I moved to a new cubicle today. The move wasn't supposed to be until Friday, but since the cubicles we're moving to are ready, I decided to get it over with.
Another team is expanding and they wanted to keep them all in the same location, so we got booted out. I spent three years in the same cubicle. I quite liked that cubicle. I had a window.
When I first heard about a potential move, I told my manager that I still would like to have natural light in my cubicle if possible, not fully expecting that I would get it, but at least I would make my wishes known.
Today, I moved in, and I'm quite happy, really. The new cubicle has even more light than the old one! I have two large windows behind my monitors. I'm in a quieter corner of the building now, so it will be a better work environment...except in the summer when I'm going to be gazing longingly out my window...
This morning, I came in to work to find a small gift on my desk. Because of an important software release, we're celebrating today. We're getting new (very red) shirts. They're feeding us lunch. It's a decent day.
I've been under quite a bit of pressure at work. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that my product had gone Beta. Little did I know that there would be two more "refreshes" of this beta before it became official. So I was rushing to get a couple of features added during the last month. It went right down to the wire, but I actually got it done. This afternoon before I left work, I published all of the "beta" stuff and finally finished something that seems to have been hanging over my head for quite some time now. It's a good feeling.
Add to that the fact that tonight was opening night for the play that I'm in. That meant that this past week was "tech"week. We were in rehearsal every night from 6:30 until after 10:00. That left precious little time for anything other than sleep.
Most days this week consisted of:
Waking up
Getting my older son to school
Going to work
Teaching
Picking my older son up at home and reheating some dinner
Taking my dinner to rehearsal and eating it quickly before I went on stage
Running through the play
Getting notes from the director
Going home and preparing my next lecture
Crashing in bed without having practiced my guitar.
Add to all of this the fact that my younger son was sick and my older son had parent-teacher conferences. It was NOT a fun week.
But the release is out and the opening went very well. The audience was responsive, and I'm VERY proud of how well my son did for his first time on stage. Incredibly proud. We went out for ice cream with the cast after the show.
I'm glad it's over though. It's time to sleep now.
I'm back at work after a week away. It's nice to be back, working with my head rather than breaking my back. But at the same time, I'm now behind on my projects. I hate being behind.
If I'm scarce online for a while, you'll understand, right?
On Monday, I was told I would be reporting to a different manager.
My former manager is still around. There were no layoffs or anything like that. My former manager just had absolutely too much to do, so they moved three of his people (including me) to a different manager.
I'm not exactly sure what I think about it yet. My former manager had a difficult time communicating things to me. It was probably, at least in part, due to his overload. Hopefully, the new manager will be better able to communicate with me and my job will get better.
Yet there's always a little fear of the unknown when I start working for someone else. What if he's the quintessential Pointy-Haired Boss? But what if he's the best boss I've ever worked for? I thought about talking with some of his other direct reports to see what they think of him. But I decided against it. I'd rather form my own opinion, untainted by the experiences of others.