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June 30, 2005

Requiem For a Dream

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

A couple of weeks back I took the kids out for ice cream at Amy's and chatted outside for a while with a lovely lady who was reading Po Bronson's What Should I Do With My Life? She was younger than me but her kids had already grown up and moved out ("I started really young", she said) and she was in the middle of quitting the career she had to have, in order to take up the career she'd always wanted. I told her I feel like doing that sometimes, and she told me I should definitely give it some thought, that it's more possible than I realize.

I've been either studying in or working in computer science for 23 years now. I've been addicted to tech startups for the last thirteen. I've designed products that were never released, products that never even ran, products that were beautiful but wouldn't sell, and one or two products that made tens of millions of dollars in revenue for somebody or other.

Since 1992 I've worked for, let's see...seven startups and one research consortium.

Five of those companies (including the consortium) have gone out of business.

A sixth had a spectacular IPO, and an equally spectacular flame out. They're living on their cash now, praying for a buyer. I rode the stock options all the way up and all the way down, but I finally got fed up and bailed out during the 14th round of layoffs.

Now I work at yet another startup, along with some colleagues from the IPO days. Enterprise applications. A brutal fucking business, hugely complex mixes of technologies, with sales cycles of six months to a year or longer, and giant mega-tech competitors waiting to crush you at any moment.

The hours are long. The expectations are high. The pressure to produce, to stay on top of new technologies, to not fuck up, is immense. And I've never been happy unless I'm surrounded by people who are as smart or smarter than me. Face it, a company where I'm always the smartest guy in the room is not a company that's gonna succeed. So the competition amongst coworkers, the intellectual pressure to not be a dope, to not admit that there is a problem that you can't overcome, is sometimes overwhelming.

Your work day never really ends. It gets in your brain and you can't drive it out for more than a couple of hours. I used to drink it out of my skull, but that's no longer an option.

And lately I'm starting to wonder if I can do this at all any more. If I can really do another ten years of software. Or five. Or one.

Every time I go to Whole Foods now, I chat with the guys at the fish counter. I want to know what it's like, cutting up fish all day, bagging oysters for people, talking with random customers about what's good for grilling, how to prep a soft-shell crab, which salmon looks best this week. And then when your shift is over, going home and not thinking about work at all for the rest of the day.

Sometimes I think about chucking it all. Go to work for Whole Foods. Or go work for the Red Cross. Just vaccinate kids in Africa all day long. Anything to get me away from the incessant march of product releases and crit-sits and showstopper bugs and broken builds and quarterly sales numbers.

But I'm addicted to the money. Face it, a guy slinging haddock at Whole Foods does not get to live in a big house in Hyde Park and send his kids to private school and spend $2000 on a fucking tattoo. Do I want out bad enough to move into a tiny house, or a house out in the suburbs where I can have Republican neighbors all around? Give up on being able to put Cassidy and Liam through the college of their choice and just let them tough it out at UT or ACC?

For a few years now, I've been wanting one more IPO score. Something that would set us up financially so that I could tell the software business to finally go fuck itself. I'm like those guys in Requiem For a Dream. I just need that one lucky break, that one big score, and I'll be set up for life. Only that break never comes and I keep needing a taste and I fritter away the whole stash, my whole life away, pour it into the keyboard a little at a time like junk going up my veins a little at a time until there is nothing left and no more opportunities to get any of it back.

The enterprise software economy is rough right now, the money is tight, the deals are few and far between, and when they start looking around for the fat to trim...well, like I said, I don't like to be the smartest guy in the room. But the smartest guy in the room is usually the one who still has a job at the butt end of a weak quarter.

I'm fucking tired. And I feel fucking trapped.

Posted by ray at June 30, 2005 12:15 AM |
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Comments

Trapped. That sums it up, brutha.

