Feet Have Been

And so another term comes to an end. It’s been a great four months for me and even though I’m not actually in school I think it’s safe to say that I have learned quite a bit. Probably more than I learned in high-school. I figure it’s a good time to list all the things that I’ve learned during my first co-op work term.

Watch, then repeat
Whenever you go to somewhere new you always feel kinda awkward. Do I tip 15%? or just the tax? Does the faucet turn to the left or right for hot water… Oh.. it’s up? Is this door automatic.. oh. no it isn’t. Push or Pull? Normally questions like this we never need to ask ourselves, but when we’re suddenly pushed into a situation where we have no clue how anything works, don’t guess. Position yourself behind someone who’s going the same way you are. The watch them. Just do what they do. At a restaurant? “Oh.. that sounds really good, I’ll have what he’s having!” It’s fool proof. Just watch, then repeat and you’ll look like a pro. It’s best to look bored while doing it, then everyone will think this is a daily part of your life. Even if inside you’re giggling and how the automatic faucet turns out when you walk too close.

Schmooze
When it’s your first day, it’s easy to sit at your desk and ignore everyone else. It’s also rather tempting to not have to deal with everyone, but don’t listen to yourself. You’ll end up branded the weird guy that just sits by himself. Instead, pretend like you’re lost and ask someone who looks nice (probably someone with kids you can latch on to) to show you were the cafeteria is. you’ll probably make a new friend who will more than likely introduce you to somemore people. Just make sure you

Don’t treat them like your friend
Now, when I’m around my friends it’s pretty common to laugh at each other. It’s also common to yell out “NO YOU!” or “HA, that’s what she said”. Maybe even “That’s not what your mom said”. You must resist that urge. No matter how close you feel to someone, unless they hang out with you regularily they’re not friends, they’re colleagues. Treat them as such. I know a good friend, we’ll call Walla, who made a your mom joke to a colleague. The guy didn’t respond and just walked away. Walla later found out that his colleagues’ mother had died. Of cancer. Nothing makes you seem more like more of a dick that making fun of dead loved ones.

It’s not up to you
You know your stuff. Clearly. Or else you wouldn’t have ended up doing what you’re doing right now. But let’s get one thing straight. You don’t call the shots. So even when you know there’s a better way to do things, don’t just run out and do them. Talk to someone higher up and ask if it’s alright. A two minute conversation might save you being kicked out for not following proper procedure.

Except that it is
That’s right. Working is completely different from being in school. You have a deadline in school. You have a curriculum. Think of working as an online course. Except that you’re not allowed to leave early, you have to be on time daily, and even when you leave you still end up thinking about work. You are your own boss. Sure someone higher up gives you the work, but you are in charge of how you get it done. Think about that kid in class who sucked up all the time. The one who handed in homework early, laughed at the teachers stupid jokes, told on all the kids and got straight A’s. Now become them. That kid was a master at being his own boss. Remember, it matters that you hand in things ahead of schedule. Besides, if you don’t, how will you find time for all that facebook?

Limited Profiles
Since we’re on Facebook, set up networks. Use limited access protocols! People from work should never know that in your free time you dress up as Darth Vader and attend Star Wars conventions (Unless you’re in the IT department). They should never know that your “sick day” was really a day at Wonderland. They shouldn’t know that you “got blazed last night” or that you dress up like a faerie. Shit like that? That’s for your friends, not your colleagues.

Learn to call it a night
You’re used to stay up till 4am to get things done. After all college/university is ALL about cramming and last minute work. You’re a master at waiting till 4am to start a proect, finishing it in time for your 10am class, handing it in and then going to sleep. But that shit doesn’t fly anymore. You’re up till 4? Too bad, you’re still pulling a 9-5. Didn’t sleep at ALL last night? Can’t call in sick, you have work to do. You need to master the art of “goodnight” I can admit that I do my best work after 11pm. I’m wide awake, the lights are all off and the soft glow of my computer screen and the clicky-click-click between songs really drive me to be my most productive. But knowing that I have to be up early the next day means that once 12am rolls around, I start winding down. It doesn’t matter if I have a great idea I absolutely must finish, I try and call it quits. It doesn’t always work, but when it does I get to wake up the next morning without feeling too groggy.

