Number of items in Amazon Wish List: 115

The UPS driver knows me by name. The neighbors think I am rich as they count the packages left at my door by UPS, FedEx and the postal service every day. The credit card companies think the more I owe them, the more loyal I will be.

I live in a large house, in size and mortgage payment. Only my dog knows how much sleep I really get.

The calls started at 5am this morning, a fresh cup of coffee in my hand and headphones at the ready I proceed to excitedly answer any questions posed and to make notes of all those things I need to follow up on in short order before the end of the day. I am still in my underwear, my eyes bloodshot. Others would say I am so lucky to be able to work from home in my underwear, to not have to worry about commuting into the office every day. I will admit it is good not to have to drive in every single day and have to deal with traffic, but at times I miss the interaction with other people. The casual ‘Hello’ at the start of the day and how as the day progresses we start avoiding each other’s glances, staring at the cubicle walls when we walk past, or staring zombie-like at printed documents.

-“are you available?”

Reads the message on my instant messenger window. A user apparently has a question.

-“do you know if we are using subRule NSF415H for anything in the system?”

-“not off the top of my head, but i will check and get back to you in a bit – will that work?”

-“sure, no rush, as long as i get the info today”

Seconds later I have the answer. It is a simple search, one which we have provided as a utility to all users of the system, but which they seem to ignore believing the information may be incorrect and would rather talk to someone ‘live’.

-“got the info, NSF415H is being used in various procedures one of which is BBY789B”

-“that’s what i thought, just wanted to confirm. thanks for your help”

-“anytime”

They almost always know the answer before calling, they just want to ‘confirm’, code word for “I don’t trust this so called utility you guys built and would rather have someone to blame if I screw something up”. Understandable given the amount of blame that tends to get parceled out on a regular basis in the organization.

Number of items in Amazon Wish List: 121

Meeting in 20 minutes. Time for a quick coffee and surfing over to see what’s new at Amazon.com, or rather what new suggestions they had for me. It may be time to get that new tent I have been wanting, the one that would fit perfectly in the living room. The tent, tent spikes, and a sleeping bag had been on my Wish List for a few weeks now.

Went on a vacation to Belize the previous year, the country seemed so impoverished, but the jungle seemed inviting. My son and I participated in a survival course in the jungle. It was tiring, exciting, but I will admit rather controlled given we had guides and supplies in case we could not ‘trap’ our food. I got a serious blister trying to start a fire, it looked so much easier on YouTube, and the whole outdoor latrine thing was just not for me. Upon returning however, I purchased a hammock like the ones we used in the jungle to set up on my porch. It was incredibly comfortable. The things you can find online. I purchased the trip online, the tickets, the backpacks, the bug repellent clothing and finally the hammock. I doubt many people in Belize could even afford a hammock like that.

It has been a few months since that vacation. The hammock still hangs on my porch.

I moved to California to help mom through some rough times with her health. There were other reasons as well. Housing markets rising in the bay area for so many years and refinance after refinance, she was now unable to pay the mortgage by herself. I thought at the time California would be a good place to live. Didn’t everyone want to move to California after all?

I soon found myself surrounded by beautiful beaches and high rise offices, wonderful restaurants, and inviting museums, and alone.

In between meetings, coding sessions and responding to support requests, I shopped. What I was unsure of or simply could not afford at the moment I kept adding to my Wish List of items that grew and shrank throughout the day as I purchased items and deleted others from the list, only to be quickly replaced by more.

My recycling bin was the biggest one on the block, and every week it would be placed at the curve overflowing with cardboard boxes of all sizes. It only reassured the neighbors that I was indeed rich, or that my house was so full of stuff I could hardly move.

Meeting time, still in my underwear, dialing the well known numbers to access the conference call.

-“Hello, this is Victor”

-“Hello Victor, thanks for joining. Arthur, Josh and Liz are here as well. We will start shortly we are just waiting for Harold and Jan”

…

We move on to discuss everyone’s current status and any issues that we are having. At one point we suddenly hear a loud voice come on the call and it is moaning! Apparently someone was surfing the porn sites without the sound being turned off. After an awkward silence, we continue as if nothing happened. Harold makes sure to point out that we all need to follow the procedures he has documented on the ‘shared drive’ when we are preparing a release, otherwise he will not be allowing any code deliveries. A low hum of clicks is heard in the background as we are all chatting on instant messenger.

-“what shared drive?”

-“beats the crap out of me”

-“‘oh just ignore him, he has nothing better to do since they won’t let him code”

-“but i’m sick of my code being held up for stupid reasons”

-“is anyone going to bring this up in the meeting?”

The keyboards go silent

-“Is there any other business we need to discuss?”

-“i’m good”

Silence

-“Thank you all for your time, goodbye”

I hang on the line to hear the sound of the conference call ending. It is a series of clicks and beeps from headsets being removed to handsets being slammed, and buttons being pushed.

Number of items in Amazon Wish List: 118

It was a productive meeting.

The dogs begin to bark; UPS is at the door.

How did I arrive at this place? At this life? so far from everything I knew, yet so familiar to me. How do we all arrive at a place in our lives whereby we begin to ask ourselves the same questions? Socrates is attributed to have said “The unexamined life is not worth living”. It was time, I believed, to take a look at mine.