Where's Jeremy (2013) - Part 2: Cray - "I'm a real boy!"

This is post #13 in Where's Jeremy (2013)

I officially started in the OS Test group on Monday, April 1. Appropriately enough for it being April Fools Day, when I moved into my "real boy cube" that morning I found a note saying ‘congrats on the new job, you now report to Joel, signed, HR.' Joel is the brother of Ben (my college roommate who'd brought me into Cray), and was no stranger to pranking my cube - on a number of occasions he's arranged my Beanie Babies into compromising poses. Yes, I decorate my desk with Beanie Babies. I feel your judgement. Anyway, Joel's note made me giggle.

I moved my stuff from my contractor desk to my cube, had my new employee orientation with HR, then Linda (manager) took me out to lunch with Glen, who would serve as my on-boarding mentor. Truth be told at first I was a little disappointed and nervous - Glen has a very strong personality (actually he reminds me a lot of myself from Minnehaha) and I was worried we would clash. But let me say: I was very wrong. Glen's brilliant, and that can be intimidating, but he's also a jokester, and that's something I can latch onto. He's also got really cool stories, about Cray, customer sites, model rockets, and on and on. We get along just fine. Who knows if I've been able to "impress" him at all while I've been here, but I'd go so far as to claim we have some sort of friendship, or at least, a work-friendship.

My first assignment was to write an MPI distributed computing program to calculate prime numbers... in C (a language I haven't touched in over 6 years, since my middle years of college). I stumbled through, but actually turned out a reasonably good program. The point of the exercise was just to get an idea how a customer's application might run on our systems. Glen also taught me about our test suites, though as he pointed out I'm kind of an odd case because I've already worked here for a year, so there wasn't a whole lot in the way of "introductory" information that he needed to cover.

When I started, my coworker John admin'd both of OS Test's internal Crays. With lots of changes happening on the newer system, more and more of John's time was required there; since I'd had 9 or 10 months of admin experience in my previous group, and since I knew I enjoyed that kind of work, I expressed my interest to Linda in helping out, in order to take some of the load off John (in the hopes he could stop working 50 hour weeks every week). This was received well and so in late April I shadowed John on an upgrade day, and then within a week or two the older system kind of became "mine" to admin. Now, I'd chosen the cube literally right next to John's, so he was/is always there to answer questions, it's just that I started to take on most of the responsibility for "my" system's well-being, allowing him to focus on his alone.

In late May, OS Test was allocated another internal Cray, and I happily volunteered to admin it. This new system was very small, so it soon became a running joke in staff meetings that I'd beg Dennis to find more blades for me (or jokingly I'd conspicuously slip someone a dollar bill, to ask Dennis the same). We have fun in our group.

In July, Gina, who had been serving as project coordinator for our group, became my new official manager. It was a numbers thing: Linda simply had too many direct reports, so they needed to split the group.

In late August through September, a "special project" system came around for testing some hardware that was about to ship to a customer, and it had very high visibility, up at least a few levels in the management chain. As Linda phrased it, I "waved my hand" and volunteered myself to admin it, though I didn't realize what I'd be getting myself into. The upside of being on a special project is that you get anything you ask for; remember how I was always begging for extra parts on my small system? On this special project, I got anything I wanted, whether that meant "liberating" some new hardware from manufacturing, or stealing blades out of other important systems. The price paid for this royal treatment, though, is having to deliver, which meant working a lot of evenings and Saturdays, and a lot of pressure to get things done quickly (and correctly). From the get-go, John promised he would mentor me through the process, and he really did; I mean, he made me look good. I learned a ton, and eventually could run mostly independently, but it was his patient teaching that got me there. Dennis and Gina were frequently telling me how impressed they were, because I was always three steps ahead and when the visibility for the project goes all the way up to the VPs, it's nice to be able to say "I'm waiting on so-and-so", rather than "I'm the hold-up". One day about mid-way through the project, my boss's boss came by my cube to personally thank me for the work I'd done. The project leader, Joe, also came by a few times to thank me, and at the end of the testing, brought me a six-bottle-pack of some classy-looking beer as a thank you for all the weekends and extra hours. (I didn't have the heart to tell him I don't drink beer, so I graciously accepted and gave it away to other coworkers who do). I was touched. He didn't have to do that. And again what it boils down to is: John helped make me look good.

Before I was officially hired at Cray, friends/family would ask me if I got offered a job, if I'd take it. My answer had been "yeah, probably, because it's a good place for me to be right now. Is it my dream job? No, but it's a good job, and one from which I can see myself supporting a family, which is my dream."

My answer has changed now, in large part due to the new group I'm in. I get to wake up every day, and genuinely look forward to going in to work. I get to work with people I like and enjoy being around. My team of managers (Gina, Linda, Dennis) have a true camaraderie that makes them wonderful to work for. And in a small way, I am humbled to get to help change the world: researchers are using Crays to find cures for currently incurable diseases, and I get to be a small part of that large process. Finally, I get to have fun and enjoy what I'm doing; life's too short to spend 40 or more hours a week doing something you hate. How many people in general, and then how many people my age, get to say all of these things? I'm very lucky.

