Dave's Blog

Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:28:39 PM 

I was wondering how I would describe my current occupation.  I'm 
not a web designer per se, although I have built some simple web 
pages.  I haven't taken Dreamweaver for a drive that brought me 
revenue yet.  I understand the layout of the pages that I 
maintain, but I haven't created anything too complex as of yet.  
I understand javascript, php, and mySQL, but I don't have the 
demo up.  So all I really do is maintain existing web sites.  

Enter a new term:  "Web specialist."  The webmaster doesn't have 
to design.  One can be in a "web content maintenance business."  
It's all spelled out in the small business section of Business 
Week, in an article published on November 28th:  Get Your Pricing 
Right.  On top of that, an HOA across town is asking me for 
maintenance prices, and I can't find the web designer who did the 
Petrini Place design.  The Universe is urging me to take on 
paying clients!  


12/13/2005 10:55:17 PM

Ah, the life of the contractor.  I am on the market once again.  
A ninety-day contract has lasted 2-1/2 years, to finally reach 
the inevitable reduction in force.  For a while it looked like 
the contract would last another year.  The workforce on the 
project doubled in one quarter.  But then the Executive Vice 
President left, and a new one stepped in.  Staff meetings 
detailed the coming reorganization, and the number of 
man-hours devoted to the project suddenly became less than the 
number of man-hours scheduled for the year.  On Pearl Harbor 
Day the new EVP spoke the necessary and obvious solution:  
release the contractors.  

It's a risk we all face, and it becomes one of those unquestioned 
facts of life.  No hard feelings, farewell, see you next project.  
Now I get to visualize and create my perfect next employment.  

One thing that seems very important, that I have learned through 
counterexample the last 3-1/2 years, is that the location has to 
be inside the City.  No BART, no samTrans, no Caltrain.  I 
reflect on the times that I have lived close to work, and they 
were often more enjoyable than the times that I had a commute.  

The Coast Guard always had living arrangements close to work, so 
there was a four-year stretch when that was expected.  I had a 
two-block walk to work in Norfolk, where I had a summer job in 
the mail room at Old Dominion University.  Eight years in San 
Francisco I took a one-bus ride downtown to the Corps of 
Engineers.  Four years I walked around the block to get to the 
Business Computing Laboratory at SFSU; I didn't even have to 
cross a city street.  Two years I drove down Middlefield Road in 
Mountain View, then up El Camino Real to Menlo Park.  Finally, I 
walked to work for three years in San Francisco, at Charles 
Schwab, Microsoft, and SFSU.  

It looks like I have spent more of my life living close to work 
than commuting.  I like it!  It makes a difference!  So this time 
around I am really looking for an opportunity in the City of San 
Francisco.  

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