elainegrey

Retrospective timeline

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 20:37:04 GMT

Yesterday's reorg had me staring at the note in which i keep track of corporate changes. I apparently started the note in July of 2014 when the effects of new executive leadership at where i work, "The Whale," had reached a crescendo. I realize i needed a time line. This has been incredibly helpful to me since then, and i've added as much detail as i could tracking back to when the merger of "The Minnow" and "The Whale" occurred in 2006. I find myself wanting to add some other dates.

And then i thought that, while a number of you have shared the journey with me, many of you missed some of these adventures. So i thought i'd share here.

So first, some context dates:

1991-12-21 Christine & i married

[The early years, for some other time. Includes my first depression diagnosis.]

2000-03 I'm 32 years old
2000-04 through 05 Christine & i move to California

2001-04 began working for "The Minnow" and my "boss"

2002-06-05 began my LiveJournal
2002-08-27 The beginning of Christine's transition
2002-11-2X Dad's colon cancer surgery
2002-12-2X Christine & i came out to sisters

2003-04-2X I came out to my parents and brothers
2003-08ish We came out to Christine's siblings
2003-09-30 Christine's name change

There's actually some intense work here, and the move from The Presidio to Mountain View.

2006-07-01 "The Minnow" merged with "The Whale"

Just after the merger, there was a strong sense of "proving our worth" as California employees who were on a much higher payscale due to cost of living. There was a great deal of stress, but i also took that time to do some personal therapeutic work on resolving issues with my childhood.

In early 2009 i stopped working on a project that had to do with orphaned copyright works. There had been a lawsuit about the Google Book scanning project which created some uncertainty, drying up our funding. I transitioned to working into the area of identity and access management, something my boss had identified as an area our California office could specialize in and remain critical to The Whale, whereas other work might be more easily moved to other developers in a lay off. In some ways, it was a very insightful move. In others -- well, most of the developers have not found anything to enjoy in the work.

I realize that i don't have one of the most critical dates marked, when the VP change occurred that brought in the very incompetent VP. A little digging implies this was May of 2009.

This VP, for whom i must have had a code name--the tag is "Z-hell" apparently--seemed most interested in cost cutting by staff reduction. A year after he started, he demoted my boss. My boss had effectively been VP of Engineering at "The Minnow." I don't think my boss would have dealt well with being VP at "The Whale" but i think he was a far better judge of character.

The lousy VP promoted up a particular manager who would have done well in sales, but who was particularly bad at listening and keeping his word and proactively preventing problems. A year after my boss had been demoted, a mysterious calendar entry on a Friday telegraphed to me that a reorg was coming. My worst outcome was that my boss would be laid off and i'd report to that particular manager. Indeed, in May of 2011, my boss of ten years was laid off and the particularly incompetent manager became a director whom i referred to as "New Director."

Backing up a bit, though --

2011-03-31 Christine's gender confirmation surgery.

I'm intrigued that my memories of Christine's surgery and recovery are so separated from my memory of my boss' lay off and the acquisition of the New Director. The next few years sent me into a deep depression as i felt stuck in management, didn't see any thing i could point to to get a job elsewhere, felt that if i left the California team would be picked off by cost cutting vultures.

Meanwhile, Christine bloomed. She worried about me, and slowly i got some help, including a return to antidepressants.

2013-09-26 The "New Director" was replaced with the "Newer Director". I remember my team's awe at meeting him. "He seems REASONABLE," they said with shock. It wasn't just me who had been terrorized by "New Director."

2013-11 Christine's crisis began.

Just as i started having hope at work with the "Newer Director", Christine plunged into a very dark place.

2014-07-05 i posted about "the elephant in the room," that Christine was having issues which i didn't want to share, but they affected me, which i did want to share. The level of care taking the next few years was nontrivial.

2014-11-30 Christine's mother died, which just added more weight to the crisis.

At that same time, i traded jobs and left management. (The person with whom i traded became my manager and has since become a director as well.) This job shift was a huge relief for me, and i can recall how i felt a little guilty throwing the person with whom i traded into the deep-end as i was away for the funeral.

It's hard for me to recognize that i have been in this non-management role longer than i was working for the "New Director."

In summer of 2015 the housing situation in Silicon Valley was nipping at our heels. We spent time making contingency plans, as we watched a neighbor struggle to find housing after her lease was terminated.