Where's Jeremy (2013) - Part 2: Cray - "Can I stick my nose in your business?"

This is post #12 in Where's Jeremy (2013)

If you'll recall from March, Cray did a re-org, after which I was left trying to cram a 25% job into a 100% work week (yes, you read that correctly). This was stressful. However, if you also read my comment in that post, you'll know that one of the OS Testers approached me and asked if he could stick his nose in my business. I'll pick up the story from there.

Actually, first I'll tell an un-related story from one day later. On Thursday, I wandered over by my coworker Jason's cube, and met a man in black, with a strangely familiar Canadian accent. The Man in Black turned out to be Michael, a coworker I've only known through phone and email, because he works from home on the west coast of Canadia. Finally I had a face to put to the voice! I even got to help Michael and Jason troubleshoot an issue at a customer site later that evening (and... I actually had some useful ideas!), then afterward we went out for drinks and talked for hours. Really good day.

Back to my blog post & comment from March. Bob asked if I was happy being a contractor, and if I'd ever consider applying for a job in another group. Turns out, there were several openings in the OS Test group, where he works. I said I'd at least be interested in learning more. Bob talked with his manager (Linda) either that day or the next, then came back and handed me a post-it note with three job posting IDs. We talked for a long while about his work in OS Test, and I looked at the openings. Of the three, one looked like it would be interesting, and that I might fit the skill requirements. I talked with Linda, explained that Bob and I had been chatting, and expressed my interest in the particular job opening. My hopes were dashed when she said they were literally making an offer on that position to another candidate that afternoon, but - and this is what makes Linda Linda - she said I should send her a resumé right away, and she would call HR and put a hold on the other offer, so they could interview me.

Wow.

Now, leading up to this, I'd also been having conversations with my coworker John. Since John's worked for Cray longer than I've been alive, he's had one or two managers. But he told me, in no uncertain terms: Linda is the best manager he has ever worked for, not the least reason of which is that she sticks up and fights for her people. Hearing John's glowing review of Linda, and hearing the same from Bob, made my decision pretty straightforward. I applied the same theory I held in college, which is that a great teacher can make even the most boring subject come alive (Professor Steve Hahn, history class), whereas a terrible teacher can kill even the best subject (specific examples redacted in deference to the Thumper Principle). Just to clarify: this is not to say I expected working in the test group to be boring, my hypothesis was simply that, even if it's not the world's best-ever job, I'd have one of the world's best-ever managers, and that can make all the difference.

I sent Linda my resumé ("draft 1" we'll call it), and she suggested some revisions before she sent it to the interview team. If this all strikes you as "above and beyond" behavior for a hiring manager, you might be correct. Linda and I had a few private conversations during my application process, and I found out she and Dennis (another prominent and well-respected team-lead) actually had been trying to hire me into their group for the last 6 months! Linda couldn't approach me herself, because it might be viewed as head-hunting, so instead they kept sending people to drop subtle hints at me. Of course I don't do well with subtle so I missed all the hints! Until Bob came along and [figuratively] smacked me over the head. I love 2x4s. I also found out that Linda had been in talks with my then-current manager, asking if/when he was going to hire me, and fighting for me, saying "we don't want to lose him". This had all gone on, without me knowing, and I was amazed / floored / humbled / speechless / awed / felt so special, when I found out.

When I told this all to John, I think his reaction was "wow," and it was further reinforcement of what he'd told me.

In bullet-points, the whole shebang went down like this:

• Wednesday, March 6, Bob approached me and asked if I might be interested in becoming a tester
• Friday, March 8, Linda and I met for an hour (I think I'd already given her my resumé at this point; this conversation was more about what a job in her group would look like)
• Monday or Tuesday, I break the news to my current manager that I will be interviewing in the OS Test group
• Wednesday, March 13, I had 4 separate interviews, with Glen, Naomi, Steve, and Dennis - names that would soon (foreshadowing!) become very familiar to me. My "interview" with Dennis was very informal; he opened our conversation with "my mind's already made up, I've been telling Linda to hire you for 6 months!" I love Dennis.
• Monday, March 18, I had my formal interview with Linda
• Tuesday, March 19, I had my 6th and final interview, with Ed
• WednesdayThursdayFriday I freak out anxious to hear what's going to happen!
• Monday, March 25, first thing in the morning, I meet with HR to discuss my salary "requirements" (I don't know! Whatever you want to pay me?) ; We agree to some numbers, I sign a piece of paper, and... that's it! I'm hired!!!

