Update: things are starting to work out here in Asheville. I’m impatient sometimes. Actually, I’m impatient a lot. So it should come as no surprise that things worked out after I gave them some time.
If I were to give an exhaustive list of reasons things have gotten better, this would be a mundane and boring blog post. I’ll summarize and just say that my job has gotten cool, I’m throwing well in the pottery studio, and I get a chance to make music periodically. I’ve even made a couple people I’ll call friends. And it’s the last bit that I thought was sort of interesting this evening.
A few days ago my boss asked if I would join him tonight at something called “Meet the Geeks,” which is a networking event for IT people. I agreed. And then my boss got an emergency call this afternoon, and I went stag. I asked him what the event was, and he replied with a grin, “It’s like a meat market, but for programmers.”
“Sexy,” I grunted in response.
I asked why I was supposed to go with him in the first place, and it turned out to be a recruiting mission. My company is hiring, so it seemed as good a place to go as any.
When I got there I was given a name tag and I met some recruiters, and a few pleasant-ish folks. I also met some programmers, complete with sweat pants, food stains on the fronts of their shirts, and shifty eyes when asked about their line of work. But I also met a couple professors from UNCA, and I hit it off with one of them right away. He and I started talking about technical evangelism and advocacy, application architecture, and music. We made plans to get together and get involved in something called the WNC Web Tech Network.
And as I was walking out of downtown back to my parking spot, it occurred to me that just 6 months ago I wouldn’t have guessed I’d actually be doing what I’m doing. Yeah, sure, I was talking about it, thinking about it, but it was so far away from what I was doing at the time. But then I graduated and had to face the “real world.” And now I’m here, living this other life.
One of my new coworkers showed up at the “Meet the Geeks” thing and he said something to the effect of, “Don’t get too wrapped up in your own plans.” A lot of good and bad stuff happens all the time, but I guess if you’re going to grow, it has to.
