Dawn at 4:30!
Jun. 28th, 2010 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vlionDawn at 4:30 am. That's north Idaho. I'm up to see it, because I woke up at 3:30am. The room feels too hot. Pity. I am mad with excitement, the gears in my head are absolutely spinning. But I quietly do chores. The Girlfriend is sleeping in the spare room; I can't put away dishes at 5am. Frustrating.
Today is the day I am switched over from 'intern' to 'regular, full-time, employee' at Local Engineering Firm[*]. I will have the New Employee orientation at 8 sharp. Strange, since I've been working as Intern for a year, but, then, okay. Whatever.
Four-thirty is quiet. No is up except me and some looney birds. Five thirty is quiet, too. I make pancakes. Chores are worked on...
My arms are sunburnt from the bicycle ride yesterday, some 18 miles. They hurt to the touch. The clear and lucid light of early morning when no humans are up still hangs around, and the door is open. I have a white-collar job. Possibly the first real white-collar job my family has ever had. I'm not sure about my grandpa's brother. Never met him.
Benefits? What? Decisions! They are a maze. I don't know that retirement is something that's needed. Why not have your fun during your life, instead of waiting until you are mostly dead? I'm confused. But it helps in taxation management? COBRA? Health Care? My family's never needed it.
I look forward to going to work and doing a good job. This is it. I've spent nearly nine years(less 1 interim year) as a student now, and my Master's is nearly done.
This is the goal, then - a small apartment while I pay off my bills, and a small desk in a corner in a corporation. Two weeks vacation(for the first two years, three weeks afterwards). All this in exchange for -
- money. Freedom from debt. Ability to not have to go out and work in the cold and the heat like my father, even when it's -10F or +95F - or worse. Ability to send my children to college so -
- they can do this too?
Ability to buy a farm. Ability to work with thinking people. Ability to make a difference in the world in a very meaningful sense. The Firm is a very good company in genuinely meaningful ways. We believe in quality. We believe in making products that positively affect the lives of millions across the globe - and we do. I have a chance as a software engineer involved in testing to ensure that certain critical infrastructure areas are more reliable than otherwise.
But, I'm totally in that Awkward Post-College Moment.
[*] Firm name is not to be named, ever.
Today is the day I am switched over from 'intern' to 'regular, full-time, employee' at Local Engineering Firm[*]. I will have the New Employee orientation at 8 sharp. Strange, since I've been working as Intern for a year, but, then, okay. Whatever.
Four-thirty is quiet. No is up except me and some looney birds. Five thirty is quiet, too. I make pancakes. Chores are worked on...
My arms are sunburnt from the bicycle ride yesterday, some 18 miles. They hurt to the touch. The clear and lucid light of early morning when no humans are up still hangs around, and the door is open. I have a white-collar job. Possibly the first real white-collar job my family has ever had. I'm not sure about my grandpa's brother. Never met him.
Benefits? What? Decisions! They are a maze. I don't know that retirement is something that's needed. Why not have your fun during your life, instead of waiting until you are mostly dead? I'm confused. But it helps in taxation management? COBRA? Health Care? My family's never needed it.
I look forward to going to work and doing a good job. This is it. I've spent nearly nine years(less 1 interim year) as a student now, and my Master's is nearly done.
This is the goal, then - a small apartment while I pay off my bills, and a small desk in a corner in a corporation. Two weeks vacation(for the first two years, three weeks afterwards). All this in exchange for -
- money. Freedom from debt. Ability to not have to go out and work in the cold and the heat like my father, even when it's -10F or +95F - or worse. Ability to send my children to college so -
- they can do this too?
Ability to buy a farm. Ability to work with thinking people. Ability to make a difference in the world in a very meaningful sense. The Firm is a very good company in genuinely meaningful ways. We believe in quality. We believe in making products that positively affect the lives of millions across the globe - and we do. I have a chance as a software engineer involved in testing to ensure that certain critical infrastructure areas are more reliable than otherwise.
But, I'm totally in that Awkward Post-College Moment.
[*] Firm name is not to be named, ever.
