Been a while

Wow, after so long this feels odd. 

It would be fun if I could tell you that I’ve been on tour dispensing commuting wisdom to the masses but alas no, work just got in the way. 

Working in the technology field (aka professional nerding) one can imagine what the most valuable competencies might be in an employee.  Raw intelligence?  Maybe good problem solving skills?  How about the ability to take a stand when you know it’s the right thing to do?  These all seem reasonable to me.  Unfortunately over the last several months I found myself working on a team whose key desired employee attribute was the ability to stay attached to the keyboard for 12 hours a day 7 days a week.

I’ve worked long enough in this industry to know that occasionally things come up that necessitate putting in some extra hours.  It’s unavoidable.  The hope is that this only occurs during extreme emergency and that those emergencies are only rarely tolerated.  Recently for me that wasn’t the case as the team had adopted a “Red Alert!” style environment trading butts in seats for the pain of having to assemble a strategy that might require some thought or dare I say investment (time or money).  It’s much easier to say “we need you to really take ‘ownership’ of the product” to your employee than it is to say “no” to senior management.

I plowed on until 2 things happened.

1. I developed a large blood clot in my left leg.  The doctors call this a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).
2. I found a new position in the company working for a manager that has a different set of expectations.

The pain in my leg is nearly gone and with six months of blood thinners I should recover completely.  Today is my first day sitting in my new office and my brain is already starting to recover from the experience.  Not that my new team is a field of green grass but it’s a new set of problems and my role in them is significantly different.

So, Plague of Buses lives!  In the next few days I will continue to broadcast my running comment on commuting madness.