Discretely, I made the rounds to my former manager and group to tell them the news. While mostly they were happy for me, I think a few of them didn't really "get" why I would switch groups. Oh well. Then there was Wendy, my team lead before the re-org, who was [jokingly] angry at me because she'd wanted me to get hired into her new group :)

Tuesday, even though I hadn't yet officially started, I sat in on the OS Test team meeting and Linda introduced me to everyone. That room full of strangers are no longer strange to me; some I'd even call friends.

Stay tuned for more.

Cray Re-org (aka, Jeremy freaks out with change)

Friday morning, February 8, my manager called a last-minute meeting with me and some other coworkers. Ruh-roh.

Short version: Cray re-organized the people under my boss's boss['s boss?]: teams shifted, people moved to different managers, managers moved to different directors... and I was moved away from the sysadmin group. where I spent the majority of my work time, to 100% in the batch / workload manager group, where I previously spent only a quarter (maybe a third?) of my time. Mysteriously, my manager has always been under the impression that I spend most of my time in batch / WLM, but, that never actually has been reality.

Now the obvious good news is: no lay-offs. As one of my friends put it, oftentimes "re-org" is a diplomatic way of throwing people off the Titanic before it hits the iceberg.

Yet I was distraught. Even though I still had/have my job, it's completely changed. The skills I spent 10 months learning, largely are no longer applicable. After 10 months, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of things, and even working on bugs and contributing [small amounts of] source code. My world was turned topsy-turvy, and so my gut reactions were panic and frustration.

In my new group, I do no system administration at all. This is unfortunate, because I enjoyed that work (and, again, because I finally felt like I had a handle on things). Instead I'm supposed to be work more on batch related software integration and testing, which... is fine... but... change scares me. Honestly it's the fear of failure that terrifies me. There were mumblings that I'd be writing code in the new group, where everything's written in C, a language I haven't touched since 2006 or 7. It's not that I can't re-learn it, that's not the issue. It's that I've spent almost a year learning something else - why not leverage that?

After panicking, I set about considering how to fight change. I asked my [former] team lead, "got any openings for a contractor in your new group?" She laughed and identified with me - in addition to losing me, she lost two other [much smarter than I am] people from the group, and the whole change was a surprise to her as well.

On the other hand. My friend Ben (college roommate, who's worked at Cray for years) pointed out: it's not often a company will pay for your time to learn a new skill - if they want me coding in C, and are willing to bring me up to speed, well, that's not a bad thing. Also, unless I know for sure that development isn't what I want to do, there's not much reason to fight it.

Okay, with a month's perspective on this: at the get-go I heard I'd be working on some important up and coming project related to one of out batch vendors. Well, it's been a month, and I've yet to hear anything about that. So while I'm not exactly twiddling my thumbs, I definitely have spare cycles. Which is frustrating, when I know my old group is still understaffed. I've approached my manager and asked him for more work; I think he's asking around to see what can get added to my plate, but this is really, really frustrating: why was he so adamant I not continue in the old group for a transition period (again, when they're so understaffed), when he doesn't even have anything for me to be doing? Doesn't seem like the best use of resources. Also not the first time we've been down this road, but at least in the past, I had my team lead who could give me direction and projects. Now she's in that other group :(

One month later, and I'm still angsty. However, my manager did say he was trying to get me hired full time, so right now I'm just biding my time and waiting to see what'll happen. (you need to understand how huge this is - coworker after coworker has said how they hope the company will hire me as a real employee, but last week was the first time I heard my manager actually express his intent for that!)

Perspective: these are first-world problems, and I acknowledge that. However, they are still real problems, and I'm tired of telling myself that my problems aren't big enough or third-world enough to be legitimate.

Update on Cray - August 2012

Depending when we last spoke, you may have heard that I was stressed at my new job, overwhelmed, or possibly enjoying myself. The latest is that I feel like I've finally got my feet on the ground. I can get through a morning software update without [many] questions, only when weird things come up. And for the workload manager software that I've been testing/learning, I once got through an install in a record [record for me] 45 minutes! One of my mentor/coworkers was mightily impressed at that.

I've also grown to really appreciate a Canadian coworker of mine, one of the resident experts on the aforementioned software I test. He reminds me very much of myself, except he has a much cooler accent. At first when I would talk with him over the phone, I thought he was annoyed that I was bothering him, and he would say things in a "this should be obvious" sort of way. Which for me as a newbie with no experience, well, no, they weren't obvious. Over the last two months, we've built a rapport, and though hard to explain, it's good. I feel somewhat validated by the experience - for all the teachers at Minnehaha who complained that I was rude or short or lacked tact, I never really felt sorry, because I always felt they were not giving me a fair shake; my experience with this coworker at Cray validates this feeling because of the similarities: he's not rude at all, he's not mean, he's just direct, and highly highly intelligent. Much smarter than I.

Cray: A sight he'd never expected

My boss's boss at Minnehaha just emailed me:

Saw a sight I never expected to see this morning - you in your car heading across the Lake Street Bridge at a little after 7:30am. I can recall your not recognizing that there was more than one 7:30 per day, and AM was NOT it!! Welcome to the world!

