--Two Steps from Hell
Months ago I wrangled an 11 day vacation that my manager wasn't particularly pleased about and tried to spend the whole thing building the website for the start up. I did manage to implement a php login system following whatever best practices I could find. However the monotony of web development got to me and I quickly succumbed to a highly disturbed sleep cycle, to the point where I could no longer function, or force myself to write or even look at HTML. Fuck HTML.
This time, it's twelve days. The twelve days of Christmas and/or New Years not spent with friends and family, nor wailing away in a Japanese karaoke bar in downtown philly, nor drinking 151 and Coke, but at home, working on the Android version of the app. And this time its been fucking amazing. My productivity is through the root, and with two days left, it looks like I'm going to be able to finish the original feature set before my vacation ends.
Unfortunately, at that point I will badly need a real vacation, however its back to work I go. I don't know how much more of Microsoft I can take. We're in this lame testing phase for a project that technically got canceled a fourth time, however we are able to continue working on it. So I've got that going for me. That, and later working on something that's not android.
Let me tell you, after the shit I have to figure out at work, writing a complex Android app is a walk in the fucking park. It is actually so easy that, pretty much every day I decided I am the best programmer in the world, shortly before looking up something online and remembering that there are people who have been making Android apps for years, and they are not all morons. Whatever. I'm catching up.
But back to bitching about work. I think its kind of interesting how I am filled with a sense of dread whenever my corporate slave masters talk about career management/performance/rhythm of the business bullshit, because I hate doing more of what they call work, and yet when I'm going a project I actually like, hours can fly by until I realize its 3 am and I'm hungy. I realize it's actually 5:19 now, but I was playing an old Command & Conquer game for 2 hours.
Yeah my sleep schedule has gotten someone messed up. Its been happening slowly, though, and my productivity hasn't suffered. It just starts a vicious cycle where now I'm getting up after noon, which means I start programming later, which means I have to program past 2, just to keep up the pace. I'm about to be really miserable when I go back to work, but for now, this is fucking exhilarating. The loneliness problem is a serious issue, but not a severe one when I actually like what I'm working on. I could probably fix it if I made the necessary investments, such as moving to a bigger apartment so I can invite people over to play board games, or joining another co-ed sports league (that requires committing to dates past Feb) however they both conflict with the plan to move home.
...which is kind of messed up at the moment. We were supposed to be a lot further along than this months ago. In fact, the iPad version was supposed to be done in October. I'm fairly certain that I just sort of passed the iOS devs as far as completeness.
Previously, my criteria for quitting the old job was to get a paying customer, however that plan is starting to become a problem. Based on talking with potential customers, the feature set we planned to start with is not enough, and/or the wrong features. Of course this is partly due to the fact that I wanted to target single-user, single-location spas with less than 10,000 customers, and my business partner put me in a meeting with a guy who is opening multiple locations shortly.... Regardless, even for the smaller spas we need more features than we planned on. Even worse, we may not be able to convince any of them to pay during the beta testing phase. I can't hang out in Seattle until the end of the beta testing phase--everything just takes too damn long when I have to work full time.
Of course, working from home is no picnic. I don't know exactly how many hours each day I spend writing code...probably at least 4 on most days, but definitely never all day. My brain just gets too tired. I've tried various combinations of TV, video games, riding a stationary bike, and going for walks, but none of them are a very quick fix. Sugar and caffeine do offer a few hours of benefit, but at a cost. Part of that cost is not being able to sleep. Which is probably partly responsible for why I am awake at 5:30 am. It was actually kind of an accident...I found this great, cheap soda that only had like 40 calories! Normally soda has 120 calories for 8 ounces, so I was quite pleased to finally find something that tasted good but wouldn't make it harder to lose weight. So I was drinking a lot of it during my last coding sprint before bed one night. Had the worse time going to sleep. The next day I went to buy another one and realized that those things are actually some kind of generic energy drink. So that was a smart move.
So.
The plan, I think, is to quit my job hopefully by end of Feb, at which point I will slim down all of my spending, possibly sell the bike, etc. Then, working on the start up full time for hopefully a brief period before returning to corporate life. I think I am getting pretty close to the point where even if the business fails, I can point at this cool app I wrote. Wait what am I talking about? I don't know. I'm going to bed. Also, sorry, as you've no doubt realized by now, I didn't even pretend to proofread this.
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