End of an Era.

Yesterday I got a call from taxlady saying that a large letter had arrived from some law firm, addressed to me, and should she open it? Well, we both figured it was probably a nasty Pay-up-or-die type thing from one of the folks we owe money to, so I told her to go ahead. It wasn't that. It turns out that Strategy First, the company I helped found some 11 years ago, and for which I put in over a year of 12-hour days, 7 days a week, has declared bankruptcy. So, my shares are all now worthless. I only owned some 2% of the company, but I had some small hope that if it ever went public that might amount to something.

It gives me yet another reason to hesitate to put in huge amounts of overtime at my present company (not that I could, for any length of time). I have, in my lengthy career, worked for only 6 companies (not counting where I am now):

• Arrakis Technologies
• Small System Software
• SR Systems
• Strategy First
• Softguard
• SNT Telecommunications.

Of these, only SR Systems might still be solvent, but I lost track of it when it went through a number of rapid name-changes after laying everyone off...

All of these companies wanted huge amounts of uncompensated overtime. Only Strategy First ever gave me any equity in exchange, and its now worthless. Somehow, I think I've been playing the work-hard-and-get-rich game all wrong.

Today at Work.

Yesterday was a pretty bleak day for me. I found that some work that I had been assigned, and which I was treating as a learning assignment from which I would have to produce documentation, was actually considered time-critical. Say what? Why did no one tell me? I could have pushed foir some help to get it done faster, but everyone else was working on things that were clearly time critical. So, I ended up going home at the end of the day with the feeling that I had let everyone down, and being quite depressed about it.

Today was better. When I got in today I found out that a co-worker solved some bugs that I was in no position to solve, and got the thing up and running. All that left was the documentation. No problem, yesterday I was told it wouldn't be needed until the end of the week. Well, when I got in today I was informed that they now wanted it for this evening. Not good, but not impossible, since I just had to enter and format a bunch of notes. It could well be done in a single day, if I didn't stop to cross check or verify all my facts (which I would prefer to do, but everyone, even the client, knows this is a rush job).

So I get to work, and then I am reminded that the whole place is going bowling today. So, I promised something would be done by 5:00, and I now discover that means promising it for 2:00. Eeek!  Anyway, to make a long story short, I worked through my lunch hour, and got it all done. The document may not be great, but its in a damn site better shape than it was this morning.

Then, at 2:30, we all piled into cars and headed to Verdun for some 10-pin duckpin bowling (with the small balls). It was lots of fun, even though I truely suck at bowling, and I pulled a muscle in my left leg during my first frame. Maybe if I keep doing this bowling outings, I'll eventually be half-decent.

Right now, though, my legs are very sore. The one I pulled is obviously quite owchie and the other one got rather overstressed since I ended up using it exclusively for the dips that one does while bowling. Now, I find it very difficult to climb stairs or even get out of a chair. Tonight, I'm turning the electric blanket to 11, since experience has shown that keeping strained muscles extra warm helps them recover faster.