March 2006

I’ve been a busy guy lately, going on trips left and right, and even have one final trip to Pat’s housewarming party in Virginia before I have a few weeks to stay local and unwind. In all the running around, one very important date sneaked up on me: my final day at Ecount.

We went out for sushi one final time as coworkers yesterday (Minado, a buffet-style restaurant in Norristown which I highly recommend) and it finally struck me that another chapter of my life is coming to a close. Another set of people that I’ve known for well over a year I won’t be seeing anymore, another work environment that will grow without me. I’ve been a little nostalgic for every one of my past jobs no matter how distasteful and this one was has been the best yet, so it’s harder than usual. Carrie mentioned at lunch how she could tell that Michael was bummed when I broke the news a month ago that I was moving on, but that he understood it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

The things I’ll miss most are working with Michael, April, and almost everyone else actually. There’s a small group of people — I’ll call them “Sales” — who I think often forget that other departments in an organization could be considered clients as well and not slaves, but when they’re not making unrealistic requests they’re not a bad group of people either. The decent-to-jerk ratio is definitely better here than any other place at which I’ve worked. I’ll also miss my minor role as document coordinator of sorts for the Project Managers’ kit of PDFs, and I’m still aware that I’m leaving Michael in a bind for two weeks until my newly-hired replacement starts on April 17. I’ve offered to work nights and weekends if it becomes necessary but at my full freelance rate — I’m not going to sacrifice my free time for nothing.

There are also quite a few things I won’t be missing: the misconceived importance of custom sales materials, rushing to finish sales demos only to have them sit on the server for a week before anyone takes a look at them, or simply having to use the HTML hex characters to spell out my company’s name because someone might stumble upon its name here. I suppose it all comes down to me doing what I enjoy, namely problem-solving using XHTML and CSS. An added bonus is that it’ll be in an environment with enough exposure to Flash, programming, and database interaction to keep me on my toes.

So, my ducks are all in a row as I’ve done everything short of actually updating my resume (a step I could thankfully skip for a change). I uploaded all the card designs and a few other things I’ve done over the past year, transferred my personal email to my home computer, and cleared most of the non-work-related files off my computer. Today I submit my final time sheet, toss my toys in a box, and my time as an independent contractor gives way to that of a full-time employee for Newgrounds.

I wasn’t looking for a new job, it just happened. But now that it has I’m walking on air.

The winding path began not with my formal education but with The Triangle. Using BBEdit to pull AP news stories because I wanted to do “anything that doesn’t involve writing” and eventually working with QuarkXPress daily led me away from engineering and into Drexel’s digital media program. With my eventual degree and the skills gleaned from my main extracurricular activity I was able to hack it as a pre-press technician for a while. Luckily, I jumped ship before my life got away from me and I moved to using Photoshop and Illustrator all day and CSS all night. The extracurricular activities proved life-altering once more: I was happily designing debit cards, website mock-ups, and other presentation materials for my Conshohocken company’s sales team when I received the offer to move on yet again. I’ve come full circle and find myself in a situation similar to one I was in six years ago.

It was at The Triangle that I made a slew of new friends and met my wife, where I spent every waking minute thinking of precious little other than the next week’s issue. Working for a newspaper took a lot of effort, but it was a labor of love and never once seemed like it wasn’t worthwhile. I get the vibe that my new job will be a lot like that. In less than a month I’ll be working in a relaxed atmosphere, among friends, doing something I love. The company? Newgrounds.com.

I’m finally excited about going into work for the right reasons. I’ve always enjoyed being at work, just not neccessarily for the actual job function. It’s always been the conversation, the lunches, the overall camaraderie that kept my interest. This time it’s different. Coding pages are what I choose to do with my free time after already staring at a computer monitor for eight hours. I had previously worked out some proofs of concept for Tom — for no other reason than they were simply fun to do. I can think of nothing I’d rather be doing every day.

I’m also happy about the path I took to get here. Sure, I’m friends with the guy who started the site, but I’ve steadily grown my skill set since college and feel like I’m not being offered the position for any reason other than I’m capable of doing the job. Even if that was the case, it’s nothing I’d be ashamed of anyway. I’m genuinely friendly to everyone I meet and work hard at cultivating these relationships; I have no problem reaping the benefits.

Despite the opportunity to work on an extremely popular website every day, I was hesitant at first. After all, I had no complaints about my current employment. It was steady work in a laid back atmosphere with people I had come to know as my friends. Tuesday night I wrestled with whether I wanted to venture into the unknown and sought advice from a few people about the pros and cons of switching jobs. By Wednesday I was intrigued by the prospect about doing something I have a knack for and genuinely enjoy doing, and come Thursday I had worked myself into a frenzy over the idea.

The greatest challenge came Friday when the time had come to break the news to Michael, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do professionally. More than just a boss, he’s been a friend and a mentor. Over the past year and a half we spent countless hours talking and joking — even attending a few parties on occasion — but most of all, he helped me convert my passing familiarity with coding webpages into a bona fide skill. Much of my job dealt with editing css files, but it was his advice on my personal projects and steering me towards the proper methodology that did the trick. It took me most of last week to realize that our friendship wouldn’t be affected if I moved on; rather it’s because we’re friends that he understood why it was something I have to do. Still, it wasn’t any less gut-wrenching for me, and he was visibly disappointed when I broke the news. In less than a month I’ll only see him once or twice a week when we go biking or grab lunch, and the realization makes my career move bittersweet.

As to my new position, it’s a slight increase in salary but, more importantly, leagues beyond anything I’ve ever done before. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing, but judging from the examples I’ve done already for Tom and the fact that they’re currently in the middle of a redesign I’m fairly confident I’ll be started on the site’s main page. With the current page converted into XHTML and the styles separated out the site will load much faster. After than that I’ll be the simple HTML jockey and do whatever’s asked of me, though there’s been talk of publishing a magazine down the line.

It’s only natural to be nervous about starting a new job, but for some reason I’m brimming with confidence. In general, when I think about designing web pages I get a tiny knot in the pit of my stomach. Where am I going to come up with the design? What if it doesn’t look how I envisioned it? I sometimes have trouble finding that spark of inspiration, and once I do it’s often a tedious, embarassingly long process to bring the concept to fruition. In my new position I’m off the hook. Tom already has artists who love to draw, illustrate, create. I’ll be able to focus on bridging the gap between pure design and functional website (or so I imagine), which is something I have no bones about doing.

That’s not to say I’ll allow myself to get lazy. I’ll still find the time to work on my own design projects and grow my portfolio. Before this whole thing landed on my lap I was considering taking an art course and I may still do that, only now it’s art-as-fun instead of art-as-career-necessity. Hopefully, I’ll still have the occasional freelance gig to keep me sharp, too.

Change is almost always a good thing whether we realize it or not. Fortunately, this is one of those rare times where it actually feels like a good thing as it’s happening.