Love My Work, Hate My Job

I love the work that I do, but I hate my job.

When I say that I like the work that I do, I don’t just mean software development, though that is part of it. I mean the exact work that I do at my current job. I develop applications for phones, I write code to integrate with google earth, I write web applications, I write windows applications, I get to do basically everything I want, and very little that I don’t. But even though I love EXACTLY what I am doing, I hate my job.

Many people around the office have this heir of entitlement. They all seem the think that though they don’t do anything, they should be promoted, respected, and empowered because they think they are somehow entitled to be. They have this idea that everything they do is right, and everything everyone else does is wrong, and everyone thinks they could do everyone else’s job better. They keep their noses in the air, and don’t listen to anything unless it comes out of their own mouth. If you have a killer idea, they don’t like it until they repeat it and coin it as their own.

I think we all know and hate people like this, but through some freak occurrence, they all ended up working here. Maybe it is this place that changes them.

When I started, all I wanted was what I had, plus a little raise every year. But I find that the more time I spend here, and the more I am attacked by these people, the more I become one of them in defense.

This attitude is poison, and it’s infected my entire office… thought I love the work I do, I need to exit before I let this poison take its toll on me. What a shame... give up something you love to protect yourself from becoming something you hate.

Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon

Well the 1/2 Marathon has come and gone... I always figured it would be harder than it was. You really don't have to kill yourself, it's not even as long as it sounds. That being said, the recovery time, would tell a conflicting story. My knees were pretty soar for about 5 days after the run.

About two and a half years ago, I trained for a 10k which is less than half the distance of this race. When I finished, I just kept running till I found a trash can, and I puked my guts out.

Now it's not like I've been training for 2.5 years straight for this, I only decided to run in it late November, and in the 1.5 months I had to train, I only ran 6 times (see the training log at the bottom of this entry). Though the training helped me build some muscle, endurance, and helped me find my style and pace, I think that there were two factors that really helped me out on this one that happened outside of the realm of training.

First off, I lost 40-50 lbs over the last 2 years, which makes a HUGE difference. When you can carry 170 lbs, compared to 220, its a world of difference.

Secondly, I read I book on how to run. It promoted the idea that running style was not all it was cracked up to be, that if you cared what people thought of you when they saw you, you would look better, but waste energy and cause injury. I focussed a lot of my training on finding as style that would keep my ankles, knees, and back comfortable, and would minimize the work I spent bobbing up and down. I tried to spend all my energy moving forward. I think that it really worked out. Day 4 of my training was the first day I figured out the style that I used in the marathon.

Anyway, it was a good experience, I don't feel as accomplished as I thought I would, but it felt pretty good to cross the finish line.

For anyone who is interested, here is my GPS training logs:

• Day 1 (4.93 mi, 0:50:02)
• Day 2 (5.86 mi, 0:53:58)
• Day 3
• Part 1 (?.?? mi, 0:30:01)
• Part 2 (?.?? mi, 0:35:04)
• Day 4 (9.88 mi, 1:50:14)
• Day 5 (3.68 mi, 0:38:48)
• Day 6 (5.90 mi, 0:58:49)
• The 1/2 Marathon (13.10 mi, 2:13:23)