From “Japanese Drink Emporium” Dept.

So I tried Pocari Sweat today. It has the faint smell of grapefruit juice. It tastes like watered down grape fruit juice, but has a very smooth finish. No discernable acidity or bitterness. There’s a delicate balance of sweetnes and saltiness in play. Over all, it’s very flat (like distilled water), and very foreign.

I’ll try some Calpis Water later.

From the “things I did Last week” Dept.

Lots of things happened last week. It was Flo’s Birthday on Monday, so Jen, Wendy, Byron, Steve and I met up at Milestones for dinner. We gave Flo a gift certificate that could be used at several malls. Dinner was a four-hour affair. Missed drink orders, screwed up orders. It was so bad, that Florence’s main course and dessert was stricken from the bill. We also go a single Free “Spinach and Artichoke Dip” Coupon. In the end, I’ve decided to boycott Milestones forever.

It was nice to see them all, especially Steve (who I haven’t seen in a while) and Cris (the first time since Jen’s B-day).

Also went to Chung’s new basement apartment for a small dinner party. Good time. Really mellow.

Saturday, I saw Spider-man for the 2nd time. I enjoyed it a lot. It was Jen’s first time seeing it.

Monday, civic holiday, Jen and I went to Guelph to visit Natasha, Jen’s friend, and probably the biggest Starwars fan I have ever met. Saw Episode 2: Attack of the clones. It was good. Much better than the Phantom Menace. However, I don’t find any of the characters compelling, or even likeable for that matter. It makes it hard to get into it. And Ha, if you think some of the acting was questionable in Spider-man, wait till you see Attack of the clones. 😉

From the “Introspection about Critical Path, Inc.” Dept.

I’m going to take a time-out and write something introspective. Bare with me here, it’s my first time.

Click the “more” link below to read the rest.

Prior to my 4-hour “Milestones Incident”, I decided to visit Critical Path Inc., my former employer. The last time I set foot there was some time after Christmas, probably the first week of january if I remember. Now for all who don’t know, my relationship with CP reaches back to my final co-op workterm in Sept.Dec. 2000. Great time, great work, I love the people there. they were enthusiastic as well-they wanted to hire me back. I gladly accepted.

In 2001, after a huge financial downturn, a pending SEC investigations for falsifying financial statements, CP was in big trouble. The company had hit stormy weather: it was a penny stock, it was about to be de-listed from the NASDAQ, theiCEO and CFO were fired. There was little money to go around and in the end, my offer for employment was renagged. All this, right before I went to Europe.

Down on my luck, with 0 job prospects, a much larger income tax bill than I had ever forecasted, and an impending trip to Europe….I was financially troubled. However, since I had already paid for my ticket to the EU, I had no real choice but to go (I’m glad I did). During my trip, I found out that I would indeed be working for CP, but only as a contract worker. So from July to Dec 2001, I was contracted as CP’s Usability Designer, reprising my role from my earlier work term. Life was good. CP eventually weathered their “critical times” and in the end, I was slated to be full-time worker for the 2002 fiscal year.

Late in December, I was told by my boss, Mike, that I my position had been axed by financial. However, the Interaction Design Group had been allotted money for me as a contract worker. I agreed to this: I’m young, make more money as a contractor….it was a foregone conclusion, I thought.

I left work on Dec 15th, 2001, with a verbal agreement for another contract. Five months, and three rewritten proposals later, I stand unemployed, only now realising that Critical Path, the company I thought I had (and desparately wanted) a future with, isn’t going to employ me. From what I’ve been told, my contract has been approved by Mike (my manager), Don (Controller for the TO office), Mike S. (CTO), Loraine (VP HR), and the CFO. It has been queued to be approved by the CEO, Bill McGlashin. It’s been there for well over 2 months. I’ve also been told that all contract work must go through this chain of approval.

I’m frustrated. Angry even.

I don’t think anyone, not even Jen, can understand what I feel at this moment. I’ll try to articulate it. When I first came to CP, I thought that I had found a company that really worked the way I worked. I knew what I was doing, likewise the people around me were experts in their fields too. There was a sense of excitement all around (I guess this is what the Dot-Com boom was typified as). No politics, no head butting—just people who knew their roles, shared the same goals, and in the end made a great product. Paradise. This was the type of company I thought I could have a long relationship with.

I grew way too complacent.

So last Wednesday, I went into the office, said hi to my co-workers, and emptied out my desk. I realise that it was presumptious to have left all my stuff there (books, a radio, a voice recorder, files, etc), but in the end, I was expected,—hell, EVERYONE in the office expected me to be hired back.

Boy do I feel dumb. I feel frustrated. I wasted time. I feel that I was let-down by a company that I had trusted. I feel totally cheated, having bought this laptop for the sole purpose of helping my work at CP—even dumber, because if I had held off and bought it later, I’d have more for less (100 more MHz, a larger L2 cache, a much better video system….)—although, that’s the way the computer industry works.

Don’t misinterpret the above, I have been looking for work for about 2 months. However, I know that I wasn’t pursuing other employment very seriously.

I wonder if it’s me, whether I was good enough at what I did, whether the company valued my work? These type of questions I think about a lot. I’m a Usability specialist with no Masters degree, who has barely a year of professional experience, who knows a whole lot about technology, but only a little bit about design and a little bit about scripting. I’m a jack-of-all-trades.

Perusing job postings makes me no happier. I read things that I could do, but have to admit, would be no easy task.

I even recently started to wonder whether I’m good enough to do what I want to do.

In the end, I know that there’s this right hemisphere of my brain that doesn’t seem to function when I am awake (hence, the good ol’ logical Tai, that we all know and love). I am not an artist. I know shit about design (only what I have read or overheard). I feel lost.

It’s disheartening to read prospective job positions asking for a person like me, but better (someone who knows more about scripting, someone with more front end skills, someone who has a masters degree). I hope none of you ever have to face that.

So I cleaned out my desk. A mental crutch for me. There is nothing in CP that has my name. I have completely disappeared.

Mike, to my amazement, is ever confident that the prodigal son of the interaction design group will return to CP and head up the User Research Centre again. I however, am not that optimistic.

So now I’ve been looking for a job. I’ve applied outside of Toronto to places in Calgary, Vancouver, Kingston, etc. Well, I’ve always wanted to see the Country…I just wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.

I just applied for a position at Hummingbird: Their asking for more experience, but to be honest, “Who want’s to live in Kingston?” I can do everything in the job description. In fact, I’m probably over qualified. However, it would suck if my CV was tossed out, simply because I don’t have the extra year of experience that they require. I am confident that I will get at least an interview. The Job has been posted since February—no takers I guess.

I’m young, somewhat mobile (may have to get a car). Sometimes I wonder, “who else out there has these problems?” Not that I would wish them upon anyone.

Cheers,

Tai