I’ve been a little nervous to start the position. I haven’t worked with php very much since I was laid off a year ago. I’ve done a little with it at home, but the 2 contract positions that I had were basically html/css positions. I actually got to start a little bit today. I didn’t get very far because the dev environment on my computer isn’t fully set up yet. It is so nice to get back to php development.

The company is small, but the people are really nice. I don’t feel like a complete misfit. LOL Hopefully everything will work out in the end. I’ve got a good feeling about things.

And a bonus … the office is right next to a mini-strip mall [I don't know if you can even call it that since it only has 3 businesses in it] that has a coffee shop at one end, a Subway at the other end, and a liquor store in the middle. So I can get a coffee before work, a sub for lunch, and some booze on my way home from work.

I’ve even gotten to do actual work already. I’ve made some updates to the websites and put together an email (from scratch … I didn’t even have a psd – I had to grab the graphics from a pdf file). It’s all been front end work so far, but I should be able to do things with php and even sql at some point. I’m still getting my feet wet on how the company does things. As of right now, I still believe it was the right decision for me.

There are 2 things about the job that I don’t like … but it has nothing to do with the company or the work. This is a contract to hire position (with the very strong possibility that it will become permanent after 6 months … perhaps sooner). The agency the contract is through required PAPER timecards, and they don’t do direct deposit. So Monday lunches will entail driving to the agency to drop off my timecard and Friday mornings (hopefully … they open at 7:30am) will entail driving to the agency to pick up my check and then Friday lunches will entail going to the bank to deposit my paycheck. It’s a little inconvenient, but I’m not gonna complain (too much … LOL). At least I’m working again.

I was unemployed for a total of 42 days. I guess that’s not that long a period, considering I was unemployed for about 7 months way back in 2003-04 when I switched careers (from meteorologist to web developer). And with the economy the way it is, it could have been a lot longer. I got lucky … this opportunity opened up, and a couple of people I used to work with had worked for the company at one time or another (I actually replaced someone that I used to work with).

As I said, things are going good as of right now. My supervisor even thanked me today for the effort I’ve been putting in the past couple days. I guess it’s a good thing to impress ‘em right out of the gate. I just can’t wait ’til I get to start working with php and sql (whichever flavor) again.

The Company
It seems like a really good company to work for. They seem to care about their employees and what they think rather than just pushing them to get stuff done. They’re more than just a web dev company, but I’ve only interacted with the web dev side of things. The rest of the work they do is pretty cool (marketing related). It’s just not where my area of “expertise” is, so I don’t have any interaction with it.

The People
The people that I’ve met so far are pretty cool … dare I saw awesome. Some are crazy … but in a good way. They’re all friendly and seem to have accepted me. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t feel like a complete outcast … well maybe sometimes. But that’s because of my own feelings of self doubt and stuff.

And thanks to this job, I actually know people IRL that I follow on Twitter. Some I’ve interacted with (@AmazonGrace, @fargoirish, @lemur, @krondek, @copaland), and others I’ve just seen around the office (@istafish, @lala_k). I’d love to hang out with them outside of work some time … as long as I was welcome. Who knows if that will ever happen. One of my goals for this year is to be more social. And hanging out with people that are techie like me would be good for me. Maybe after I’ve been around longer, I’ll get some invites.

My project managers are great too. With my lack of self confidence (I’m working on that … it’s another of my goals for this year), I tend to feel silly when I ask questions or feel like I don’t do the work fast enough or apologize for asking questions. But they’ve been telling me that I’ve been doing a good job. That’s a really good feeling. I had that a little bit at my last job, but not as much as I’m getting here (and I’ve only been there a month). It’s good for me (and my very fragile ego). I just need to learn to accept the praise and not feel like I’m a screw up waiting to happen.

There are some pretty good looking guys working around the place too. I’m not gonna go into details as to who and where since there are possibly people from the office who will read this (since I push updates to Twitter). It was bad enough in high school that the ENTIRE school knew who I had a crush on. I don’t need that happening at work. And just ‘cuz I think they’re “easy on the eyes” doesn’t mean there’s any more to it than that.