2016-03-02 Our contingency plan was triggered by the rent increase.
2016-03-14 to 20 I get permission to move to North Carolina and we tell our family about our plans.
2016-03-22 to 24 I see this house listed on Zillow. My parents check the house out and give thumbs up, we make our offer with many others, our offer is accepted. 30 days of due diligence.
2016-03-24 NC passes the trans-hostile HB2

Yeah, HB2 passed the day we made the offer on the house.

2016-04-07 Home inspection
2016-04-11 Technical offer from The Whale to move to North Carolina
2016-04-24 House closing
2016-05-20 We begin our move to North Carolina
2016-05-26 We arrive

So, that's right, in less than three months from engaging the contingency plan, we were living in North Carolina. Talk about a shock.

Once we got here, i think Christine started making much more progress on the Elephant.

2016-11 In late 2016 -- not just the US politics but also an accident -- re-triggered some issues around the Elephant.

2016-12-21 Our twenty fifth anniversary

2017-03 The documentary film about how Christine's transition affected her family was released out to film festivals, and the festivals continued through the fall. Revisiting some of the painful challenges of the transition week after week, answering questions in after film discussions, and so on was not easy on Christine.

2018-03 I'm 50 years old

So, here we are.

Not all of that reflection was about "the elephant in the room," but part of what inspired this was for me to get a sense of how long this elephant has been hanging around as well as how long i was in the crisis that put me on antidepressants to begin with.

I think Christine has made a great deal of progress out of her crisis. Admittedly, after this much time, "crisis" is no longer really a good term. Some time back i did accept to myself that this is a long term condition. I do see improvement though, and i see her making great efforts to cope. The most hard thing, i think, is that she wakes with panic attacks more often than not. She has changed from a CPAP to the more fancy thing (heated! humidified! variable pressure!) which has a little bit of improvement, but the change didn't solve the issue.

There are things left out -- my time line of involvement in Quaker meetings stands out as something significant. My Dad's surgery is important because it came just before i my body seemed to hit middle age. There are a number of things about my health -- when did i do the diet exclusion test? When were various therapists? -- but i actually think those are in another file. My siblings' marriages, their children's birth, deaths of Christine's father and my grandfather -- those are important markers, too.

What this does, though, it take some events that have duration -- the process of coming out and how long before Christine had confirmation surgery, my work misery, her crisis -- and helps me see how my sense of duration is so skewed.

--== ∞ ==--

So if i keep journaling here for another eighteen years, i will have documented half my life on LiveJournal and its descendant DreamWidth. LJ was launched nineteen years ago. (I was actually blogging on geocities in 1999. No one read it, but i was writing there.)

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Fri, 06 May 2011 02:08:05 GMT

In today's "I can't believe how flaky Flaky Guy is but now i see how he comes up with the defense of some of the flaky behavior:"

Background:

We have been working in three week iterations. During week three the work wraps up: on Wednesday there is a "soft freeze" of the code, Thursday is the "hard freeze," and Friday is the release.

Several weeks ago there was an edict: on the next iteration we would switch to four week iterations. I spent some time talking to Flaky Guy about the reason why there was an extension. He explained that we would have our Soft Freeze on the Friday of the third week, the Hard freeze on the Monday of the fourth week, and the release on Tuesday. The rest of the week would be spent "hardening." Apparently this would have nothing to do with the actual code, so you can freeze and release before hardening.

I did not see any notice going out that the pattern of the freezes would change. I can imagine a developer assuming that the last week of the four week iteration would be the same as the last week of the three week iteration. I presumed that Flaky Guy was in touch with all the teams, though, communicating that we should reference the obscure wiki page with the schedule as he did with me.

Revelation 1:

Today, during our noon Eastern/9am Pacific call, i noted that some of my team would like to hear from him what was expected as part of the hardening.[1] Well, yes, he said. He has an email ready to send out, but didn't want to send it out too early because people would forget. There's so much email and it would just be another email from him, etc. So he'd waited. "Ah," i said, thinking, "That's why you *resend* an announcement a day or two before the deadline." I also marveled that he wants to minimize email containing important communication, but thinks nothing of replying with, "Thank You" to one person, cc'ing fifty. He's going to send the email today he assured me. Just in time then, i probably replied, since tomorrow is the soft freeze.

