September Travels
• Mark Eschbach
I am somewhere between Sacramento and San Diego as I am composing this post. 2018 has indeed been a year of unexpected changes. Something I don’t expect to see change anytime soon. One of those changes is starting a new job, where I am officially a DevOps Engineer. As apart of joining the new company I needed to spend two weeks in San Francisco on-boarding.
Both times I have on-boarded with companies has been an interesting experience. Although the work day itself is generally great, with meeting new people and familiarize myself with their systems, the trip itself tends to be a rather lonely adventure. When I was younger I would have thrown caution to the wind, enjoying random activities by myself. A welcomed deviance from being my usually responsible parent. Old now, I desire to belong more with community around me. The distance is far enough from home where staying down in San Francisco is the best choice. As apart of their on-boarding employers rarely feed the human side when asking people to stay down there.
Due to a mix-up on my part while preparing to stay in San Francisco for the second week I waited to late to book a hotel room. After some debating with my better half I decided to finally try commuting in every day via the train. I would catch the 7:45a train out and arrive back at my home station around 7:50p. Effectively 12 hour days. First two days were a breeze. Wednesday of that week was not too bad. But Thursday and Friday, completing 48 and 56 hours was difficult.
The Strange Loop is a conference I can see myself continuing to attend. However this means more time away from my family and community this month. A total of almost three weeks of the four. On-boarding and this conference satiate important aspects of being a functional adult. Besides heading out for another few days in two weeks for an out of town company all-hands I get to spend time at home for a while. On to adventure!