This made my day :)

Cray: Now I'm the expert?

Let's be honest, my last post about Cray was fairly negative-minded. I'm over myself now.

The new contractor, Brad, is a great guy, and a very fast learner. Yesterday he started sitting in the driver's seat for the morning system upgrades, with supervision, but he was the one doing everything. And yesterday, I was the one "supervising". As in, when Brad had questions, I was sort of able to answer some of them. We still ran into glitches that required help from other admins, but for many questions that came up, I was astonished not only at my ability to answer them, but also how comfortable I've become in the jargon we use. This experience was very heartening for me, realizing how much I've learned, and how much of it is becoming second nature.

Also, though I'd never have thought I'd say it, I almost "like" starting at 6 a.m. Who am I? It's like I'm a grown-up with a real-person job now. Scary.

Cray: Buzz Lightyear has arrived

Now that I've finally learned how to do system updates, time to switch things up so I don't know what I'm doing again. They hired another contractor to take over running system updates, he started yesterday, and that means I'm off that particular task and on to other pastures. Not sure if they're greener or not, just different.

Supposedly this means I'm moving toward what I was actually hired to do, though, so I guess that's a good thing? Maybe. Whatever.

Just wish they'd told me before I got here [unnecessarily] at 6 a.m. today.

Cray: I broke all the things

Not actually all the things, but I did hose one system.

The OS update this morning ran out of disk space. Not to worry, I was just trained how to safely delete some old update files that are no longer needed. I ran the special program, and it worked. I ran it again, this time giving it several sets of files to prune, but it took a long time to run, and there was already enough free space by then, so I stopped it halfway through (I was told this was safe).

Somehow, either because I stopped the program, or who knows why, the system got corrupted and had to be restored from backup. It's still not working yet.

Here's what I learned:

- It's important to log all your activity (which I did), so the debugging folk have a better chance of finding what went wrong
- It's important to do frequent backups of your dev systems (last backup on this system was over a month old)
- My Cray coworkers are super smart when it comes to problem-solving. I described the problem, and this sparked a very lively (and intelligent) conversation of how to solve it. I'm used to having to solve most things on my own, so this is a nice change.
- At the end of the day, whether it was my fault or a bug in the program I ran, these things happen. People aren't perfect, code's not perfect, and that's why we have jobs.

Weeks 2 and 3 at Cray

It's the end of week 3, time for an update: Life is better.

Far from being an expert in all things Cray [yet], my comfort level continues to grow daily, as does my "technical prowess", for lack of better terms. I've run the software update process now several times on my own (where "on my own" means sitting at my own desk, but with a mentor nearby for my frequent questions). Each time goes smoother and smoother, fewer questions, more problem solving (read: intelligent guessing) on my own, and I feel like I'm getting the hang of this.

Last week Carl delivered an unsolicited compliment that the devadmin folks were impressed how quickly I was picking up on things. That made my day. This whole experience has been a tremendous lesson in humility and non-perfectionism, so hearing an outsider's perspective that I'm actually doing well, made me feel very good about myself.

Ben has jokingly said since the beginning, "enjoy this time when no one expects you to know anything, when they're not hounding your desk asking questions." Well, as of yesterday, I seem to be "there" - someone stopped by Wendy's desk (I'm living in Wendy's cubicle while she's out of town) to ask questions about one of our test/development systems. I told him I'd try to help if I could, but no promises. Well, lo and behold, when he asked his questions, I knew how to find the answers! It took me probably 20 times longer than it would have taken anyone else in our group (they would have known off the top of their heads), but I looked up the documentation, knew which commands to run, and got him [most of] the information he needed! I was so proud of myself. And if you know me, you know that feeling is an accomplishment.

Let's also talk about how I'm getting here at 6 a.m. two or three days a week. That's right. Me. Who used to stumble in the door at MA no earlier than 10 o'clock, now I'm willingly subjecting myself to 6 a.m. mornings in order to run these software updates and learn. It's like I'm a real person or something. Best reaction: yesterday evening I stopped by MA to do some web work, and bumped into MK, one of the office people. I told her about my 6 a.m. mornings; she was absolutely taken aback with surprise. It was hilarious. I mean, I guess I never would have believed it, either.

So, in summary, life is going much better. The learning curve is still steep, but, I'm getting there.

Fourth and fifth days at Cray

Thursday and Friday were, to put it mildly, infinitely better than "Day 1". Both days started at 6 a.m. (I'm not a morning person; at the same time there's some perverse pleasure in greeting the world before sunrise, before most people are awake, and before there's any traffic at all on the roads), because both yesterday and today I sat in the driver's seat for updating a development Cray's software to the latest nightly build. This is the same process I watched Monday morning when I first arrived, and now I'm doing it myself... with close supervision from the experts who normally do this two or three times a week.

