Geekflex

Where you choose to live is not something that can be underestimated. No matter how important a job or a career might be, once 5pm rolls around and you go home for the day you still have to live there. I’m not sure to what extent citizens are influenced by a city’s character or vice versa. It might be that the sidewalks roll up at night in some places because people prefer to spend their evenings at home, or maybe people prefer to spend their evenings at home only because there’s nothing else to do.

There’s no doubt that a city’s character and attitude can affect your perception of the place. Paul Graham describes this concept acutely in his essay on Cities and Ambition:

How much does it matter what message a city sends? Empirically, the answer seems to be: a lot. You might think that if you had enough strength of mind to do great things, you’d be able to transcend your environment. Where you live should make at most a couple percent difference. But if you look at the historical evidence, it seems to matter more than that. Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few places where that sort of thing was done at the time.

His point is that if you know exactly what you want to do, you should go live in the place where that sort of thing is being done. You should surround yourself with people who are doing that sort of thing. For example, if you wanted to pursue music then you should probably go live in Nashville, which is literally off-the-charts compared to other cities’ music scenes. Whether the people are influenced by the city or whether it’s the other way around is irrelevant when you think of the fact the people there are still providing much of the influence. The fact is that in doing what you want will come more easily if the people around you want to be doing the same thing, too. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. To quote again from Paul Graham’s essay:

No matter how determined you are, it’s hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It’s not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.

Although the essay emphasizes the work and career aspects of the city you live in, I think we also need to consider the lifestyle and social aspects.

I do believe the the key is to find a balance between an interesting work life as well as fulfilling social life. I’ve been going to extremes on both ends of the spectrum, so it’s no wonder I’m so far unsatisfied. I started my career at IBM’s Ottawa lab working on the garbage collector for the Java Virtual Machine. It was a very, very cool job. I got to work on some pretty exciting things and dive head first into the low-level inner workings of the VM. I was dealing with complex problems that I’d only read about in textbooks and I loved it. Yet I found that the city’s attitudes and subtle messages were running against the grain of my personality. The underlying message in Ottawa that permeates the very fabric of the city is: “Settle down.”

And I was not ready to settle down. I had just graduated, I felt like I had an infinite sea of options ahead of me and I could do anything I want. The last thing I would want to do is “settle.”

My social life went from its peak in university to a dead stop as soon as the moving truck left with my belongings in it. It was like hitting a brick wall while traveling at 200mph, without anti-lock breaks or airbags. There were several factors that contributed to the social vacuum I experienced, but I think that ultimately the root cause was that I moved prematurely. I still had unfinished business to deal with in my hometown, and I was not mentally prepared to say goodbye and move on. I probably would’ve been unhappy no matter where I ended up. Having said that, I’m still not ready to settle — least of all in Ottawa.

When I moved back to Montreal, I jumped from extreme on the work/life spectrum to the other. Although I was asked if I would be interested in keeping my job on the VM team while working remotely out of Montreal, I declined because I didn’t like the idea of being isolated from my teammates. Instead I switched teams to the only software team that operates in Montreal, which is a very different kind of team from the one I had in Ottawa. My social life has indeed improved since I’ve returned, but I am regretting the decision I took to switch teams.

I have not, for even a second, regretted the decision to move back to Montreal. This city’s message is much more in tune with who I am. Montreal’s underlying philosophy is “Enjoy life.” You can feel it in the pulse of the city’s streets. This city is alive and its character is emphasized everywhere you go. Not a day goes by where I don’t think to myself, at least once, “I fucking love this city.”

Despite the city, my social life is beginning to experience its natural decline and tapering off as I get older and more disconnected from the life I had as a university student. This gradual sense of slowing down is exactly what I need now, even though it’s been causing me no small amount of anxiety. It’s important for my personal growth to learn to deal with this very natural part of growing up. This is what my brain knows, anyway. My heart is still not willing to give it up.

The experience of my move to Ottawa is still tugging at the back of my head. I wish I had never gone so that I could experience this gradual decline at a more appropriate pace. Instead of hitting the brick wall at 200mph, it might have been more bearable if I were going 50mph or if I’d have had time to install airbags.