Revelation 2:

Three hours later Flaky Guy calls back. What would i think, if just this once, since it's the first four week iteration, we moved the soft freeze to Monday? It wasn't going to disrupt us, since we would be trying to check in for tomorrow, and we were going to be in planning meetings all Monday. Why the change? Well, the Europeans were going to panic when they got this email, it's been bank holidays and a wedding in England, and they would have all forgotten that he'd said something. And it would just be better if he could "give a little now to take a little later."

My guess: he hasn't told any of the tech leads in Europe.

Revelation 3:

At 8 pm Eastern, there was still no email.

It's really quite amazing to work with other folks from the Ohio office of the Whale. Flaky Guy and the VP from Hell are both held in essentially contempt. Once a week i'm part of a meeting where five other people try to get Flaky Guy to follow through on commitments he's made.

I am trying hard not to get too demoralized and i did bounce back from yesterday's low.

Then i got the notice that the VP is visiting next week and wants to meet with me on Wednesday (as well as other folks from our office in bunches).

I suppose i should anticipate the same reaction i had last year and pencil in a melt-down.

[1] Were i on my team, and i heard Elaine give the explanation i'd gave, i'd choose to assume Elaine had misunderstood, because otherwise it means the Flaky Guy has evinced an even more flaky behavior patten than one would like to expect. The disbelief certain folks greet me with is reasonable: i still have a hard time understanding what developers are supposed to be doing the last week of the iteration if the code has already been released.

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Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:08:11 GMT

Work was no better today. Not only is there the edict from yesterday, but then there's another edict today.

I thought most folks understood you need to manage change if you want it to be effective.

Blah.

I did take a nice walk to the bay shore with my boss, i had Krispy Kreme donuts, i think i worked well with the team.

Thank heavens i'm not itching. Err, well, my scalp is un happy, but really, this is nothing compared to Sunday.

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Weep

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:51:03 GMT

I'm sure i'll get through this fine, but i just need to *feel* for a moment the frustration that my work email is delivering to me.

On one hand there is the message that i and my team are just a small bit of a huge machine and we must submit to other's decisions with little input and certainly no consensus discussion. The other is that we're in independent control over all aspects of our functioning.

I've been loosely referring to this machine as Project in contrast to another thing i call Product, but really, that's not good enough.

My team works on identity management code, trying to build an infrastructure which will allow simultaneous compatibility with the broad spectrum of identity services our customers use and which will support our customers by minimizing the number of different ways they identify themselves to us.

It's a big long hard project, with specialized domain knowledge and details out the wazoo, and a huge barrier in communicating to people who just want the little login+password box to work. ("How hard can it be?")

Our project started as part of The Confederation of Clouds. Some parts of our work can be considered discreet and single clouds in the larger confederation of clouds. That would be something like a profile page at a website. But much of our work connects the clouds together so when you go from the profile page to a page where you author something to a page where you search for something, you experience it as seamless -- even though you're actually talking to many different clouds.

I and my boss don't report to any one in the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.

We used to be part of a small Portfolio that was an infrastructure-like portfolio. But since only a few things in that portfolio made money and many other were infrastructure-like, they closed that portfolio and moved the business director so that he reports to the business director of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.

Fortunately my boss did not get moved so that he would report to Flaky Guy, the engineering directory of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio. I don't even want to think what that alternative universe looks like.

Instead, my boss now reports to the director of The Big Cloud. Now, just like how we work to make a user experience the confederacy of clouds as one place, we work to make the user experience the Confederacy of Clouds PLUS the Big Cloud one place. So it's not an insane choice.

Even though The Confederacy of Clouds and The Big Cloud are built by the same company, the cultures are very different. The Confederacy of Clouds is all new software, very little management hierarchy, strong software architecture leadership, global composition; the Big Cloud a hodgepodge of systems glued together over time, strong management hierarchy and process discipline, barely any architecture leadership, and mostly a one location composition.

My boss's boss, Director of the Big Cloud, wants our Identity Management system to be more separate from the Confederacy of Clouds. Thing is, we're built on top of other infrastructure components that are part of the Confederacy.

Friday, i'm being called to a meeting where people in the Big Cloud want to discuss the difference in how our Identity Management stuff is built with how Big Cloud is built: but really, it's a question of that we can't answer. We're built the way Confederacy units are built.

