communication breakdown

No Place Like Home

I present to you my first entry from within the wonderful city of Atlanta - and it's only a month late.

In retrospect, I'm not too surprised it took me this long to sit down and write, because the way things have been going, it could have been much longer. I mean that in a totally positive way - honestly, I've been so busy that the last month just feels like a whirlwind that caught me up and spit me out...

When we last saw our fateful protagonist, he was all packed up and ready to leave, about to embark on a cross-country journey back home. I could go into great detail about the move, but I won't. Here are the Cliff Notes:

• Professional movers know what they're doing. When I picked up the moving truck I thought there was no way everything I owned would fit in there, but they packed my life in that truck with plenty of room to spare. Only 2 hiccups: First, it took them a while longer than anticipated, which of course means they jack up the rate. The second thing was my own stupid fault. When the movers were done they asked for the payment coupon I had been emailed - without it they couldn't get paid. That's just about when I realized that I packed away their coupon in one of the boxes. It gets worse - I packed away my driving directions, too. Luckily the leasing office was open, and I begged the lady to allow me to use the computer to get the information I needed. Thank God for the Internet. Sometimes I curse my absolute lack of common sense...
• The best advice I ever received was when someone told me to make sure I never had to put the moving truck/trailer into reverse. The morning of the move I had to run out and get something from the U-Haul store, so I had to take the truck. Not thinking, I whipped it into a small parking lot and found myself stuck. After 15 minutes of unsuccessful maneuvering, I broke down and asked for help. Luckily the U-Haul guy was a pro and got it out in a jiffy. You can bet I didn't make that mistake again for the rest of the trip.
• If you have to move out of a 3rd floor apartment and into another one, make sure you have two essential moving supplies: an elevator and a bunch of shopping carts. We had these at the Minnesota apartment, and moving out was easy. Let's just say it was a lot more difficult on the Atlanta end. Hauling couches up three floors of stairs is no fun, and if it weren't for the strategic location of a guardrail, my buddy EW would have careened over the edge with a couch on top of him, courtesy of my well-timed trip at the top of the stairs. Good times.

The trip itself was pretty uneventful, since I did it quickly over the course of two days, and most of the driving was at night. I was so excited as I drove into the city for the first time, so glad to be back in Atlanta. I kinda felt like the prodigal son, the misguided youth who naively felt he needed to experience a new frontier, only to realize what he was missing and come crawling back. I'm OK with the comparison though - when the prodigal son returned his father threw him a big party, and this last month has felt like one big party for me.

Once I arrived, since I wasn't starting work until the following week, I decided the first week was all about checking off items from my to-do list: new driver's license, new insurance, new this, new that, etc. Surprisingly, I got just about everything taken care of that week - which, for a world-class procrastinator like myself, is a monumental achievement.

I was slightly nervous before the first day of work. I think it's because I would soon be finding out if the gamble I took in coming back here was worth it or not. What if I didn't like the company? What if it just makes me miss Medtronic? What if I didn't do a good job? Too many what-ifs for my liking. When I think about it though, I've felt a twinge of nervousness before every new job I have had, and I think it's pretty common. Everyone is a little wary of the unknown; the real issue is whether or not you're willing to confront it and adapt.

Honestly, the first week or two on the job were pretty trying. The group I'm working with is very fast-moving and quite cutting-edge, and they've produced some exceptional software that I needed to become familiar with quickly. That meant a steep learning curve for me, with not much time to overcome it. In addition, I was basically given a project unto myself, which put me in a position I'd never been in before. However, I realized that the positive side of it all was that they had a great deal of faith and trust in me, and I used that to bolster my own self-confidence. I'm fortunate that the time I spent at Medtronic has helped me with my new job - I learned a lot there about process and project management which I've used to stabilize myself in the handling of this new project.

So, now that I'm a month in, and pretty much past the "thrown in the deep end" phase, I'm settling in and starting to enjoy it. Unfortunately, though I sit with the rest of the development team, the nature of my project means that I don't work much with the others, so our interaction is limited. It's a far cry from the open and collaborative work environment of Medtronic, but every place is different and you get used to anything. Hopefully I can take some of the great ideas that I've seen in place elsewhere and make positive suggestions and improvements here.

In other news - our new apartment is great, and me and my roommate are finally settled in. The complex is very new, and the apartment has tons of space - the only downside is the location. While it is right around the corner from my new job, it is quite far from downtown (25 minutes without traffic, at least 1 hour with traffic), which sometimes makes it difficult to attend spontaneous events. All in all, it's a great place to live though. I'll post some pictures up in my gallery soon.

Enough about that, however. The real highlight of the last month has been seeing and interacting with all my friends. It's been absolutely crazy - it feels like every night I've had something going on. Parties, concerts, football games, social gatherings - it has been an absolute blast. Part of that is probably overload when compared to my intake of social activites over the last year and a half. I can say with absolute certainty that I've had more events on my social calendar in the last month than I had in the last 18 months combined. Take this upcoming weekend, for example: I'm going to watch Tech basketball with a fraternity brother, then getting together with some old friends I haven't seen in awhile, then a party on Sunday. That's what I call a weekend! I've been loving every minute of it, and for me it validates the difficult decision I made to return.

I think that's plenty for tonight. Next week is my first trip to Vegas, so if I don't write again before the trip, I'll definitely have plenty to talk about afterwards!