Much of the 4-6 hour process is copy-and-paste from a wiki page of instructions, so I don't have to understand what each and every command does quite yet. I am getting the general feel for what's going on, though, and I've learned the most important acronyms and lingo. Perhaps most importantly, I'm feeling so much more confident that, yes, I will eventually understand all this (a feeling that was decidedly lacking on, say, Monday).

Yesterday after the software update and lunch, I dove back into that Perl book and finished two more lessons: variables and arrays. The language is similar to PHP, so, at least for now, learning is going quickly. (PHP is the language I used to write all the web apps for MA).

Today after the update I dove into learning how to style XML with something called XLS (or maybe it's XLS-FO). This is not dissimilar to how you'd style a web page (example: making text larger or smaller, different colors, etc), but the syntax is different, and new to me, so researching into that took my afternoon.

Why? Carl showed me a simple webpage he'd created that formatted (using XLS) a status report from a Cray. And he mentioned how he wanted part of it formatted differently.

Challenge accepted.

By the end of the day, I'd learned how to make that specific change, and also how to make the whole page look a little prettier. Now my web background is coming into play. When I showed Carl the new page he was very happy. And so was I. I'd actually accomplished something!

Interspersed in the days, of course, were good conversations. I met my second neighbor Jason today - he works from home most of the time, and today was his only day in the office this week. (Mario, my neighbor two desks down, has been friendly and helpful all week, I don't think I've mentioned his name here yet).

This afternoon Carl and I reminisced about St Olaf, and were joined by another Ole: new-to-me coworker Jim. Despite the years in between our classes, it turned out we each had a couple of the same teachers!

And last but almost more important than everything else, let's not forget the free donuts in the office on Friday mornings.

It's Friday night, and I've survived my first week. I can do this.

And though I'm exhausted, sick (flu or cold or something), still swamped with all there is to learn and do, both at work, and at home, and even though the phrase is overused, I'll still say it:

Life is good.

Third day at Cray

The daily blog probably won't continue much longer, but I'm mostly doing this for myself, so in a few weeks/months/years I can look back and remember how terribly terrified I felt on my first day. (hyperbole).

Day 3 started slightly after 8 a.m., meeting Wendy to watch her boot a Cray, ask questions, and, mysteriously, start to feel like I might actually be beginning to understand some of this terminology.

Or maybe that was just gastrointestinal distress. Hard to distinguish sometimes.

Jason brought over a ridiculously thick user manual for me to dive into (light bedtime reading... or rather, reading that might cause bedtime), and we arranged that I'd meet him tomorrow at 6 a.m., when I'd actually sit in the driver's seat to install an update and boot a Cray. Eeek!

I did joke, however, after Wendy's repeated reminders that she wasn't expecting me to remember all these details, that I was ready to take the written test. I mean, not really, but I'm sorta catching on. Sort of. I feel pretty confident I could draw you a picture of how the Cray's nodes are connected, and which nodes do what.

The rest of the day, I:

- finally got my Windows account password reset so I could log into my email
- got my underground parking permit figured out... mostly
- debugged my Perl code from yesterday
- had lunch with Ben
- talked with Carl for a while about 1984, Cray, church and God, and who knows what else
- got a personal webspace set up so I can play around with a site Carl maintains
- met with Blaine (boss) and he assigned me a web project!!!! to mockup an interface for some other managers

Then I mowed the lawn and finished an audio book (A Monster Calls). I hate mowing the lawn, but having something productive to do made it more tolerable.

Now I think it's time for dinner and Netflix.

Second day at Cray

To say my second day went perfectly would be an overstatement. To say today was as stressful as yesterday, fortunately would also be an overstatement.

Today, in fact, was much better than yesterday. For starters, I got to sleep in, and not show up at the office until 9 a.m. And while there were cars on the road (as opposed to middle of the night non-traffic I encountered yesterday morning), I once again missed rush hour.

The highlights of today were:

- my Linux login credentials actually worked today! But no one’s bothered to tell me my Windows/email un/pw, so I still can’t check email. Nor could I set up my voicemail (no one’s told me what that ID is supposed to be, either). There’s great irony in all this, because I had more than a few moments of annoyance at MA when teachers had issues similar to what I’m experiencing right now. Neither Cray nor MA has great, or any, documentation for newcomers. I’m pondering what I can do to fix this.

- talking with Carl briefly, then reading some wiki pages about Cray’s scheduler application and it’s proprietary language for interacting with 3rd party batch systems. (or something like that - if that didn’t make any sense to you, it’s okay, because it doesn’t make very much sense to me [yet], either)

- lunch with my friend Ben, and his Cray friends.

- meeting Wendy, and talking with her for almost an hour. Wendy is a sysadmin, one of the folks I’ll be working with, and possibly taking some of their responsibilities on myself to free up their time. She’s been at Cray for 10+ years, and is a very very smart woman. On top of that, though, she was also very personable, and, like Carl, makes me feel at ease.

