So... I started my new job on Tuesday. A few thoughts:

• My old office was nice ("office" being the space that surrounds me as I work). If you have a window and light that comes from the sun, don't take it for granted.
• Unsmall companies can use their resources to do good things for their employees. My new place has catered lunches once a week, free Trader Joe's snack delivery, a super responsive email request line for IT and office related desires...
• If I had a nickel for every time that I've seen or heard the word "hacker" this week then I'd have enough nickels to buy little engineer voodoo dolls for everyone in HR and Sales.
• As expected, I'm enjoying my new 30 minute subway/walking commute so far. (In winter, even!) I noticed a definite drop in crazy schemes and creative ideas when I started my last job and went from a 1 hour car commute to a 5 minute walk. I'd like to get home to Jess sooner at the end of the day but I do enjoy having time alone with my thoughts.
• I miss my Apple Cinema Display :(
• My personal space is bare and a little depressing. I need to fix that but I'm not exactly sure what the boundaries are when it comes to putting stuff up on the wall and bringing in furniture.
• Everyone on my team seems nice.

In accordance with tradition, here is a picture of me on my last day at my old job:

My cardboard box was a little sad. I guess that I never really made myself at home. Here is what it contained:

• Red Swingline stapler
• Cute photo of Jess in a frame
• Buddha piggy bank
• Bad ass computer shit mug
• Wireless optical mouse
• Tide To Go stain eraser
• Box of business cards
• Headphones
• Fela Kuti CD
• Crimper and punch down tool (wha?)
• Some good pens

Someone put this image up on the front page of our internal web site. The photos are of me (Casey) and Joe. Get it? I'm plotting my revenge as I type this.

So I made a mistake at work that resulted in a $25,000 phone bill. Where's the whiskey?

I somehow managed to drag myself out into the freezing cold and get to work on time this morning. Since I was the first one there, I snapped a photo of my desk before anyone could catch me and accuse me of being a spy. These are my new digs - the empty chair and desk in front center are mine...

I think that Grendel's is my favorite spot to eat lunch on workdays. The pub has a nice atmosphere, the specials are 4 bucks, and the lunching businessperson ratio is pleasingly low. Hell - how can I not like a place with a website that reads "Resisting the Tide of Corporate Homogenization since 1971"?

Update, a little later : Some of the other guys went to Henrietta's table (about 100 times more yuppie than Grendel's) for lunch with some visiting business types and sat behind Al Gore. I guess I missed out.

At the moment, I'm writing business applications for a living. I do some Linux administration and network stuff at my job, but I'm here to write software. The type of software that the average company needs can be boring to write. There is a lot of database work - data goes into the system, reports come out. I sometimes work on frameworks that larger things will sit on top of and this takes a little more skill and brain activity. However, much of the code just fiddles with data and encapsulates/applies business rules.

There are two things that keep it a little interesting. and people who don't care about these two things cause me pain. First, I try hard to keeping the code lean (the less there is, the easier it is to understand) and well organized. Someday someone else will inherit the applications that I've created and they shouldn't have to curse me and the woman who birthed me. While you are plugging that hole with a stupid hack that will never make sense to anyone - take a minute to walk over to my desk and stick a pencil through my hand. At least it will distract me and maybe I won't give myself an ulcer thinking about what you've just done.

Secondly, good user interfaces are hard to write but it is still worth spending time on them. Some poor person will have to use your application every day or every week. Why make their life difficult when you don't have to? I wish plagues of locusts on any programmer that ever wrote a terrible user interface. When people curse their machines and bitch about their software in the lunch room - know that you contributed to their misery with your torture chamber of a user interface.

I'm stopping because my face feels hot and it is lunch time.