You know what it is, but you still want some
You just can't get enough of that lovey-dovey stuff.

U2, "Discoteque"
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I've been neglecting my blogging duties, and I have to say that it's been one of the things that have kept me focused, if only because I've been using the blog entries as a unit of measurement of time.

Day Six
I stayed overtime at work.

This is a lot harder to do than it was a year ago by virtue of the fact that I have no car. Fortunately, because I get in so early (by Ixia engineer's standards) at 8am, overtime for me means staying until 9pm, which is pretty much normal business hours for other engineers, especially the younger ones who are just out of college.

Overtime (and being a workaholic) was kind of how a built a name for myself at Ixia, and so while I don't consider it a hallmark of greatness by any means, and I do have respect for anyone who just wants to get the goddamn job done. It's what's separated my enjoyable relationships from my strained ones. None of them except for Heather ended up having the same work ethic. People talk all the time about how compatibility stems from having the same sense of humor or similar interests. These, however, are illustrations of how people react to a punchline or what they do on their spare time. I'm more interested in seeing how someone reacts to a problem.

It's been frustrating for me recently, though, because throughout my professional career, and even extending backwards to my time at Caltech, I never felt that time was a precious commodity. Time was never finite. If I had to stay in the lab an extra hour, an extra two hours, and extra four, so be it. Page wasn't going anywhere, and I surely wasn't going to miss out on food that much. Big deal. Get the goddamn job done.

I'm not a big fan of Home Improvement, but one of favorite lines was from Tim Allen's character. "Every job has two things in common: they must be done, and they must be done well."

Now, because of the lack of mobility, I know that 6:30pm is the time when Carroll leaves, and that 7:30pm is the time when Nithin leaves. These are my "outs," and so a certain measure of quickness has to now be added. Before, I was methodical, perhaps to a fault, knowing that if I had to stay until 1am, that it was doable. I have to say that I don't think I've handled the pressure well at all, but I'm not sure if it's entirely to do with work. Perhaps I've also had other troubles in mind, and it's just been too much of a strain for me. Maybe I'm used to biting off a bit more than I can chew, workload-wise, knowing that I'd be able to handle it in the long term. I guess that right now, I have no long term. Isn't that a frightening idea?