- reading chapter 1 of “Learning Perl”, about a programming language I need to learn for the sysadmin side of things. (so I’m told)

- Ben stopped by my desk, we went and sat overlooking the park outside, and talked about Cray, my experiences so far, his experiences, advice, wisdom, and so on.


After work, my parents hosted me for dinner. A three-fold occasion:

1) Grandpa’s birthday would have been yesterday.
2) Today, 27 years ago, is when Mom and Dad found out I was on the way.
3) To celebrate my first two days at Cray.

I wish I could have spent more time with them, maybe watched another Smothers Brothers or Carol Burnette episode like we did for Easter.

Instead, I left their house and went to Minnehaha to set up a new server at South Campus, and patch a bug in a web app. Which made for a very long work day.

On the plus side, I’m now done with the large extras casting project from this weekend (100 people Sunday, 40 Monday, 20 for tonight), and the client, as far as I know, is happy. Huge relief to have that off my plate. And by that I mean, I’m looking forward to the next time, I learned so many lessons on what to do better/more efficiently, but with starting the new job this week, having less on my plate is a much needed gift.

First day at Cray

I know a lot of folks will be curious how my first day went. Here goes:

Last Thursday I was given the choice of showing up at 6 or 9 a.m. Or presumably somewhere in between, but I chose 6, in order to watch an installation. Now I thought this would be a video feed of a massive cluster being installed. Turned out it was a software upgrade on a development cluster. More on that later.

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm this morning, at 4:50ish. I had tried to go to bed early last night, but the anticipation of the new job, plus stress from the ongoing extras casting project I'm working on, kept my brain on overdrive for a while as I lay in bed, wishing for sleep.

Anyway, I got up, got going, and was on the road at 5:30.

I parked at 5:50. In the wrong ramp, because I couldn't find the right one, then, in the dark, couldn't even find the right building. I'd only been there once before, and it was sunny. This morning at o-dark-thirty it was still nighttime. And raining. A minute or two after 6 I got into the building and made my way to second floor, to the suite where I'd gone for the interview.

Door locked, lights off, no one around.

Now's when I become worried that I hadn't actually heard back from my boss (Blaine) confirming the time. I'd replied to him Thursday afternoon, literally 3 minutes after he emailed asking about my start time. Then some skyway walkers told me the Cray people never get there before 6:30/7. So I waited.

And waited.

And thought to myself, what a crappy way to start my first day. Worse, I was pretty sure in one of the suites there was a person waiting for me, but I was in the wrong place.

At 6:30 the receptionist arrived and let me in, but said Blaine usually doesn't arrive until much later. So I stuck by her as she opened up the suites, turned on lights, restocked coffee, etc. We bumped into Scott, a now-to-be-co-worker of mine, who introduced himself and took me back to the office area, where I got to watch Jason, another now-coworker, do the software upgrade. They were both very friendly, but I was A) tired and B) in over my head. Which I should have expected. Jason answered a lot of questions, nevertheless there were simply A LOT of terminologies and acronyms and I felt lost and overwhelmed and thinking to myself, "I'm never going to get this".

On a complete side-note: I love how so many people have decorated their cubicles. Scott's, for instance, is literally covered with rubber ducks. Hundreds. It's just his thing. In another cube I saw a Winnie the Pooh, in another, a pet rock collection, Star Wars collectibles, and so on.

Back to watching Jason. While I was panicking on the inside, they sent me across the hall (back to the main suite) to meet with Mary Lu. She took my photo, gave me an ID badge, and told me all about the building, parking, etc. She showed me all the free tea/coffee/hot cocoa, the vending area and fridges, then around the building, underground parking, desk areas, and so on. Very friendly, helped me feel a little more at ease.

Blaine finally arrived about 9 or so, apparently he'd never received my email (it got lost in cyberspace, and came in Friday night after business hours). We talked briefly, he basically said "learn stuff from Jason", and so I continued watching Jason's Linux prowess. There was literally nothing else for me to do: my workstation hadn't been set up yet, and I was specifically told I didn't need to bring my laptop. But the time did give me a chance to ask Jason more questions, and we also talked briefly about his family, and the three iOS apps he has in the App Store.

Ben, my roommate from college, arrived a little after 10. I had to give him a hard time, since I'd already been there 4 hours! Really, I was just grateful to see a face I already knew.

Blaine walked by again and offered to take me to lunch with a couple other coworkers (one of whom happened to be Ben's brother, who I'd met before!), and they brought me to a delicious diner a couple skyways away. Let me rephrase: the diner may or may not have been delicious, I didn't try eating it, but the food they served was delicious.

During lunch Blaine and the others admitted how much lingo there is to learn just to get a basic grasp on what's being said, and I readily agreed. I was naïve to think I could jump right into doing something productive on the first day.

After lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon with Carl, who is currently doing most of the job that I'll be taking on (he's got more important things to work on).