Take it in stride
You will have to adapt no doubt. And your friends will make fun of you for not being able to stay out late, or play video games, or do things that you once used to do without thinking about. I used to go out till 3 or 4 am and then go to school the next day.. if I felt like that. All of that changes though. Just keep in mind. You make money now. That shit is worth it.

This list, while tongue in cheek, is still meant to impart some knowledge on ye without any working experience. Take it in stride, and keep it in mind.

• • Comments [1]
  • Categories [Thoughts]

Where did you come from An-gel-o.

I was born in Dubai, and while I never lived there very long, I think I can trace most of who I am today back to those first 8 years of my life. 

I was born in on January 27th, 1988 in a hospital in Dubai. I was the first one in my family born in Dubai. Back then I lived in a rather small 3 floor appartment building, with four appartments per floor. It wasn’t a very big building, but it was about a whole city block full of them, so all in all there were quite a few people living in my neighbourhood. I lived on the 3rd floor. While it may seem like pointless drivel to you, I think it’s important for you to understand various facts in my life so that you can see how it all fits together in the end.

The three people in my life that I think influenced me more than anyone else would, oddly enough, by three siblings. They were my neighbours growing up, the youngest girl was about five years older than I was. There was a middle child, also a girl who was about eight years older than me. And then there was the brother. He would probably be close to ten years older than I am. I can trace each major part of me back to the three of them. 

Savio D’Souza – Metal Messiah
He was the oldest guy I knew, apart from my father. And he was cool. He was also an avid guitar player. It was through him I first learned that you didn’t have to play silly old music. You could play metal. He introduced me to Meatloaf and Iron Maiden and Metallica. You can see my entire music/guitar needs stemmed from his influence. I would have been about 4 or 5 years old and I would always sorta follow my sister around. He would always be around to pull me away and make me listen to a random guitar solo by who I now know is Dave Murray. He would constantly seek to point out that metal was far superior to any other style (namely boy bands) and I think that has stuck with me. Granted my tastes have gone from light metal like Maiden to Arch Enemy and Emperor, but still you know? You can definitely see where I get that from.

Umica D’Souza – Jedi Master
Before we go any further I must point out that I have two lightsabers, a darth vader helmet, a clone trooper helmet and a lightsaber peripheral for the Wii. I’ve been obsessed with Star Wars for years and I attribute it all to one person. Umica told me to watch her copy of Star Wars when I was 5 years old. I still remember the day. It was afternoon and really bright out, so I closed our heavy curtains, put in the video tape and sat down on the floor infront of the TV. For about 6 hours. I watched the first two episodes of Star Wars before I was forced away from the TV. The I watched the last the next day. It was incredible. I loved it instantly. And I still do. 

Natasha D’Souza – The fifth turtle? 
She introduced me to cartoons. She also had every single ninja turtle action figure out there. It was something that forced me to collect action figures well into my teenage years. I have Gundams, Transformers, GI Joes and of course, Ninja Turtles. I used to wake up early saturday mornings and head over to her house to watch cartoons with her and her sister. Captain Planet, Voltron, Swat Kats, Saber Rider, Ninja Turtles, the Mask. I grew up with the best cartoons out there. And she helped make it possible. 

These three shaped me into who I am today. I am still a lover of cartoons, I’m a huge star wars fan and I love metal and my guitar. Without the three of them who knows what I would have ended up doing. Maybe a rapper or something.

Yo.

(It even sounds ridiculous when I type it. Somehow)

• • Comments [3]
  • Categories [Thoughts]

I am a geek.

That’s why, no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to keep tech out of my personal blog. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean I get reprimanded (albeit gently) for continually sneaking it in. I just can’t help it though.

I started with computers way back, when I was probably in grade 8. At least, that’s when I started seriously working with them. Before then I had always had a strange affinity for them. Without ever actually using a computer my typing speed was awesome, and I found ways around our elementary school’s firewall system. I didn’t know what I was doing then, it was just a fun game. They had something I wanted, so I took it without anyone getting hurt. It was all fun and games. And the fun and games is what led me to start pursuing HTML development.

