communication breakdown

Anticipation

Excellent news - not only am I going to be coming into Atlanta for the GT Career Fair, but I was able to plan my trip so that I am arriving the Friday before the Fair. It just so happens that that is the weekend of the GT/Clemson football game, but it's an away game, so now I'm on a mission to get a ticket. It shouldn't be that hard, especially considering neither one of those programs will be a marquis draw this year - but I just found about nearly 20 of my friends are going, so if I can find a way in, it should be a blast.

Speaking of football - I figured that since I'm making a little more dough this year, I might as well splurge a bit - so I ordered the ESPN Game Plan college football package for my Dish Network. Not only does this mean I'll be getting about 15 extra football games each week, but combined with my DVR recording device, the possibilities are endless. I think I could literally waste myself away watching football this year, if I chose to. I can see it now, my Saturdays are going to be like Peter from Office Space: "I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it would be". Indeed...

Another interesting opportunity I have coming up is work-related. Next Monday I will have the chance to view live a real implant of one of our medical devices! Unfortunately, it won't be an implant on a human patient (it's really difficult to get in on that kind of situation), but it will be a real device in a live subject. Some may cringe at the thought of this, but I'm really looking forward to it - I've seen several such implants on video, but never in person. Plus, I will get to spend time with real doctors doing the implantation and should have opportunities to ask them some questions to better understand their perspective. It should be really fascinating.

So my sister lived through her first hurricane last week. One of the nice things about living in Jacksonville all my life was that it is naturally protected from hurricanes and tropical storms by the nearby Gulf Coast. In my 18 years there, we always got hurricane warnings, but never a one actually hit in-town. (of course, that didn't stop people from stockpiling like madmen and acting like the apocalypse was approaching). But Sara moved to Orlando for college 2 years ago, which is pretty much asking for more hurricane exposure. Charley went through there with (I believe) Category 3 strength. Luckily she was OK, though she did say her building was shaking like crazy during the storm, trees were down everywhere, and power/cable/internet was lacking for a long while. It could have been a lot worse. Please pray for those in South Florida dealing with the aftermath of the storm.

Finally, on a more somber note - my team got some difficult news today. First, some backstory: one of our team members has been struggling the last couple of months, because the feature we're working on is not really his strong suit - it's a sprawling, complex piece of software that is not easy to work on. Several of us have been trying to help him along but he's definitely had a hard time of it. Well, last week, all of the sudden he would leave for long periods of time to attend "meetings". It was noticeable because we were in the middle of preparing for something important, and could have used his help - but it seemed like he had at least one meeting a day, that ran 2-3 hours. He never told us what they were, only that they were with his manager. Then he took a personal holiday on Friday.

I feared the worst, and I was pretty much right - he pulled aside our team today and told us that he was pursuing a "career transition" because he didn't feel that what he was doing now was right for him. Apparently he has 3 months to find something new, either inside the company or out, or else... Anyways, I feel bad for the guy, because he's no nice and certainly tries hard, even if it doesn't always work out. I mean, I guess I could imagine myself in his position, 20 years from now - how demoralizing and difficult would that be, to try to find a new line of work, when you've been doing something your whole career? On the one hand, it seems too harsh, but on the other, I can understand the need to keep the brightest minds on the job, especially in an industry as cutthroat as the medical field. I'm making a promise to myself right now that I'll never let that happen to me...