First we toured the Cray cube farms and he introduced me to some key people that I'd either be working with or asking questions, or just good people to know in general. Then we grabbed a conference room and, in between my yawns (he wasn't boring, I was just so dang tired), Carl walked through the basics of their computer environment.


This time was a Godsend. He made me feel much more at ease than I had all day. Finally I felt like, "yes, I might be able to understand this." Much of what we talked about helped bring this morning's time watching Jason into focus - now some of those commands were making more sense, knowing how the clusters are set up. The pretty pictures on the whiteboard also helped. Well, they were functional diagrams, anyway. And we also tangented into more fun topics of conversation, about technology, life, and whatever.

After we finished, my desktop was all set up and ready to use. Except my login didn't work. Turns out I don't yet exist in their system. Typical. No, seriously, this is the kind of luck I have - if something can be wonky, it's gonna happen to me. It's fine, they should have it fixed tomorrow.

And that was my first day. The end.

Defying Gravity (aka, doing something Cray-zy)

2012 has turned my life upside down. Mostly all positive. If you'd asked two months ago what my life would look like, there's no way I would have guessed.

In these last two months, I:

1. [finally] decided to pursue my MDiv at seminary.
2. launched a casting/extras casting company, booked background for several commercial shoots in the last couple weeks, just finished two nights of auditions for a theatre show, and also just got hired to book 100+ extras for a national TV show shooting here later in April.
3. received an email from college roommate and good friend Ben, inviting me to apply for a position at Cray, the supercomputer company.

In your years of living you've no doubt encountered moments when you realize, "life will never be the same again." Change is happening. And ready or not, here it comes.

When I read Ben's email, I was intrigued. He's told me stories about Cray, that they're a good employer and he enjoys his job. I've even (very briefly) considered applying in the past, but the timing never seemed right.

It never seemed right because I'm comfortable working at Minnehaha. I know the system, I know the people, and I'm pretty awesome at my job. Why leave?

But ready or not, this opportunity was knocking at my door. So why not see what happens?

I sent Ben my resumé, he forwarded to his boss, and, less than 6 days after Ben's initial email, I had my interview.

During the interview I met with Blaine (my would-be boss), and Carl (another coworker who, up until now, has been doing the job they'd be hiring me to do, in order to take it off his plate). Both were friendly, and I felt comfortable, as much as one can in an interview, I suppose.

I've only had one "real" job interview (for another IT position), and that was more than a year ago, so I didn't really know any tips or tricks except to be myself. And send a hand-written thank-you note afterward. I thought, "surely they'll have better candidates, but one of my goals for 2012 was to have at least one interview, so if nothing else, I'm crossing that off my todo list."

The job description itself, in non-techy-speak: test a bunch of programs with a bunch of other programs, see how (or if) they work together, document it, and let the programmers know what might be a bug that needs fixing. As my interviewers put it, the job is 80-90% testing/documenting, and 10-20% maintaining a website where clients can read the results.

The down-side: this 80% involves a considerable amount of UNIX/Linux server administration, which, while not completely foreign to me, is not my strongest strength. The plus-side: they reassured me that, if I were hired, they could train me on that 80%, whereas it's harder to find someone who's got experience and creativity on the 20% web portion.

I felt good about the interview: I cited specific examples of my problem-solving ability - writing different scripts at MA that integrated with our Open Directory, and later with Google Apps, and how I had no knowledge going in, learned everything on my own, and problem-solved some very complex issues. It felt wonderful bragging about myself in a not-really-bragging sort of way.

I asked lots of questions about the job - found out it's part-time contract work, not benefits-eligible - and in total spent about two hours with Blaine and Carl. They said they needed to interview a few other folks the next week, so I wouldn't hear back for a while. In the meantime, I needed to total up my living expenses and give them a number of how much I'd like to get paid.

The problem is, if they were to offer me the job, I'd essentially have three jobs on the table: Minnehaha, Cray, and Casting. There is time in my day for any two, but not all three. Given that Casting won't be going away, if I were to be offered and accept a position at Cray, it would need to offer enough to replace Minnehaha's paycheck, plus the health benefits, phone/internet service, etc, that the school covers. I threw out a number that seemed to work, Blaine emailed back, thanked me, and said they'd be in touch.

I put it out of my mind. No sense worrying about it until there's something to worry about.

Two Fridays ago, I got an email from Blaine: they'd chosen me. He was working with HR to draw up the contract, and I should expect an offer the following week.

Freak-out!

Humbling, exciting, nerve-wracking, and at the end of the day, I convinced myself again, "don't worry about it yet." Because until I know what number they're offering, I can't make a decision: if Cray offers less than what I need to cover expenses, then that would be an easy decision; otherwise, I'll deal with it when I actually have facts to ponder.

Monday came. No email from Blaine.

Tuesday, no email.

Wednesday.

Email.

Here goes nothing. 8 page PDF with lots of information, NDA agreements, places to sign, etc. And the offer. The actual, real-life job offer.

They met my requested number.

