I do not often write about my job or my work. It has not been something I felt at liberty to write about, nor has it been interesting enough to spend any time on it. Today is an exception, as something exceptional occurred. I was able to take on a part-time job with my present company sometime back in July, come October I was brought on as their first full-time tech (consequently I get my pick of titles, and for now I like “Lead Web Developer”). Back in August my wife and I agreed I could use a laptop for my personal life, my freelance work, and for my part-time job. By the time October came around I was relying on my iBook, using it every day. This did not seem like a problem until it crashed.
Apple does a fantastic job with their computers in my estimation, but even they cannot prevent an occasional problem, and I’m not even sure who would be at fault with my first crash; it’s likely I caused the problem. Nevertheless my computer would not boot up, and I finally saw the fatal flaw in my work environment. My personal laptop, doubling as my work machine, was now causing me to lose work because I had no other machine to work on: I relied solely on my laptop for my job. I weathered that storm and made a mental note to resolve the issue.
Sometime later I had a brief brush with another fatal failure, but escaped it after a half hour or so of work. Again I made a mental note to address the issue permanently, then returned to work. Since October I have been swamped with enough work for at least three programmers, and while that spells job security it sometimes means I push projects off to get another one done.
Yesterday I finally acted on that mental note. For the past few weeks I have been evaluating my options, trying to find a way to duplicate my environment on my iBook in a efficient and cost effective manner. I do not like asking any of my employers to spend large sums of money on me, for that matter I don’t like asking anyone to spend any amount of money on me. If offered I will accept, but I do not like asking. I finally asked. I outlined three systems, silently hoping for the middle of the two, but expecting the cheapest and least desirable. Today I received my new desktop machine, my first choice!
An iMac may not be the most powerful machine Apple sells, but it will do quite nicely for me unless I begin application development for OSX, which is not likely to happen in the near future. I was surprised that my boss agreed to purchase a Mac for me since the rest of the shop is using Windows, and I was further surprised when he went whole hog and got me exactly what I wanted, no compromises. I am now scrambling to configure it in as short a time as possible to minimize any downtime. I have been done a great service, given a wonderful gift (even if it is company property), and now I feel even more loyal to my company.
I have been impressed with the care my bosses have shown me. Bar none this has been the best job I’ve had, despite the commute and compensation differences. I get to work with wonderful people who have been accommodating and appreciative. All of my code is used regularly, and with each new innovation and advancement I get to hear the praise and excitement from my fellow employees and my bosses. My job is good, and it just got better, even though I’ll have to beat a path to my office now, wading through a drooling mob of iMac admirers.