Posted by: Karl Elvis at June 30, 2005 1:24 AM

I realized this week that in the fall I'll begin my tenth year of teaching. It's what I've done since I graduated college, along with youth ministry. I know some people think teaching is a cake job - summers off and all - and maybe it is if you don't really care. But if you DO care, school can be pretty brutal - emotionally and physically. It's not unusual for me to be at work from 7 am to 9 pm. At least once a week I and one of my friends are plotting to quit and open a sports bar.

I'm not (obviously) addicted to the money. But I am totally addicted to school. I love it when these kids exceed my expectations and suprise me.
So, as long as I can't think of anything else I'd rather do, I'm going to keep doing it.

Ray, I feel the intensity behind this post. Hope you can find some time to unwind. Peace, dude.

Posted by: Clint [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 30, 2005 6:31 AM

Awww Ray... I feel for you. I'm so sorry.

Posted by: Circe at June 30, 2005 7:27 AM

I can relate. I worked for a small software company once, and it had all the pressure and excitement that you describe. It is addicting in a way. But the boom and bust cycle is brutal. That's why I feel very fortunate to like my job now. It has the excitement and sometimes long hours, but it's for the Advance of Science and Public Safety. And there's always going to be another earthquake in L.A., so we don't have the boom and bust cycle in this business.

Posted by: Stan at June 30, 2005 10:12 AM

I've frittered away most of my life doing nothing of worth, and have only recently started to fight for the kind of career I want and was meant for. I admire you for at least building something and having something to show for your efforts. Granted, you seem to believe that all you've gained are material things, which have taken hold of you. Anyway, I'm taking a leap at happiness after having built nothing, and it's pretty damn scary. I may not make it, but I'm so glad I'm trying.

Posted by: Hiromi at June 30, 2005 12:46 PM

Well, if you wind up moving to the suburbs, move next door to me so you can have a) a progressive/liberal neighbor next door and b) you can displace one of the Republican freaks that surround *me*....

Posted by: Gregg P. at June 30, 2005 12:50 PM

Hey Gregggggg, are there o couple houses? Ray on one side, me on the other. Hey, I know some people who fantasize about that position. B^)

Posted by: Karl Elvis at June 30, 2005 12:52 PM

Well, you can't displace the sweet old Vietnamese lady and her brother on my right, but Ray can take out the Republinazi's and their demon spawn to my left and you can displace the stand-offish single chick in the 1 story ranch across the street.

Man, we would be THE street for Trick or Treating....

Posted by: Gregg P. at July 1, 2005 11:03 AM

Mostly trick, though.

Posted by: Ray at July 1, 2005 11:10 AM

How do we get the teenage cheerleaders to trick or treat our street?

Posted by: Karl Elvis at July 1, 2005 11:47 AM

I'm thinking the best favor you can do for a fairly wealthy kid today is send him to state school; because for most of them, it'll be the first time they see people who weren't making the same amount of money as mom and dad. (Our neighborhood school is possibly better; I can't tell yet; my old neighborhood got kids from $250/month apartments and $2 million houses; but the suburban schools where 95% of kids seem to go aren't going to prepare them for the real world).

My floormates at Penn State came from all over, but a sizable chunk was from wealthy suburban Philly and Pittsburgh; and had they gone to private school I'm pretty sure they would have never learned to get along (or heck, even do their own laundry).

So anyways, being 'forced' to settle for UT doesn't seem that bad to me. It's one of the best big state schools around, too.

Anyways, I sympathize completely - I just left the company Gregg still works at, and the project I left was about to turn into another meat grinder. Couldn't afford to stay with a painful benefits cut; have opted out of startup hell and am into paid-by-the-hour work for a military contractor. This'll be nice if it works out. I'm 33 and already feeling burned out on this crap (I started full-time at IBM before turning 21 though).

Posted by: M1EK at July 1, 2005 1:51 PM

Hey Greggggg, there a few acres on yer street on which ta park my trailer and free-range my chickens?

Your Home Owners Association'll love my 176 cats...


xoxoox

Posted by: Circe at July 2, 2005 1:41 PM

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