Freak-out again! I practically ran out of the school building, nervously tapping at my phone. I needed help, advice, and I knew the two people I most wanted to talk it over with were my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Mark. When if comes to financial advice, I know few people I'd trust more.

Lisa picked up, I asked if they were free that evening, and then after work I drove down to talk it out. Two hours later, we'd worked through all the pros and cons. Actually, there really weren't any cons. I've long wanted to experience life outside of Minnehaha, I've even joked that "getting fired would be the best thing that ever happens to me," because it would force me to put myself out into the real world. Cray's offer will cover my expenses, even health insurance. If it works out and there's a full-time position that opens up later on, great, I'll have my foot in the door. If this job runs its course and the time comes to move on, great, I've got so many options open to me, from the corporate world to independent contracting, web development, maybe the casting company will become a full-time gig by then, or "worst" case I can apply at an Apple store (there's nothing "worst" about it, though - I'd love it). And worst-worst case, I'm forced to say to my parents, "I can't afford my rent payment this month," and they'll understand and work with me. I have the benefit of not buying my house from a bank that would foreclose on me. My absolute worst case scenarios are better than most of the world's best cases. Why am I afraid?

And again, looking at my last two months and what's changed, why worry about what life will look like in a year, when I don't even know what the next two weeks will bring?

After leaving Mark and Lisa's I went to my parents' and filled them in. They were supportive of my decision. Because really, I've thought pretty much everything through. No one can rationally accuse me of making a rash decision here.

I emailed Cray back Wednesday night to accept. Thursday afternoon I met with Merry, my boss at Minnehaha, to give her my two-weeks notice. She was amazingly supportive. Sad for the school, but supportive of me as a person. We talked about a transition plan, and how I didn't want to leave the school in a lurch. So I know I'll be back a little bit to help train in the new person when they hire him/her.

Over the last week I've met one-on-one with my tech team coworkers, and they've all been very supportive, too. A year ago I thought I was leaving to move to California, so in a sense, I worked through some pre-emptive mourning at that time. Still this experience is bittersweet, because let's be honest: this is a major life change for me. I've been employed at Minnehaha (at least part time) for almost 9 years, and it's become a home. It's not like I'll never be back - Cray's just over in St. Paul, and I'm not moving anywhere (though my commute does quintuple from 3 to 15 minutes). But I know life will be so incredibly different.

Not bad-different. Just, different.

To quote Elphaba, "Now it's too late for second guessing; too late to go back to sleep; it's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap!"

---

My letter to all Minnehaha employees:



Leaving home

In September 2001 a shy, introverted 10th grader came to Minnehaha Academy, and for eleven years, this community has been a home. As a student I remember bringing home trophies for the Debate team; as a student worker, I remember countless hours of tutelage from Peter, my mentor and predecessor; I remember walking through the chapel building when it was under construction; and I remember my heart-warming graduation/going-away-to-college party from the business office. These and so many more precious moments fill my mind when I think about Minnehaha.

Now it’s time to explore the next chapter in my life: I’ve accepted a position at Cray, the supercomputer company, to do some nerdy computer work, and I start there on April 16.

Minnehaha forever will remain part of me. And as I reminisce about these past eleven years, I’m also excited to hear news from the next eleven, and beyond. If I were to write out all my hopes and dreams for Minnehaha, they’d look something like this:

I hope that, as budgets continue to be cut, we won’t lose focus on The Student; I hope that activities benefitting The Student will continue in spite of financial burden and overall enrollment downturn. In the same vein, I hope every department and office will be creative in how we spend money, remembering that art supplies, music sheets, athletic equipment, or classroom desks and chairs, are just as important as office remodels and administrative restructuring.

I hope the capital improvements budget is allowed to replace the dying carpet around our buildings (especially the computer lab at North :), and that painters will continue to beautify our hallways, giving them a new, vibrant life.

I hope Minnehaha will launch a 1-1 laptop or iPad initiative for middle and high school students. Our school has the potential to be leaders in technology, but right now we’re just followers.

I hope to see more paperless classrooms and fewer printers.

I hope to see a deeper understanding of diversity: theological, skin, socio-economic, political, etc. I think too often we, myself especially included, think it’s “us” vs “them” - I would desire conversations to open up new perspectives, on all sides of all issues.

I hope Minnehaha will finally hire openly GLBT faculty members at both campuses, not only to grow diversity, but more importantly to start transforming Minnehaha into a truly safe space for questioning youth.

Most importantly, I hope Minnehaha continues to foster a community deeply rooted in our common faith, in which teachers, staff, and students continue to be blessed with opportunities to worship and pray with one another before our Most High God.


My deepest and most heartfelt thanks to those many coworkers who have supported me, brightened my day with your smiles, listened to my frustrations and joys, counseled and inspired me, both as student and more recently, as friend. My eyes are tearing up - I will miss you.


May the LORD bless you and keep you;
May the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you;
May the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.

- Jeremy