The Work
I haven’t gotten a whole lot of work yet, but I have gotten a few tasks. I’ve worked on some landing pages, changes to an email campaign, and setting up pages for brochure request forms. I’ve also been told that I will probably be working on some Expression Engine sites as well. So far, everything has been basic html and css. They have a custom CMS for the website that I’ve been working on. I haven’t gotten to work with php, and I don’t know that I will. I miss it. Yeah … that makes me a geek, I know. But that’s me. I don’t know what the rest of my time there will entail, but I’m looking forward to it.

What IS taking some getting used to is the processes for how things are done. Where I was last, we would publish changes for a task after we were finished with them. Even when there were more than 2 of us, the development process was pretty “causal”. Where I am now, they have more of a procedure for doing things. They have code releases and do branching off of SVN and do unit testing and have QA people. I’ve never worked in a situation like that before. It’s definitely a good thing … just something that I need to get use to. After working as part of a 2 person team for a little over a year, I’m used to doing a lot of stuff myself. And we didn’t have the resources to do a lot of that QA stuff.

The Future
I don’t know what the future holds. I’m working a contract position that is to last 3 months. That brings me to March (or so). Yeah, there is the chance that it could turn into a permanent position, but I don’t know how much of a chance that is. It just depends on how much work they have and if they’ve been happy with my work.

I did have a dream a week or so ago about things. I was talking to someone at work and made the comment that I’d only be there for a couple more months. Then Mark said that he was writing a proposal to keep me on permanently. It would be nice if that dream came true … that they wanted to keep me on. I just have to keep my chin up, work as hard as I can, and make as good an impression as possible. The rest will take care of itself if it’s meant to be.

Next week sounds like it’s going to be a getting up to speed type of thing … not a full 40 hours. There are 2 training sessions that I’ll be going to on Monday … the first starting at 1pm. Then it sounds like there will be meetings and other getting set up type stuff the rest of the week. I won’t know the details on things until Monday.

You don’t know how relieved I am. I’ll be getting a paycheck again (and I’ll be paid weekly … about the same amount as my last position too). I’ll be getting out of my apartment. I don’t have to move. And I get to keep working in web development/programming.

This position may last only 3 months or it may end up being permanent. It just depends on how much work the company has at the end of the 3 month contract and how much I’ve impressed them during those 3 months.

So things are starting to look up again … at least for the next 3 months. I’ll be able to enjoy Christmas. I need to start my Christmas baking and write up my Christmas cards and do Christmas shopping. Hopefully this will bring my mood back up to a ‘normal’ level for a long period of time. I sure hope so.

So, I’m on the job hunt … again. This so sucks. Especially since it had nothing to do with me. I just wish I had had more notice. I mean … if you know there’s no room in the budget for my position, let me know so that I can start planning instead of freaking out at what I’m going to do.

At least I don’t have to worry about cleaning out an office since I work at home. I already have my work laptop and external hard drive packed up. Justin is picking it up around 12:30pm or so. Now I have plenty of room on my desk. LOL

I’m trying really hard not to completely lose it. But it’s hard to keep the tears away. Things were finally going good for me. I liked my job, even though I got pissy at times. But who doesn’t. And things were going good financially. I’ve been planning to start house hunting at the end of next summer. I guess that won’t happen now. I’m just glad I wasn’t looking this year and just moved into a house. Then I REALLY would have been screwed.

So now I need to sit down and figure out what to do next. The logical things are updating my resume and filing for unemployment. But then what? Where do I start looking for a job? Is there anything around here? Or am I going to have to move? I really don’t want to move. Amazingly, a couple local people on Twitter DM’d me. At least that’s somewhere to start.

I guess I’ll be paying more attention to the job postings in the paper. And I should probably call the local agencies. And I should also probably get some clothes for interviews that actually fit well and are comfortable. But I don’t want to have to spend money for clothes. But I can’t get a job if I go to an interview looking like a slob.

If anyone reading this knows of anyone in the Fargo/Moorhead area, or anywhere in region, who is looking to hire a web developer, please let me know. You don’t know how much I would appreciate it.

The last 4 years haven’t all been peachy. Back in September 2006 I was laid off. It wasn’t because of my work. It was a situation the company encountered. They basically laid off all but about 5 people, and they weren’t guaranteed a position for very much longer. But then about a month later, they offered me my position back. I was the only one they brought back. I’ve basically been with them ever since.

I say “basically” because the company no longer exists. The client that we had been working with hired myself and my boss at the beginning of this year. So I’m still doing the same thing, but my paychecks come from someone else now. And I’ve been working from home since the start of the year.

