The Penalty Box

One of the questions generally asked in interviews is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” At the time, coming out of university, I figured I would actually think about this so I wouldn’t look like a total goof when it inevitably came up. It ended up pretty standard: pay my dues, shoot for making senior developer, be on track to, if not already, holding down some major project and responsibilities. While my end goal still is to hit the senior developer rank, I’m not so sure I want it in the immediate future. Granted, I’m only 3 years out of school, so my mind may change in the next two years. However, just by working and discussing with my peers at my company, the role of senior developer comes with a lot of responsibility (which I don’t mind) and a lot of extraneous crap (which I do mind).

Politics is the nature of the beast, no matter if you’re in academia or industry. Simply by working with people you have to deal with conflicting personalities, different ideas and unusual processes. In a more junior position, one is generally shielded from a lot of the political crap that goes on behind the scenes. Your manager gives you tasks, you do them, and the only real conflict you may deal with is with others who are around the same level of the food chain you are on. Of course, your manager might be a douchebag too, but for the most part you’re dealing with people you work with rather than for.

When you actually move up to a lead role, even if you aren’t a manager, you start dealing with management crap. It’s more sophisticated and complex than peer-to-peer crap, and there’s often less you can do about it. How much you can do about it depends on the company culture; is constructive criticism encouraged, or is it merely dismissed as “negativity”? Are collaborative efforts encouraged, or is the term just a buzzword to fake an inclusive environment? How much does management listen to the troops, trying to understand what’s going on in the trenches? Not being able to do anything is one of the most frustrating things when dealing with crap.
In analyzing any situation, I always ask if I’m ready for it. Ready or not, life comes with some unexpected bumps and situations. Work’s thrown a bit of a curveball, and the ramifications are yet to be determined. Overall, the last three years have gone nowhere near what my original “plan” was, but it’s not like it’s been a terrible experience; far from it, in fact (aside from a couple of hiccups). It’s often said life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. I plan to just roll with how things come; dealing with the unexpected separates the good developers from the bad ones.

If you’ve never seen Dal Richards, you should. I was fortunate enough to see him years ago when he still had the pipes to play his saxophone. Nowadays, he sings a couple songs but mostly does his charismatic band leader thing. I saw him on Saturday and it was amazing to see how much energy he has at the age of 91. Truly inspiring. Plus I got an autographed CD.

I ought to go see him on the last day of the PNE. Apparently Jim Byrnes will be there too.

I made my yearly Canada Day sojourn down to Granville Island for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. The Taphouse held a trio who was fairly generic. It was the kind of music that you would hear in a nice lounge, except instead of Manhattans and calamari, there was beer and jerky. Granville Island Brewery’s seasonals were the Belgian Wit (a hefeweizen) and a bitter. Two beers in me before 1:30 makes me start feeling like a few drunkards I know. Good thing I went early though; the lineup began around 1:30 and didn’t subside at all for the afternoon shows.

Afterwards I wandered over Railspur Park and took in The Colorifics. They had a pretty unique sound, a nice blend of Latin, jazz and bossa nova. They also managed to get a big band feel on some of their songs, despite having no horns; not a big band SOUND mind you, because you can’t have that without horns, but it just had that feeling of a big band dance type of thing. The bass lines grooved and the lead vocalist had just that little bit of sass that makes female jazz leads so good watch. The music was also just so damn FUN to listen to. I tried to get a CD afterwards, but unfortunately they didn’t bring enough. Hopefully that e-mail list brings some info on where to get it, because honestly, MySpace blows.

Next up at Railspur Park was Dalannah Gail Bowen and Straight Up. She’s a blues singer backed up by a pretty good blues band. Doing some hits from B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix, she rocked the house. The guitarist was unreal and the tenor saxophonist played dirty and loud. It was pretty awesome. Bowen was no slouch herself; it was hard to believe she is 63 years old. Another quickly sold out batch of CDs later, I was left to the Internet to tell me if I could buy her CD online. Only from CDBaby unfortunately, which is American and would require customs and non-cheap shipping. I might have to check out Golden Spike Days, since she’s performing there too, and try to be closer to the front to nab a CD.

Oh I should mention that I went to go see The Contemporary Lovers a couple weeks back. Good show it was, aside from the clarinet player that almost certainly had a cracked reed. It was like beginner band all over again with the squeaks on high notes. Yeesh. The rest of the set was good though. First time I’ve ever heard a soprano (and this was freaking HIGH soprano) sing jazz well. Most female jazz vocalists I’ve heard are in the mezzo soprano range, deep enough to get the lower, sexier tones. Venue was in an old hall though, so the balance was off by a lot. Still a good show though; if you’re interested in modern jazz, you should check them out.