I encountered so many difficulties, some of which were my own doing, some was just inevitably natural.

1. Communication was challenged due to language barriers. Although English was used, the other party had poor grasp of it.
2. Non-technical people on the client’s side were forced to perform technical operations involving executing command-line operations in Linux. They get exasperated when typing in seemingly complex commands, only to get unsuccessful results. Patience is definitely not one of their virtues.
3. They don’t want solutions. They just want it to work. Period. Just like magic!
4. Errors in the released software, due to lack of testing. I admit wholeheartedly that this is of my own fault. I should be beaten up and have my Computer Science diploma shoved down my throat.
5. Differences in hardware on my end, and on the clients’ end that resulted in unforeseen results that led to my own confusion.

Everyone was breathing down my neck, including both my bosses and the client’s. I felt like I was so incompetent and so inept. I wasn’t making anyone happy and I wasn’t fulfilling my obligations to everyone’s expectations. There were some instances that I wish I would get fired just to escape the humiliation and all the blame that would boil down on me. The worst part of it is that these clients are flying over here to Manila next week!

On a side note, I had fun working on these two projects. The first one involved a mobile Linux machine to be placed on police cars. It had 4-channel video surveillance, GPS with street map positioning, and although not yet implemented, license plate recognition technology. The second one involved a mammoth hardware intensive 32-channel digital video surveillance, running on a live Linux operating system installed on a 1GB Compact Flash card.

Sadly, all this coolness won’t matter at all if the clients can’t get these things up and running on their side. Sigh. L

I am a Senior Software Engineer and I am considered to be the resident “Linux Guru” in the company. I utterly detest it when I am referred to as such. Not only, does it add bearing on the responsibility of upholding to such a title, in the end I succumb to a realization that I might not deserve it after all.

I’ve fairly adjusted well to the routine of living away from home. Lame as it may seem, this is the first time I’ll be living away from my family. All my schools have been very near where I live so I never had to dorm. I worked in Makati right after graduation and it was horrible. I was used to getting home in less than 30 minutes, so getting home in 2 hours never really registered in my brain as something rational. Two whole hours sitting or standing in obscure ways and in undesirable environments was not just a waste of time for me, it was torture. Millions of people endure this everyday and just like everyone else, I got used to it. But its not in my nature to let things go this way, and naturally, I would desire a more optimal process of living.

When I told my parents I’d be working again in Makati and that I’ll be getting a place there to live by myself, they said NO. I predicted that would happen but I also knew that sooner or later it would sink in to them that they have to let me go. This is the next step in a person’s life wherein she should learn how to take care of herself. Now they’re telling everyone how their daughter is now living in her own condominium unit. Pah!

My brother was the first one who saw the condo unit when he drove me there with all my stuff. He thought it was crappy, old and cheap looking. My mother’s thoughts were not far off, she said it was messy and the old furniture looked weird. Hey this is the best thing I could find with the budget!

Since I have no computer, no internet and no cable-tv, I just watch DVDs most of the time. Usually I come home late from work so I just watch movies until I feel sleepy. I would seriously like to get rid of some of the old furniture, particularly the faded couches that’s eating up space! And if I can afford a more energy efficient air-con, that’d be great too. I just have my clothes laundered weekly amounting to just P50. They seem ok so I don’t bother to have them ironed anymore hehehe.

Now I have to save money so I can buy my own computer or laptop and have intrenet access. And then it will all be too perfect!

The moment Neugent asked me to come back and work for them again, I thought it was a joke. My last day in Neugent was one of the happiest days in my entire life. Really. I felt elated, like a big burden was off my back, that I was free at last! Free from the burden of waking up dead early in the morning to face more than an hour’s worth of Manila traffic. It’s not really the traffic. Its the hoards of people going the same direction as you are. No more insane unpaid overtimes. In short, I got my life back.

For more than a year, I was happy and content. I was doing fine in Ateneo. The pay was okay, and they give in to my requests almost all the time. The microwave, refridgerator, LCD monitor, and even the oven toaster! We’re far from Google workplace but we’re getting there.

Then suddenly one of the team leads in Neugent is leaving to work abroad and they need someone to fill in quickly, someone who doesn’t need any training, who will come in and just start working like nothing happened. Me.

Of course I made my demands. They also pointed out that things have changed for the better in Neugent and it’s not the same hell place I left more than a year ago. Why would I just suddenly leave comfort for this other work that’s more challenging, more demanding, and just plain insane?!

Well here I am. I’m back to the work I’ve loathed before. I still can’t believe it but here I am. I miss my old work terribly, but I have to face back reality. That if I want to succeed in my field, then I have to be hard core.