may be set in motion.

I'm still nervous.  I'm still scared.  I'm still excited.

If it happens, I'll post something.  If not, you'll have to deal with the suspense a little longer.