In avoiding that trap, I'm going to try to keep this short and on point. Except for that meta-paragraph above. And this one too.
I've been working as a contractor for a university since January 2007. As a student, I had worked for them since 2002, but this was the first time I worked for them in a professional software developer capacity. It was exciting!
About two months ago, I found out that my contract for this year would only be funded until July. After some drama, soul searching, and job hunting, I ended up securing a position with my friend's company.
Then I found out last week, oops! The funding ran out three weeks ago. They extended my funding to cover the time I already worked plus this week to tie up loose ends, and fortunately my friend was in a position to bring me on a few months earlier than already planned.
Today was my last day working there. It's both sad and exciting to leave something that was familiar and constant for seven years. My old job was nice and convenient for a number of reasons, but I am afraid I was starting to get into a bit of a rut. It's nice to shake things up a bit.
I'll be doing work that's entirely different from everything else going on in the company which is weird but cool. I think it might give me the chance to have a large, perhaps unilateral, influence on the shape and direction of the work I do. I'm hoping that will translate into building awesome interesting things.
This shift in my career path combined with living by myself for the first time ever come the end of this month means my life might have a significantly different intonation this time two or three months from now. I hope it is for the better.
