">August 28, 2003 - August is almost over and I've been here at the main office for almost a month now so it's time to stop complaining. I also went excercising this morning with Sarah and Frank, so I'm feeling really good and ready for the day. I'm adjusting alot better to the work and the people, but I wouldn't say I'm fully adjusted yet. I decided that I was looking at it all wrong. I decided that I would enjoy work (for one thing because I'm getting paid, os I might as well) because I'm working for and okay company, getting to do alot more html than I was before, and it only takes like 15 minutes to get here. That said and all taken care of, I won't complain about work anymore on this log.

Of course, that probably just means that I'll keep making lofty goals on this log that I won't end up reaching. Like trying to sell some photos to get some money for more photo equipment. I've been thinking that the most reasonable thing for me to invest in would be a higher end digital camera (I would really like an SLR-type digi-cam) since I already have a good computer with lots of space and I might be able to build more if I need them. This way, I won't need to build a darkroom for myself in order to produce the kind of work that I want to make. It will also do me lots of good to get used to using those crazy digital cameras, anyway. So I'll still need to raise a little over $1k to afford a good one. I see that quality of images that my Father-in-law's camera makes and I think something like that would be just about right for me. I also like the digital images that this chick takes. It makes me jealous sometimes when I see them because they're always well done and wouldn't be able to come out with that kinda quality from a digital camera just cause I've never used a nice one so I wouldn't know how to operate it properly or efficiently. I guess I have my lofty goal, then. Let's see how this works out.

August 15, 2003 - It's gotten better here at work. People started giving me work and before I knew it I was gettting pretty busy and even having to stay late a couple of times to finish. That was nice, it's nice to feel useful and it was especially good to do some HTML again. Then I fucked it all up. I was working on a few things yesterday; I was getting down and starting to get a little cocky about my abilites and my assimilation to this new work environment when I was slapped in the face with the realization that I had broken something. I was trying to log into a remote access machine and getting a whole lot of requests to enter a password; like every two letters that I typed I got a request ot fill in a password. I just thought it was something frivolous because I had never seen that before and it wasn't really an error message so I just kept cancelling the requests to start over. Well, the remote access passwords lock up aftr so many tries to access them. I knew that, but I didn't think that it worked like that if you just cancelled out without entering anything. Apparently it does. I didn't know it at the time, so I got someone to help me and we eventually figured out that I must have had locked up the account. Man, That guy looked like he wanted to punch me in the face for that. It was the account that the entire office uses for remote access (which is ridiculous in the first place) so I essentially made it so that no one could finish up their work. I did not want to come to the office this moring to face these people, but here I am.

On second thought, I wasn't able to connect to that account in the first place. I kept getting connection errors long before those crazy password reqests started popping up. Maybe it wasn't me that broke it! Still, apparently the network gets slow itself sometimes and it akes it seem like it's not accepting the account. I don't know. Now I'm afraid to go ask if it's been fixed cause I don't want to get that look from people that says "yeah it's fixed, you little shit! See if I ever give you work again!" but I guess I have to cause I have to finish that request. I wonder if I'm gonna get fired or laid-off for this. I'm sure people have done worse and more stupid things in the office before, but that look on everyone's face, that look of dissapointment, disgust, and utter contempt just killed me. we'll see what happens.

August 11, 2003 - Here I start my second week at the main ofice. We'll see how this week goes; if I can get into the workflow around here and if I end up doing a bunch of data entry on spreadsheets rather htnl stuff. I really don't want to do data entry. It's starting to look like they have alot of that kind of work to do, though. what I don't understand is why would they hire website developers to enter data on excel spreadsheets! That's something that you could hire a temp for and spend alot less money on it. I mean it's like hiring a landscape architect to cut your lawn. I especially don't like cause I'd much rather be doing glamorous, exciting stuff. But I guess that's way it goes, huh? Naw, actually, I guess I'm really just dissapointed that I haven't gotten myself into a better position in the company or just another, better job. I'm basically at the lowest rung on the skilled-worker ladder here. Just from what I've seen at this company, being an html developer is really not too far from data entry. that's all we do anyway, we just do it on an html file rather than a spreadsheet or something.

I would really like to work some place where I am recognized for my unique skillset and can contribute significantly to the organization as a unique part of a team. I also just don't want to work in an office anymore. That's not what I went to college for. I guess you're supposed to, and if it was anyone else, they'd probably be satisfied with this middle-low income job with aspirations for advacement or just using the experience ot build a resume. But stupid fucking me, I feel like I really couldn't be farther from the career path that I set for myself. stupid fucking me.

August 6, 2003 - I've been here in the main office again. I've been contracted off-site for the past two ans a half years. My company has changed offices twice since I've been off-site. Now I'm back and I feel very out-of-place. While these people have been working together, fraternizing, and forming their cliques; I've been sitting in a dark, dirty, windowless room with the hum of servers behind me and the company of about six other guys who were all about my age but with starkly different political opnions. So now, I've been seperated from my own clique and thrust into a cubicle in an office with 60 othe people constantly walking behind me.

On the positive side, my commute is alot shorter. Since I've been off-site, I've had a 45 minute commute to work and a 1 hour commute comming back home. Now it's just 15 minutes both ways! Come to think of it, that's the only positve thing about working here. I was real excited to get to come back to the main office, but now that I'm here it's not as exciting. I was hired as a website developer, and I feel like I did a good job at it. Apparently, there's no more development work because it looks like the only work available for me is data entry. It's easy and stuff, but it's so boring and tedious and if I'm gonna be wating my time and getting paid for it, I can think of lots of more productive ways of doing it! I guess I'll just keep holding on. Sarah's right, it could be worse. I probably wouldn't be satisfied with any work that I was doing unless it was photography anyway.