One thing I learned from the experience is that I have to be more careful when choosing a place to live. Many people have told me that Ottawa is unique in quite how boring it really is, and that this is only something you can really know once you live there. I learned that I need to spend enough time in a city to be able to hear its subtle messages before I decide to lay down roots there. I’m hoping this learned caution is a good thing, and if I do decide to move somewhere else I’ll be better prepared.

It’s no secret that I’m looking for the next step in my career, which means a little more than simply saying that I’m searching for a new job. Although IBM is an excellent company to work for¹, their opportunities in Montreal are severely limited. If I wanted to work on an interesting, exciting and challenging project at Big Blue, I would have to move to either Toronto (well, Markham) or Ottawa. More and more I’m beginning to realize that staying in Montreal is becoming a career-limiting move.

I’ve tried the Ottawa thing already, and lasted no more than 7 months before frantically scrambling back to my home city. The job was good and the team was smart and motivated, but the city town was dull. There are several reasons why I was miserable living there, and it wouldn’t be constructive to list them all here. The most important factor was the distance and separation from my close friends. Sociable as I am, I never expected to have such a hard time making friends in Ottawa. Making friends is something that has come naturally to me and posed no challenge throughout my university experience. One of the benefits of university, of course, is that I got to spend nearly all my waking hours surrounded by an ever-changing group of like-minded people around the same age as me. Contrasted with work, where I was significantly younger than most of my co-workers, making it difficult to approach them as anything more than just simply “co-workers”. Most of my evenings would be spent miserably sitting on my couch. The loneliness was unbearable, and the misery of it affected how I felt about my job and my work.²

The clincher was when my group of friends collaborated and built a bar to give as a birthday present to my best friend in the world. Although they waited until I could be in town before surprising him by erecting the bar in his living room, it broke my heart that I couldn’t be there to help with the construction and my only contribution to the effort was a bottle of banana liqueur. It was then that I realized that my friends won’t all be in the same place for much longer. In fact, two close friends have already moved to BC. For the time being, my closest friends are all conveniently gathered in one city and I don’t think there’s any reason for me to live anywhere else. Case in point, when I was feeling down a few weeks ago, a group of friends colluded in secret to surprise me and cheer me up. They stormed my apartment carrying beer and food and a card which they had all signed right under my nose at a party the night before. These are the people that make my life awesome, and if I only have a limited time to take advantage of us all being in the same place then I am damn well going to enjoy it while I can. If I leave now, I will regret it for the rest of my life.

Needless to say, I’m not willing to move back to Ottawa. Although my initial move may have occurred at a premature stage in my life, the experience has embittered me to the concept of leaving Montreal altogether. I’m not saying I’ll never leave, but I’m certainly more resolved to staying for the time being.

The problem is that Montreal is far from the best place to be looking for technology jobs. That’s not to say there aren’t any jobs here — quite the contrary. Programming jobs are a dime a dozen, but I’m not looking just another job. I want to start my career. To that end I know what I’m looking for, and it’s not easy to find. I need something that will enable me to grow as a software developer and as a person, that will challenge me and force me to make decisions, improve my existing skills and learn new ones. Regardless of whether I’m looking within IBM or without, I know I’ll have much better luck finding my professional niche in Toronto³ given that there are simply many more teams and projects to choose from.

I’d like to say I’m comfortable biding my time until I no longer have such strong roots in Montreal — once my friends start drifting away and finding their own careers and lives elsewhere — but I’m not. I’m getting antsy and agitated. I feel like these next few years are critical for establishing the foundations of my long-term career. I’m young, energetic, ambitious and passionate. I have all the drive and determination in the world. These are traits should be put to work investing in my future. If I wait too long there are opportunities that I’m bound to miss, and the longer I wait the older I’ll get and the less time I’ll have. Now is the time to get started.

I feel stuck.

If I stay in Montreal, I will have all the people who are important to me nearby. They will continue to fill my life with love and genuine happiness and there is no measure for how much my life is enriched by having them around. Yet I’ll be sacrificing opportunities to advance in my career, to learn and grow as a professional and contribute significantly to industry. On the other hand if I leave Montreal for a career, I’ll be deserting my friends and the immeasurable joy they bring to me. I used to believe that I could build a bustling social life for myself no matter where I am, but the move to Ottawa last year changed that. I’m now much more hesitant to leave for fear of reliving that loneliness again, and I know that even if the job is amazing I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it if I didn’t have close friends to enhance my life.

