getting my head straight

 i'm feeling a little more organized, and considerably less overwhelmed than i have in a while. i feel like i'm managing to put all the pieces of the puzzle into place, and producing a coherent narrative that has reasons.

my chat with our ex-VP r&d this morning helped, especially in conjunction with a chat i had earlier with my mother. i had no idea what it was going to be about, but he opened up and i opened up and if any of that gets back to my current bosses, that's an exit interview for sure!

with everything that's been going on in our first year in israel after years of struggling to get here, it's only been through this last month or so while i've been interviewing and talking about interviewing that i've finally been able to understand precisely where i am and what i've been dealing with:

1. i work for a company that sees its human resources as single-use tools to be used and discarded at whim. we're constantly looking for "superstars", instead of raising up superstars from within. there's no coaching, there's no real cooperation, no attempt to improve processes or ensure that employees actually feel like a part of the team. everything's very superficial and shallow when you know that you can be dropped without warning.

2. as above, so below. the surviving members of the department - we're now just a team - aren't in the slightest bit interested in improving themselves or their own work conditions. everything's just fine as it is, thank you for asking, now fuck off and let me continue to do my miserable little thing in peace.

3. we have developed a culture of competing to merge our code which makes devs delay reviews until their own reviews are taken care of. even after we managed to bring the ci/cd roundtime from 3-5 hours down to 1-2.

4. i now understand that surprise firings are completely illegal in israel, and i am confident that the two months' salary the company claims to be so generous for paying out is actually hush money.

5. it also looks like there's some complication regarding the options - when you work for options, it's in lieu of the full salary you deserve. it's a big deal when your options vest, because one day they might be worth something. apparently, after being fired there's a very short (three month?) time window for "purchasing" or exercising one's options. if so, that runs counter to the whole point of options in the first place.

it may be "just business", but it's bad business. we have data that all of these ugly things are not good for anyone. this is just more fuel on my "i need to start my own company" fire.

...

it ultimately seems to have been a pretty productive day, work-wise.

mr smear spent the vast majority of his day enthusiastically constructing and playing with his new lego.

i left the office early to pick up mr smear and take him to jiujitsu, it was a good lesson. he really wants a playdate with a new friend from his class, the kid talks shit non-stop and drives me nuts but okay whatever.

i was *mortified* when the two of them were talking about lego, and mr smear very loudly and repeatedly yelled "you're RICH?!" (,,>﹏<,,)

...

it's late, and i've got a really big day tomorrow. a job interview in the morning and possibly being fired in the afternoon.

i'm going to finish my tea and hope for a good night's rest.