Holidays went well. Overdosed a bit on people, but other than that, had a good time.
The following conversation happened on Sunday… I’m not quite sure what to say…
Vic (my brother): Hélène (Vic’s GF) wants to know if you have a boyfriend.
Mom: Sure, sure. You want to know.
Hélène: No, I want to know.
Mom: Well… I do have a boyfriend.
Nick: Leans in to whisper the (correct) answer to Dina, but doesn’t get there in time.
Mom: My boyfriend is… Jesus.
Nick: Whispers to Dina Drat, I was going to say that. That’s going in my blog.
So, I’ve been at my job a month. On Wednesday, my boss asked me at lunch time whether I liked the job. I answered him honestly, “Not yet.” Something happened Wednesday afternoon. I finally started to understand the system. More importantly, I started to understand that some parts of the system didn’t make sense because, well, they weren’t supposed to make sense. Some goals changed out from under me. I must have grown in the past 5 years, since I wasn’t as frustrated with the change. Mind you, part of me worries that the more laid back attitude I have is robbing me of some of the do-things-right edge that I used to have. Another coworker said something like “Don’t lift up the rug, you’ll find a lot of things swept under it.” My quick and honest answer was “I think that’s one of the reasons I was hired. I’m good at lifting up rugs and cleaning up.” On my way out, I poked my head into my boss’s office, and told him that in the space of the afternoon, I’d come to like my job.
It’s nice to be back to working in the finance industry again. There are complex, real-world problems to be solved. Every level deeper you delve, you find more interesting details and corner cases, it’s almost fractal. I have a good mental stack, so I can generally keep track of the relevant details and picture at each level of descent. Wrapping my head around these complex systems and problems is enjoyable.
The systems I’ve been working with for the past couple of years seem complex because they were written that way. The system I’m working on now seems complex because it’s modeling a real world that is complex. It’s oddly satisfying.