I haven’t yet given up on finding the perfect career in Montreal, and I will continue the scour the city with a fervour. But maybe it’s time I start sending my resume elsewhere as well just to see where it leads.

I don’t blog often. The last time I wrote a post was 3 months ago, in August. When I started this blog I had intended to stick to a regular writing schedule, but clearly that’s not how things turned out. I’m very proud of the articles I’ve written here so far, and I let myself get trapped into thinking that each post must be better than the last. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say recently — on the contrary, I’ve had a number of topics bouncing around in my head and I’ve even written down quick outlines and notes for them.

The problem is that at the end of the day I have trouble organizing my thoughts into prose. Written language is so much more subtle than spoken language. I’m much more fluid when speaking to someone (especially if there’s a pint of beer in my hand). I thought of recording a podcast and instantly rejected the idea on the grounds that since I never listen to podcasts, I couldn’t reasonably expect anyone to listen to mine. Writing it is, then.

When I read 7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School I realized I was stuck on Bad Habit #2: “Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt.” No one is going to tell me what I should be writing about, so I can’t keep bouncing around ideas until someone says “Okay, Skrud, I want to hear about x.” The hardest part about writing is figuring out what the hell I want to say. Once I know what I want to say the words flow naturally, but being indecisive about what I want to say is my writer’s block.

In a way, this is a lot like programming. I’ve always felt that 90% of the effort that goes into programming is just figuring out what it is you want to program. When faced with a particular problem to solve, the bulk of the work is solving it. Translating that solution into code is trivial by comparison. As I become more experienced in the art of programming, solutions become more obvious. Being familiar with the systems I work on allows to make quick assumptions that help me hone in on the problem areas much sooner.

With writing, I often find myself stuck in the what the hell is it I want to write-phase during which I stare at a blank page for uncomfortably long periods of time. Or worse, I get the ideas criss-crossed in my head and start going off on several tangents, failing to combine everything into a cohesive idea. In programming, this is akin to writing brand new APIs and modifying miscellaneous libraries instead of focusing on the problem at hand.

If experience in programming makes solving programming problems easier, then experience in writing should make the writing process easier. The more I do it, the more naturally and easily I’ll be able to put my thoughts into words. In other words, if I want to write more, I need to write more. Duh.

When learning any skill, the key is to practice. Whether it’s programming, playing an instrument, playing a sport or yodeling, practice makes perfect. You start off with something small, like “Hello, World” or playing a single note, then you practice until you understand it well and it becomes second nature. To grow the skill, you need to add to that small part. You take what you’ve learned from writing “Hello, World” and you rearrange the commands, or add new ones. You take that single note you learned how to play and you add some more, learning a scale or a chord. Then these new tasks become second nature. You understand them and you’ve learned them. You can play scales with your eyes closed, and write programs without looking at a reference.

If you keep repeating this process, you’ll notice a pattern. Each time you start learning a new technique, built upon an old technique, there’s a lot of work involved. You focus your mental energy on understanding the differences. Eventually you become comfortable with the new technique, and it no longer requires much effort. You can perform it without thinking. Once you can perform without thinking, you’re not growing that skill anymore; the thing you’ve just learned becomes another tool on your bat-belt which can be used to learn and grow newer, more challenging techniques. In order to grow and become better at something, you must keep learning new things, applying the techniques you’ve mastered and developing new ones.

Streets of Rage was a series of beat-’em-up games for the Sega Genesis. One of the most interesting features of its gameplay was that the bosses at the end of a level became standard enemies in the following levels. In order to continue through the game you were forced to trivialize the enemies that at one time provided a significant challenge. Next thing you know, you’re fighting six of them at once and you can do it while yawning.

What kept the game interesting is that you’d have to keep growing your bad-guy-fighting skills. Each level introduced new mini-bosses and bosses that prepared you for the later bosses. How boring do you think Streets of Rage would be if, after beating the first boss, that boss was the only enemy you fought for the rest of the game? It wouldn’t matter if he came at you in swarms, eventually you’d become so comfortable and efficient at defeating him that the game wouldn’t be challenging anymore.

This same concept is something I look for in my professional life. I want bigger and better challenges. If I keep fixing the same kinds of bugs day-in and day-out, using the same tools, performing the same tasks, I’m not growing as a software developer. Skills which have become trivial for me are tools that I can use to learn more complex skills.