Sidenote: Around this time I also got in to pirating. I didn’t know what pirating software or music was, but I did know that there was tons of free stuff out there if you took the time to look. IRC had tons of people willing to send you things, and I embraced that side of it. I never actually knew what I was doing at the time, it was just a neat trick.

A friend of mine lived in the same apartment building as me at the time, and he used to play a game called Neopets. Naturally being the bored kid on dial-up that I was, I itched to play some sort of online game. So I did. I got into Neopets. And I liked it. I had tons of money and helped out newbies.. I even went so far as to create a guild page. And then I realized, man, there’s only so much you can do with the basic guild page. It bugged me that these guys could make such awesome guild pages and I was stuck with the basics.. how did they do it?

And so it begins

D, or so he shall be named, introduced me to HTML. He was younger than me by a couple years, but he was far more internet savvy that I ever was. He was also a gamer. He entered into the whole tech side of things a lot sooner than I ever had. I devoured HTML. I spent hours learning how to do the simplest things. I registered for my geocities account, and then my freewebs account. And I had tons of fun doing it. I was churning out crapping websites left right and center, and I thought I was awesome.

Then I was in high-school. And I got cable internet. And things just spiraled out of control for me. Forget school work, I’d spend hours every day just researching random internet things. Google was new, I loved it. So was gmail. I was one of the first up there, had to pay someone to get an account and everything. Again, I began looking into others things..CSS for example, hardware, software. Anything relating to website development I loved.

But still something was missing. I mean, sure I could use tables and HTML and CSS to make a website, but there were some awesome looking websites out there. And paint wasn’t cutting it. Sitting there making gradients (before I knew what they were called) by hand was tough. Line after line of ever so slightly shifting color produced the smallest gradients. But I was proud of my work.

Another friend, well versed in the design side of things introduced me to Photoshop. I installed it and ran through some tutorials and started pumping out the worst signatures possible. But again, I was happy. I was doing something not many people knew (or not many people I knew at least) how to do. But even I could see that my signatures weren’t the best. I wanted to get better. So I learned everything I could about websites and photoshop. I went through hundreds of tutorials, spending countless hours and all my nights for years working on it. I had no social life, and I didn’t need one. I was fast on my way to becoming a geek, even though at the time I had no connection to the word.

Eventually I teamed up with another friend who was also into website design. His designs at the time were a lot better than mine (which I contribute to his being at artist) but my coding skills were far better .We entered a partnership. He would make layouts, I would turn them into sites, and we would offer them to people for free. Not many people wanted our layouts, and looking I could definitely see why. They were just plain ugly.

But no matter. I would get better.

And I did. I found PHP and worked with that for a while, learned about FTP protocols and how to connect to my website remotely. I learned about how to set up my own server on my machine so that when my websites started getting bigger and bigger I could easily test them out on my machine instead of making a bunch of updates, uploading and then waiting to see the results. It saved me time. And the longer I spent working with all these various languages the more I realized I knew nothing at all. And that is what drove me on to learn even more. To keep learning.

Today, almost 10 years later I can sit at my computer write a blog post, working on my game, fix a hardware issue on a machine sitting at my feet and at the same time be researching various methods to accomplish various things with regards to both hardware and software. I can take a few hours out of my day to work on a layout. I’ve learned the subtle touches of someone who has spent countless hours working on their skill.

And I’ve learned that I don’t know a thing. There are millions of people out there who know more than I do. There are people younger than I am that already know much more than I do. But that’s what drives me to keep doing what I do. To keep programming, to keep hacking, to keep being a geek.

Somewhere along the way what I do became easier for me. Things started making sense, and things started clicking. Things that before seemed completely unrelated were suddenly inseparable. I once read somewhere that it takes you 10 years to be good at something. They were right. It takes a long time before you can make the leap from beginner to intermediate. There are many plateau’s that just feel like you’re not going anywhere for months, but you stick to it anyways, knowing that in the end you’ll be where you want.

And that’s partly why the tech side of things consistently prevails in my personal blog. Things are so ingrained in me, that I have no idea what else to do. I write about it. I have ideas of things tech related, I test them out and I have no way to share my findings except by writing about it. I’m damn proud of everything I do and I have no qualms about sharing it.

1     4|\/|     G33|<.  |-|34R      |\/|3      Typ3

• • Comments [4]
  • Categories [Thoughts]