I definitely love what I do … making ideas come to life online. I do have my bad days, but I think that’s mainly because I work at home. I’m the kind of person who needs to get out of my apartment from time to time, so working from home makes me go batty some times. That’s why I wish there was a coworking location here. Maybe when I win the lottery I’ll set one up. I can dream, can’t I? LOL

While I do love what I’m doing, I’m starting to get more interested in other aspects of the web … namely social media. That’s kind of ironic since I am definitely NOT a social person. I’m the girl who sits in the corner watching people have fun. But I need to change that.

I have no immediate plan to change my career plan yet again. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. But I think that in my spare time I might start looking into the whole social media field. It might turn out that it’s not for me. But it doesn’t hurt to look into it. I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I need to get more involved with things. I’m not getting any younger. LOL I think that would help with the working from home thing and feeling like I’m trapped in my apartment.

Where will I be 4 years from today? Who knows. I would like to think that I will still be involved in some aspect of web programming. Maybe even in some other aspect of the web. But since I don’t have a crystal ball and since I can’t see the future, I have no idea where I will actually be. I just hope that wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I’m happy. That’s all I want. To be happy.

I did end up following that path. I went to the University of North Dakota to pursue a degree in Meteorology. I spent 4 years there and ended up with a B.S. in Meteorological Studies (That was 10 years ago this May. Wow does time fly). A couple summers before I graduated, I worked on a weather modification project in western North Dakota. I loved that. I was genuinely interested in the field. I find it amazing that you can reduce the size of hail or make it rain. After college, I got a job as a meteorologist at a company in the field of weather modification. They had projects all around the world, not just in the US. I was there for over 4 years.

That job is what started my migration away from the weather related career path. I was there for over 4 years, but basically was only an office assistant. I did get to go out in the field once (to Oklahoma). But there wasn’t any weather during the week that I was there. So my job mainly entailed gathering paperwork from the field projects, compiling reports, generating reports, logging data … that kind of stuff. Nothing dealing with the weather.

But that job did get me started on my current career path. While I was there, I took over maintenance and development on the company’s website. I did have a couple computer classes in college … 2 in C programming and 1 in computer concepts in meteorology. It was the computer concepts class that I got my first taste of web design/programming. We had to do all of our reports as a website. But other than that, I’ve had no formal education/training in web design/programming. Everything that I know is stuff that I’ve taught myself through trial and error. Good thing I’m a quick learner.

So working on that company’s website is what started pulling me into the world wide web (so to speak ). I delved deeper by developing websites for myself and for a local country band that I know. I ended up registering a domain name and having several subdomains.

That brings me back to today. I have been working as a web programmer for almost 4 years now (the end of June brings me to the 4 year mark). I’ve been with the same company (sort of) all that time. I say “sort of” because at the beginning of this year, that company ceased to exist, and the 2 of us left are now working for the client we had been working. So I’ve been working on the same websites all that time (Well, almost all that time. I started on small projects/updates for the first couple months.).

In these past 4 years, I’ve expanded on my php programming skills and learned mssql. I had only worked with MySQL before that time. And this week I started working on creating my first web service. We’re integrating our shopping cart with Google Checkout, and I get to do the development. I’m learning more and more with every new project we embark on. This web service development is allowing me to learn to work with DOM objects and create/parse XML. This is stuff that I can use on my own websites too. I just need to come up with some good ideas.

While I never imagined I’d be where I am today, I am happy. I really enjoy web development. And the more time I spend on it, the better I get at it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still am intrigued by the weather … especially severe storms. One of my dream vacations would be to go on a storm chasing tour. But as for a career … it just wasn’t meant to be.

Where will I be 10 years from now? Who knows. But I’m hoping it will be in a career that has something to do with web programming.

I’ve been starting to follow more and more people. It makes it easier to follow conversations when they’re not one sided … LOL. And it jut so happens that most of the people I follow live in Houston. It’s all Christine’s fault. I started following her and Mace and started adding people she follows. Since she lives in Houston, she’s bound to follow people from there. Following their conversations makes me wish it was more techie up here. I know that there are geeks up here, but I just don’t know where to find them. I’ve done some searching from time to time for blogs from the area. But the only one I know of at this point is Mace. Maybe he knows of more. Or maybe I just need to get out of my apartment and start hanging out at coffee shops. LOL

But even if there a lot of geeks up here, I don’t think they’re as social as they are down in Houston. I was really jealous reading about the Twitter meetup they were having this past weekend. I would love to go to something like that. To meet people who blog and have Twitter accounts and are geeky like me. But until I find people like that up here, I’m living vicariously through them.

