Well, all blogs must come to an end. As much fun as my divorce from Andersen was last year, my wife and I are now divorcing. You can read about it at souraaron.blogspot.com if you are so inclined.

-A

I have to be honest. After going through a massive implosion of a company (dot-commers, ex-enronites, telecom folks, and people who worked at divine can probably all relate)... even if you manage to keep your job, you start to really worry... all - the - time. Paranoia sets in. Job security seems like a total joke. Nothing is under your control, yet you flagellate to control what you can. This tech depression, to quote Stan Marsh, sucks ass.

Holy shit... I almost forgot that I even started this Blog. Well, here I am again, new year and all. So you might wonder how things are going!

Well, July 31 was indeed my last day at Andersen. I did get my retention bonus, and no, I do not work for my former boss there, as I have finally broken free from his mighty grasp.

I work for a small, profitable, human resource consulting company. Not nearly as interesting, but has a set of interesting issues all it's own.

Life is going OK. After not being in the job market for years, you forget how long it takes to really get comfortable in a new job. Especially as the new boss, with the exception of your "honeymoon capital", you have to really work to gain credibility.

The future is looking bright.

On a brighter note (and explaining lack of entries for a couple days)... I bought the game "Morrowwind : Elder Scrolls 3" on Wednesday, and just completed a 48 hour gaming session. Very cool game... pick up a copy!

Had a conversation with the wife today. We are getting close to considering having our daughter Adriana put in private school. I had the pleasure of taking her to school (she is in Kindergarten) today, and met the teacher. Her teacher must be one of the most indifferent and unpersonable people I have ever met! When we registered her a couple months ago (after our move to the burbs), a sub was there, and our experience was good. Not so with the actual teacher, who came off as a smarmy, unhappy person, who does not like kids.

Given that her current school district (she is in Kindergarten) is a big, suburban, materialistic, indifferent, nasty mess, it seems imperative that we do something more positive for her. This experience for me... trying to get the most for my daughter in her education, makes the case for school vouchers better than the case against school vouchers. The case against vouchers (better covered in other places) seems very academic... keeping a "strong public school system", "seperation of church and state", and the like. The case for vouchers, giving education consumers a choice, letting the market work in education, giving schools the ability to root out unqualified, burnt out, or other people who do not belong near children, seems like it will produce a result that is substantially better than the current state of affairs.

More to come. I am going to re-read any material I can find against and for vouchers and come to a more educated conclusion. I am also going to get some perspective from immediate stakeholders regarding what life is really like in higher grades in my daughter's school district.

Signed my retention agreement today. 25% of base is still good :)

Boss is getting ready to leave Andersen. I have written my old sociology prof for his recommendations on what masters program I should persue in Economics. Refreshingly, we are getting much closer to decisions regarding where we will go after Andersen.

As I predicted to my boss, at his disbelief no more than 3 days ago, the retention bonuses that we were getting, are indeed, not based on a full year's salary, but on a 3 or 6 month retention period. HA! Knew It! Now he has to call each and everyone in the department that they are getting only 25% of what he said earlier. Lets watch the resignations fly!!!

... and that is if they ever get paid at all!

Google search of the day : +Andersen +"retention bonus" +bankruptcy

Working on my boss' "plan B" today. Fun stuff... imagine you have unlimited money, build the best credit, market, energy, and operational risk system that money can buy. Besides the irony of a soon to be ex-Andersen cube dweller building a world class energy risk management system... this is a fun project. I have the proposal up to about 3M in hardware and software, 1M in fees. Nothing but the best... SunFire servers, EMC storage lockers, data warehouse, TIBCO front end, etc. etc. This is actually fun.

Working from home is much more fun than working in the office. Slept in til 9 today, and I do not feel a bit of guilt!

My boss is now holding back (or taking his own sweet time) on references because he wants exclusive rights to hire me at wherever he ends up. Hilarious.

Read a good book last night on dealing with dependent bosses. The good side, you get paid well (e.g. they will do anything to make you happy or keep you from working for anyone else). The bad side, is that they are a constant pain-in-the-ass. I have a feeling that the only way out of this is retirement or career change (e.g. go back to Grad school). Since I am not yet independently wealthy, I will probably end up doing the career change at some near future point. Software development is a shitty business to be in. Perhaps I will do a later post explaining why... but I assure you... if your kids are majoring in CS, encourage them to change majors :)