Meanwhile the one of the Confederacy leads (in Project Management) has decided that all of the Confederacy projects will be in one great Project Union in the task tracking system.

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Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:51:26 GMT

Email to my sister this morning included these observations:

Ohio *is* cold. It's 12 °F out there. But the snow that falls when it's this cold: it's amazing! I don't think i've ever seen real *flakes* before, the six sided crystals growing big and flat and dancing in the wind, sparkling in little drifts, and *visible* as six sided crystals when they land. I realize how limited my snow experience is with the wet icy stuff of the Atlantic seaboard.

Work is not inspiring. I am practicing moderating my engagement, not pouring myself into the issues but holding back, shielding myself from caring too much. My boss is extremely dissatisfied, and i find other colleagues here angry and frustrated with the VP. Communication issues are not insignificant. I'm trying too, to keep myself from being caught up in the frame of seeing us as being blamed or the "bad kid." I think a colleague of mine is a little too ready to frame things that way, and it's contagious. On the other hand, i do like and respect a good number of my colleagues, and it is meaningful work. (Although one might believe it really ought to be going in a significantly different direction.)

We wrote a little bit to each other about our joy in our friendship, and i found my heart aching that we aren't as connected to my brother.

--==∞==--

The mediation of the VP yesterday turned out OK, although what a bloody expensive meeting of quite the stack of people when it really could have been a quick and informal conversation. I did point out (gently? Yet in front of the VP?) the Essence of Flaky Guy had assumed there was a resource issue without checking with me (thus blowing this issue out of proportion). There *may* be a resource issue. We'll see. But sheesh.

And they left the other woman release manager out of the meeting, which seems to be a pattern with the VP and this (very capable) woman, and ... confirms my belief that not only is the VP a general jerk, but he has a specific gendered jerkness in his being.

--==∞==--

And i tried so hard to make sure i was selecting black pairs when i packed. *looks at grey pants, navy socks, and black shoes*

--==∞==--

Comment capture from DW, about my parents' relationship:

If i had to point to a place where things went wrong with my parents, it would be before i was born when my Dad exposed his fears to my Mom. It's the cost of the patriarchy for men: she wanted him to be the strong, in-charge, invulnerable. When he exposed his sense of vulnerability, she took it as a betrayal.

She has read his depression as lazy, and i don't think she ever really understood how demanding his work was. What she wanted him to do around the house were the "men" things. They just chose a way of life (mini-farms, building their own homes) where chores include "When are you going to get the barn built?" and "When is the new fence going to go in?"

They both have stacks and stacks of projects and too much to do. The biggest difference is my mother probably has an anxiety disorder whereas my dad runs to depression. I suspect you can begin to imagine the conflict, and yes, the gendered roles do get picked up and played out.

Of course, Dad's no saint or martyr any more than Mom is. His emotional maturity meant he developed an oppositional relationship and pushed buttons back. He wasn't able to confront her anxiety as unwarranted but accepted it as real and played into it.

If Mom didn't think she could be a psychiatrist by reading pop sych books and if they'd gotten themselves counseling ages ago.... Mom still won't see anyone because it's Dad who is broken, doncha know.

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In Ohio

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:57:26 GMT

I've left the wonderful calm[1] of this family visit and have arrived in Ohio. This morning i'm trying to remember that i am taking care of myself and that's a responsible and good thing.

I really want to journal about my indignation over one of the meetings that's occurring today, but what i really need to do is grab another frame and hold on tight. The vice president has decided to help resolve the issues between our team (we work on the authentication and authorization code) and a team developing The Platform. We all wonder what the issues are. The frame my boss and my colleague seem to have latched on to is a combination of feeling like a scapegoat and unfair persecution. I do it too! It's part of the curse of working on infrastructure: if it's broken, everyone is put out, if it's working, all folks notice are the other features.

I do not want to be on the defensive: who do i want to be? I want to be curious! I want to have the "we can make this work" attitude, even if i don't know what it is. I want to be able to imagine these meetings as a visit to the virtual hardware store, helping The Platform team solve their problem. I want to somehow, somehow leave the sniping thought that Essence of Flaky Guy, who is on the agenda to present "Specific critical path requirements for [The] Platform work" is not the problem himself. I note that on 15 October i arranged a meeting to get out ahead of these potential requirements, and at that time The Platform guy really didn't know any. We discussed where there *might* be requirements -- i interrogated him to discover what they thought they might need -- and that's the last we've heard about it.

