Bad Ideas

Tonight I worked late, then came home and poured myself a glass of wine before collapsing on the sofa for 2 hours. This in itself is a totally unremarkable occurrence, but for the fact that I was registered to attend the ProductTank meetup over in EC2 earlier this evening.

I put myself on their 26-person deep waiting list just yesterday. I had no plans tonight, my boyfriend is out of town and I've been wanting to attend ProductTank all year. It seemed like the perfect chance when I got the email this morning that enough people had dropped out overnight to confirm my RSVP.

And yet. Work. Sofa. Wine.

I can count on both hands (and might even need to throw in a few toes) the number of meetups, hackathons and game-jams I've registered for and bailed on. I'm a total RSVP hog. It's inexcusable.

Actually, I'm hard pressed to think of a single meetup I've been to - outside of Full Indie in Vancouver which doesn't really count (because I knew everyone there and it was mostly about drinking which is a thing I am good at).

But I can't stop myself from signing up! The topics are interesting! I don't know that many people in London! I have way too many hobbies!! There are always so many good reasons to go to these things that somehow I neglect to remember that I'M A FUCKING INTROVERT.

When confronted with the choice between going alone to an event full of strangers after a long day of work or going home to wine and not having to talk to anyone, home wins.

Continuing to sign up for meetups is a bad habit of mine, based on a flawed idea (that I will or should enjoy going to meetups). So this morning I was reading James Altucher's blog on counterfeit living and was struck by this quote:

"Today, throw something out. Maybe even throw out a bad idea you once had. Phew! It’s gone."

Okay then. Today I am throwing out the idea that I am a person who goes to meetups. Phew! I have better things to do with my spare time, like recuperate from the strain of being high-functioning and people-oriented at work. Why not give myself a break? I can avoid the stress of thinking about going and the guilt of not going in one fell swoop! They post all the ProductTank videos on Mind the Product after the fact so I'm not even missing anything!

Now that's sorted, I suppose I should mention that Gracie and I first met at a meetup - one of the precious few I actually attended. It was a painful affair in Gastown I was dragged to by my old boss - who I miss profusely now that she's no longer dragging me anywhere. We had fun. I ate too many (delicious) mango brie canapes and utterly failed to network. (I also failed to exchange more than 2 words with my boyf-to-be so it was lucky we met again at a conference a few weeks later.)

Let me clarify that I'm not saying I won't ever go to a meetup or networking event again - that's improbable as hell. I'm just rejecting the notion that I need to sign up for these things because I find the subject interesting. Consider it a scope decision, on my life. The value proposition does not outweigh the cost therefore the idea of "going to meetups" is cut to free up resource.

Good thing I'm in a happy relationship, because my meetup days are through! What are you going to cut today?

Embrace the Job Hop

The company I moved to England to work for has closed their UK operations. This picture is still on the top of their corporate jobs page.

While I'm gutted for my friends and colleagues who have been made redundant, it wasn't altogether unexpected. Over 25% of the folks in the photo above had already left at the time of the closure announcement - myself included.

Leaving the company that relocated me to the UK was a difficult decision, though with hindsight a good and obvious one.

Part of what made quitting tough was the multitude of warnings and lectures about Gen Y job hopping, and I'm not just talking from my Dad. The idea still exists that frequent job-switching somehow marks you as "disloyal". Since when were employees noble ship captains, expected to hang on through bad pivots, icebergs and apathy until they are given fat severance packages?

Ignoring the obvious anachronism (loyalty? employment? psh!), it seems the scales have been quietly tipping in the favour of those of us with long CVs for a while now. Wouldn't you know, diversifying your network may be the key to career stability in a hostile work climate and that it's actually better for your career to cut losses and stay passionate while you are relatively young and still figuring out your best fit.