What really makes me jealous about following all these Houston Twitterers (is that a word? LOL) is their talk of coworking. OMG … I would love to be able to do that. While I don’t work for myself, I do work from home. I could really work anywhere that had wifi (I’d need a power source too because I have an external hard drive with my work laptop that would need to be plugged in). Being able to do that would solve my space issue and it would give me some much needed social contact. I did find out that there are people doing the coworking thing in Minneapolis, but that’s too far away for me. Maybe I should try to get something like that going up here. But I don’t know if there are others who would be interested in it. And I’m not the kind of person who would be good at getting it going. I’m too much of a follower.

I know … I sound like I hate living up here. Well … only during the winter. Other than that, it’s not a bad place. That’s why I still live here (that and ‘cuz my family and friends are here). But I do wish I knew more techy/geeky people. I wish I new the people whose blogs and Twitter feeds I read. So … if you live up around here (the Fargo, ND area) and you happen to be reading this and have a blog or Twitter feed, leave a comment with a link to it.

Now I have to go. It’s almost time for General Hospital (I love having SoapNet on digital cable …

What I really wish I had was a separate room to set up as an office. If I had a 2 bedroom apartment, that would be perfect (even better if I had a house … but that’s not gonna happen for at least a couple years … although, it is a goal I’m starting to save up for). I could probably afford it too, as long as I didn’t look at the new buildings that have popped up on the south end of town. But I really like the location that I’m at now. Nice and close to the grocery store and gas station. Only a couple blocks south of 13th Ave and I-29. A really good location. I did look at the property management’s website to see if there were any open 2 bedroom apartment in this building on the one across the way, but nothing. So it looks like I’m stuck here for a while longer … either until I have enough saved up to start house hunting or until I go completely bonkers from being stuck in a 1 bedroom apartment nite and day … LOL. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

The only real option I have left is to get a bigger desk. But I can’t go all crazy on that. I do have a limited amount of space. I looked at some desks at Office Max this weekend when I went in to look for a new keyboard. I found a couple that I liked. Both are corner desks. Currently, my desk isn’t in a corner. And putting in a corner would mean that I would have to move the kitchen table, and the table doesn’t work anywhere other than where it currently is (in the corner). But the one I am seriously considering would work where my desk currently is. It wouldn’t stick out too much. It’s the Vantage Collection Corner Desk. And apparently it’s one of the ones on sale this week …

Click to enlarge

Now that I know it’s on sale (hopefully it’s on sale at the store and not just online), I need to seriously consider if I want to get it or not. I just don’t know. I don’t wanna settle. But I’m not sure how long I can handle my current setup. Good thing I still have most of my tax refund left.

The week went okay. There were no major blow ups. The biggest issue I had was dealing with all of the emails with requests for changes from my boss and prioritizing them. And I thought I was gonna run out of tasks this week. Hah! I had so many requests from my boss that I didn’t even touch the tasks that Justin gave me before he left.

I think I did okay. Of the things that my boss sent me, I think I got most of them taken care of. There were a couple larger ones that I didn’t do, but that was because I was leaving them until last. I wanted to get the small ones done and live first. And the changes I was making was all within the same system, so 2 different sets of changes affected the same files. I didn’t want to get one task done and wait on approval and start a second and get approval on that before the first because I couldn’t publish it until the first got approved. That’s why I did the small stuff first.

I definitely got my fill of publishing. When it’s my own websites, I really don’t care. They’re just my sites, and I don’t think I have that many visitors anyways. But the work websites … that’s nerve wracking. I didn’t want to make a change and publish it only to have it take down the websites. That would not be good. But that didn’t happen. All was fine.

I hope I lived up to my supervisor’s (Justin) expectations. He had enough confidence in me to leave me in charge and go on vacation for a week … and to Mexico no less. I think he had more confidence in me than I did … LOL.

I’m just glad it’s over. I don’t know how Justin manages to juggle everything. A week of doing that was more than enough for me. I don’t wanna deal with that pressure anymore. Small shots is fine, but that’s it. Now I’m gonna relax this weekend and try not to look at the error log every 10 minutes. Every couple of hours should be fine.