I really want someone to say, "Hey, you've been responsible. This is not a crisis, and it's not because you haven't been paying attention or because you've rebuffed any other communication." So i need to say it to me.

And i need to quit imagining horns on the vice president.

--==∞==--

Wow, how am i over half way through this trip? I didn't really feel like the NC visit was longer than the work part, because i thought of the work part as the five week days (counting Friday which will be spent in travel). But i didn't count the Wednesday flight day or the Monday breakfast with my folks in the family-visit time. Here it is the 7th and i go home the 10th!

We had a Christmas celebration Sunday night. My parents leave for China on the 22nd, my sister's family leaves for Montana around the 17th. T's family doesn't do Santa apparently, so Santa left stockings for the kiddies at my folks place for the kids to find on Sunday night. I was able to give my gifts to my parents and to my sister's family. W was utterly unimpressed with the beautiful Abominable Charles Christopher book, but my sister seemed ecstatic. I introduced my parents to the pair of raccoons in "The Power of Now" (http://www.abominable.cc/2008/03/26/the-power-of-now/), and Dad hooted as he recognized himself in it. Apparently, art predicted life as the events of "A Quiet Mind" (http://www.abominable.cc/2009/03/04/a-quiet-mind/) happened just two weeks ago [2]. I sat with my Dad as he started reading and was delighted to see him getting caught up in the story, and then later with my mother as she picked it up and read. I don't think they were just being polite: i think the balance of beauty, humor, suspense, and empathy that spoke to me spoke to my sister and parents.

I guess i need to buy a copy for us.

The decorations were simple: Mom pulled out her small artificial tree decorated with Swedish ornaments, and she prepared a Swedish dinner. Dilled shrimp, Jansson's Temptation, meatballs, lingonberries. No lutefisk, hurrah, but i think everyone's figured out i have not attended any of the lutefisk dinners. I think my sister thinks i too should have ~~to suffer~~ a chance to be in touch with my heritage.

--==∞==--

Heathwise i am fairly healthy. I'm beginning to develop a cough, so i ought to get my inhaler renewed. I just started the cough right before i departed, and it's only very occasional right now. I certainly don't feel it in my chest. Fortunately, i've felt so good so long with respect to the asthma, i'd developed a bit of a belief that the problem had gone away.

There's also more post nasal drip, so i did bring my nasal spray and remembered to use it last night. My nostrils have been unhappy for weeks: little irritations in the membrane now

My right ear has been bothering me since Thanksgiving. It's finally clearing or healing. I'm not sure if it was dermatitis or a small infection in the outer canal. It's not nearly as distracting as it was a week ago.

Yesterday the skin under my eyes began to flare. I've been moisturizing! Bah. What i forgot was the gentle steroid. I'm using the powerful steroid just barely on the area because it is so visible. I don't want to look like i've been crying this whole visit.

--==∞==--

[1] It was for me. My parents were in a mostly good place, so different from last year. I note in last year's journaling i was trying to let my parents' worries and complaints slide off me. I have no record of the ride back from Florida with my mother, of the hike i took with my father. I didn't record their complaints and worries, so i don't have a document to compare against. I don't suppose it's needed: with Dad's retirement he's more able to bear the brunt of my mother's neurosis. He told me how she's railed at him that he's the man, he has to be strong, she's the woman, she can explode. So he's not engaging her when she has her explosions of anger, he's ceased intellectually defending himself to her. It's better than when he was engaged, because they had a well worn dance that escalated. Now she doesn't have a partner. I just hope the explosions aren't as abusive as i can imagine. He's getting help from a therapist and has that support and validation to counteract her "explosions."

[2] It was this strip that provided the lead into Dad explaining Mom's gendered theory of who gets to explode, as apparently that's what happened after the dark storm thought bubble.

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Just as angry at myself, i think

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:13:50 GMT

Dear Essence of Flaky Guy,

"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

Giving us a deadline of "end of business" today (What time zone? We'll assume yours.) in a Sunday email and then IMing at 10:30 am to ask where the document is is pretty annoying.

Me

Of course, i knew this had to be done, and i could have been working on it on Friday. I was in paralysis mode, though.

Feh.

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