Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Tag: software

  • I always thought the reward for doing a good job was that you got to keep the job

    I was unexpectedly let go from my job recently, after doing what was widely seen as a good job. It stings.

  • The butterfly effect: how we can’t always know the importance of our choices as we make them

    My job search continues. I’m a week into a four-week part-time consulting job, and a couple opportunities for which I’ve interviewed look very promising. I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but best case, I could be back to work in a few weeks. Meanwhile, here’s a rewrite of this post from 2009 that tells…

  • Twenty-five years in the software salt mines

    Tomorrow it will have been 25 years since I started my career in the software industry. It might seem odd that I remember the day only until you know that I started work on Monday, July 3, 1989, making my second day a paid holiday. The office was nearly deserted on my first day. My boss regretted…

  • 12 years hence

    My family was spending most of the week living in an extended-stay hotel while a crew of plumbers were replacing all the pipes under the money pit we called home. My wife was leaving the hotel late in the evening to sleep in the house to keep our dogs and cats company. I chose a…

  • Much ado about Flickr

    I was shocked when I logged into Flickr last week and found an entirely new interface. My shock turned to disappointment and sadness that some of my contacts were super angry about the change, left strongly worded comments on their photostreams, and immediately moved their photos to other services. I make software products for a living;…

  • Technical problems can almost always be solved, but people problems are hard

    I’ll never forget the revelation it was when I figured out how to write computer programs. You mean, I thought, I can make this machine do what I want it to? It was a watershed moment in my life. I was shy, introverted. People often frightened me, at least a little. I struggled to interact with people I…

  • Even a mediocre plan will work if everybody follows it

    I have been astonished in my life by how few problems are truly unsolvable. I have also noticed that, most of the time, when a problem ends up not being solved it is for one of two reasons: people deny the problem, or they won’t work together on the solution. I make software for a…

  • The pinnacle of my career

    Not long ago I wrote about a time I was fired under some pretty stinky circumstances. And then there was the time I worked under the CEO who lied in court about having sexually harassed his assistant. And I still haven’t told the story about the company owner who went to prison. Fortunately, my long…

  • Twenty-one years in the software salt mines

    A personal anniversary passed quietly last Saturday. It was the 21st year since I started my career. It may seem odd that I remember the day only until you know that I started work on July 3, making my second day a paid holiday. The office was nearly deserted on my first day. My boss…

  • The butterfly effect

    The smartest thing I did in high school was take Speech class. I was thinking about that the other night as, just for grins, I scanned some old high-school photographs and uploaded them to Facebook. I took this photo from the lectern. The assignment was to give a sales pitch, so I dug out one…