And yet somehow, I'm aching to find a place to settle down. Though I have never lost a job, I've had 4 positions at 4 different companies in the last 4 years. If job hopping is like dating, I'm a serial monogamist and I am well ready to put a ring on it.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the ways in which changing jobs has helped my career. I've travelled the world and had a wide range of opportunities, experienced the difference between big multinationals, tiny 3-person start ups, and growing companies in between. I've written code and written specs, had a taste of managing people, products and projects, and learned a tremendous amount in the process - not least about who I am as a professional. I have a much better understanding of my own strengths, weaknesses and interests than I did as a new grad. And I'm still learning heaps every day.

But now that I know a lot more than I did at 22, isn't it time to hunker down for the long run?

This is a particularly raw question for those of us who've grown up in the games industry - a machine renowned for both burning out talent and ruthlessly firing the rest in the short gaps between development cycles.

I've worked in games a mere 6 years, which is actually a lifetime, if you consider the traditional game developer career length averages around 5. My current job is the furthest from games I've ever been and while that's a topic for another post, I do wonder if the cyclical and disruptive nature of the games industry will ever lend itself toward long careers - for employees or founders.

In the meantime I wish my ex-colleagues luck in their job hunts - been writing a lot of recommendations and referrals lately - and encourage them to embrace the job hop! A change is as good as a rest - and a hell of a lot better than stagnation.

Takeaway Living

I promised my next post would be about takeaway - that's because we've been eating so much of it. See above.

We don't usually order pizza - we usually get Indian, Nepalese or Chinese, sometimes a nasi goreng, chippy or kebab - so you can tell we've been hitting the takeaway menus a bit too hard and have ended up at Pizza Hut "for a change".

It's the end of the line.

I shan't bore you with my excuses for not cooking (although we have some good ones! Broken fridge, heatwave & summer fllu are among them) but suffice, it's been bad.

Tried to get back into the swing of cooking at our friends' BBQ on Saturday night:

Gracie made some fantastic ribs. I didn't even know I liked ribs. Everyone was taking the piss over how much he was basting the things on the grill, but we had the last laugh. 

(Yes that's our corn in the background too. No stinking chipolatas here we come correct to the 'cue)

I whipped up an Eton Mess based on this recipe. Was too lazy to make meringues though - what do you want, Waitrose does them just fine. 

We've been getting amazing strawberries all summer (THIS IS ENGLAND) and I've been obsessed with macerating them and combining with balsamic vinegar. Yes way.

One of my fave ways to do it is make a balsamic syrup to toss the berries in then serve with ricotta cream and fresh shredded basil that we grow in our kitchen. Sometimes I use mint. It's complex and really fucking yum.

Almost good enough to make me stop ordering takeaway... But we'll see.

Homesick

I went to a psychic last weekend. Long story, not something I would have normally done of my own volition, but it "became a good experience", as you'd say in Japanese.

A good experience, if a little creepy - she didn't tell me when I was going to die (thank fuck), but Lady Lilac pulled the names of both my parents and my boyfriend out of thin air as if she'd lurked me on Facebook rather than heard them from the dead relatives lurking with us in her strangely ordinary office above Great Portland St.

That was all very disconcerting. But I think the biggest kick to the gut was when she looked me in the eye and said confidently "You're homesick". Which is not a word I have ever associated with myself, bar that very morning before seeing Lady Lilac when I said to the boyf in tears "I don't know what's wrong with me baby maybe I'm HOMESICK or something".

Weird to be homesick living in your hometown. I was born in London. My parents met in London.  London is the city that my grandfather earnestly believed saved his life in 1939, the city where I learned the C-word and how to do long division, the city where I first fancied a boy, first programmed a computer (an Amstrad, obviously), where I met my little sister and first had an inkling of who the hell I was.

But I grew up far away from here and learned how to speak with a foreign accent, and coming home is a lot harder than you'd think. So I'm feeling the need to write about it now - well over a year after moving home - and share it with the other side of me on the other side of the pond.

I don't have a remote idea of what to start a blog about - Programming? Not programming? Japanese, Feminism, Music, Comics, Nails? Food? I used to have an anime blog - those were the days ha. If I even write a second post, it will probably be about takeaway. Livejournal redux - so it begins.