The ideal challenge is something that’s just beyond my abilities. Close enough that I’m confident enough to do it, and far enough away that I need to really stretch on tip-toes to reach it. Eventually I’ll get comfortable with it, I’ll be a little taller, and I can reach a little higher.

This week marked the one-year anniversary of my first full time job after graduating. I gained some experience and learned a lot about the company, its people, processes and teams. But more than anything I’ve learned a lot about myself. This has hardly been a solitary journey, and in the past year I’ve discussed with many different colleagues, mentors, managers, supervisors and even executives — both inside my company and elsewhere. I’ve participated in community discussions about engaging “Generation Y” in the workplace. All these experiences have helped me to identify and articulate those things that I believe are essential to happiness in my own career.

1. Face-to-Face Collaboration

I want to work with people in person. This could mean brainstorming together, bouncing ideas and solutions off of each other, and helping each other learn. It could include gathering around a whiteboard, or even a pad of paper, or getting two or more people huddled around a computer monitor trying to solve some nasty little bug. Or pair programming. Two heads are better than one and communication is infinitely more efficient if you have two people sitting together side-by-side. Some things that take hours to explain over the phone, instant messaging or e-mail can take mere minutes to explain in person. You can save all this time and extra frustration by just pulling up a chair next to someone else.

2. Friends

I’d love to have coworkers whom I can relate to on a social and cultural level. I want coworkers whom I can be friends with. The advantages of working with friends are endless. Collaboration amongst people who know each other well and get along is so much more meaningful. The small distractions that friends provide at the workplace, such as sharing a clever comic or YouTube video, add some positive energy to the environment. Something so simple as having a friend to eat lunch with can make a world of difference in a day that might otherwise be spent in isolation. These relationships extend beyond the boundaries of the workplace and become real, meaningful friendships. Going to a bar after work for happy hour, catching a movie on Tuesday night or heading to the Just For Laughs festival together are all things that coworkers who are also friends with each other can do. In short, it makes sitting in an office more lively.

3. Challenge Me

My university career was spent learning, developing and honing my technical, social and communication skills. My internships and my first year out of school have given me some practical experience. In order to grow, learn and master these skills I need to challenge them. I would love to be working on tasks that are just beyond the reach of my abilities, forcing me to learn something new or apply my skills in new ways. Naturally, every job will have some tedious aspect to it, but a sufficient challenge can be a reward for sticking through the menial parts and make everything worth it. The trick is finding those occasional projects that make me say “This is why I love this job.”

4. Talk To Me

Just as I seek out technical challenges to practice my technical skills, I need a forum for improving my communication skills. Unlike the stereotypical “geek”, I’m an extrovert. I love to talk, socialize and explain. I welcome open discussions and sometimes I like to play devil’s advocate. I thought that the ability to communicate effectively was secondary to my technical skills but what I’ve learned over the past year is that communication is a skill that needs to be cultivated. I’ve also learned that I need to communicate as much as I need a technical challenge, if not more so. The main reason I come into the office everyday is because it’s less lonely than sitting in my apartment. I only exercise my option to “work from home” if I have an excessive backlog of laundry to do. (In other words, it’s better than showing up to work in my pyjamas because I’m out of clothes).

5. Lifestyle and Location

Like others of my generation, I work to live. Money and wealth are not my primary motivators. Life should be about living. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that I can confidently say “I love my life.” If that’s not happening, then I know I need to do some moving and shaking. When I was working in Ottawa, my job was pretty awesome. I regularly had technical challenges and was working with a team of ridiculously smart people. After a few months, however, I learned that I simply couldn’t live in Ottawa. I found that I was sacrificing my lifestyle for the sake of my job. No job could replace the friends, entertainment and culture that I had enjoyed throughout my time in Montreal. It seems obvious now, but it was a tough lesson. I learned that the city I live in has an immense impact on my happiness and well-being. I need to be able to do the things that I love doing, whether it’s attending the Fantasia Film Festival, Nuit Blanche, the Eureka Science Fair or simply hanging out with my beloved friends. The bottom line is that my job must enable me to live my life to the fullest, or better yet be a part of what makes my life worth living.

It’s taken me a full year, but I feel like I’ve finally been able to state with confidence what I want out of my career and where it fits in with the rest of my life. Now that I know what I’m looking for I’m in a much better position to find it. World, here I come.