Istanbul-bound!

It's confirmed* - I'm going to Istanbul!

The backstory: there have been some changes here at our client in Glasgow, one of which resulted sadly in our current development team being reduced to roughly half of what it was. At first, the boy and I were told we'd be sticking around. This made sense given that we were based here and many team members who traveled weekly from London, Manchester, etc requested to roll of. But the day before we were leaving for our 2-week vacation (which we are on now), we got the news that our schedules and skill sets lined up better with the gig in Turkey, and were we willing to go? And just like that, we announced to the team that the following day would be our last. 

Logistically we'll be operating in fast forward mode - once we get back to the UK, we'll have a day to pack up in Glasgow, the next day to fly to Istanbul to get settled, and the day after that we'll be at our new client...ahhh!!! Then a week after, we'll head to London to get obtain our full working visas, then it's back to Istanbul for good, with sighs of relief. 

I'd always felt pretty comfortable with the 'pack up and hop on a plane with ridiculously short notice' mentality that comes with being a consultant at ThoughtWorks, but I've definitely gone soft since living in Glasgow and not traveling for work the past year. I'm picturing our apartment and all the random shit we've accumulated - climbing gear, airbed and extra pillows/sheets/blankets, dozens of jars of spices, random souvenirs (thankfully we stuck mostly to magnets), clothing and electronics... to pack or donate all that, sell our bicycles, and pop in to say goodbye to our co-workers all in one day will be the ultimate test of my road warrior abilities.

I'll definitely miss Glasgow. I've grown fond of living and working here. There are still many things I wanted to do in Scotland, like hike Ben Nevis and eat a deep fried Mars Bar and go back to Edinburgh. Leaving on such short notice makes me feel cheated of a proper farewell. 

But travel madness aside, I'm really looking forward to the next adventure. I loved my visit to Istanbul earlier in the year - it left me craving to see more of the country, like the hot air balloons of Cappadocia or the salt pools of Pamukkale. Moreover, I welcome the challenge of a new client, a new city, a new culture. This assignment will take me out of the cozy, predicable nest I've built in Glasgow and catapult me outside my comfort zone. I'm looking forward to learning, to growing, and to helping my new team ship some kickass Turkish technology!

*Well, as confirmed as things at ThoughtWorks get, which is never quite 100%. I'll truly believe it when I've been there a week!

Becoming Homeless, or How I Stopped Worrying and Managed to Get Free Movers

Yeehawing in our U-Haul

When I first got the news that I'd be going to Scotland, the first thought that popped into my head was, "Yippeeee!". The second was "Wait, do they have bibimbap in Glasgow?" (they don't) and the third, "Fuck. I don't want to move."

So for a little while, in spite of all the hand-flapping and beaming and proclamations of "When I get to Scotland I'm totally gonna be the female version of Mel Gibson in Braveheart!!!!", I secretly still had my heels dug into the ground. You see, I had just moved in with the boy seven months ago. In that time we painted the entire place anew, picked out a few pieces of furniture together, arranged the electronics to our liking, and were generally having a swell time living there. The condo was our comfy, cheery little nest in this great big city. The thought of disassembling everything, boxing it all up and shoving the contents of our happy place into a soulless storage unit was enough to make me reconsider the assignment altogether.

But then as soon as I got back from winter vacation, I told myself to put my on my big girl panties, count my blessings (you're going to Scotland, butthead) and start packing.

The silver lining of packing is that it forces you to prune each and every one of your possessions. Old jewelry and bags, 5k t-shirts, bell-bottom jeans, cute-but-horribly-painful-stilettos, my Aragorn action figurine, books from college...I found it surprisingly easy to forgo feelings of sentimental value, dismiss wonderings of "Maybe one day I'll use/wear/read this..." and toss a good amount of my things into the donation pile. Still, despite filling many bags with items to give away, the boy and I still managed to amass a fairly substantial amount of boxes and furniture to put into storage. Questions like "Whose idea was it to buy a cement coffee table again?" and "Why do I have four different hair brushes?" were asked, but the world may never know the answers to them.

Somewhere along the way we made the decision to not hire movers. After all, we were two young and relatively fit people, the move didn't require going up and down stairs, and the freight elevator in our building was rented out for a solid 3-hour block anyway. We figured we'd just take our time, save some money and get in a good workout. 

All of that logic seemed sound until moving day arrived last Saturday. We both woke up feeling tired - the boy from his last week on the client site and me from coming down with a cold, it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and the stacks of cardboard boxes suddenly seemed like they'd tripled in quantity overnight. I began to feel quite stupid as I stared at it all. Should we have hired movers after all? Were we in over our heads?

There wasn't time to ponder this for long as we were on a tight schedule. So we carried on with the day's plan. We rode the L up to Fullerton to pick up our U-Haul and navigated back very slowly and carefully, wary of the icy roads and the extra width our fatass truck required. We pulled up to the loading area of our condo building at 11:50 AM, exactly ten minutes before our time slot for the elevator was due to begin. I hopped out to help the boy bring the U-Haul into reverse when I was approached by a distressed-looking couple.

"Hey there - are you the ones who are moving in today from noon to three?"

"Moving out, but yes - we have that time slot."

"Ok, uh well, we're the ones who rented out the freight elevator from 9 AM until noon. And well, our movers reaaaally messed up their timing... and they are just showing up now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah...so - we were sorta wondering - do you think we could share the freight elevator and both move in at this time? We're only on the fourth floor."

What? Was I on candid camera? This was an absurd request. We had paid the building's $150 fee to have exclusive use of the freight elevator from 12 to 3 PM, just as they had for the morning slot. We also had a strict deadline to meet for unload at the storage unit that evening. And we were already tight on time with just the two of us moving a Mt. Everest of cardboard. Sharing the only freight elevator - the biggest bottleneck of the moving process - was out of the question.

However, I had been hit with the case of the cannot-say-nos and could only sputter. "I - uh - well - er -" 

Meanwhile, the boy was still in the U-Haul, which was still jutting diagonally across the street, and was frantically mouthing "No no no no" and shaking his head. I got the hint, gathered my wits about me and turned to the couple. 

"Sorry to hear your movers are so late, that stinks. Unfortunately, we're on a tight schedule and cannot share the elevator with you during our move." They looked defeated but nodded like that was the answer they were expecting to hear and walked away. I got back to the task on hand of directing the truck.

A few minutes later, just as the boy had finished backing our U-Haul into the loading area, 4th floor couple's movers pulled up their enormous Penske truck and seemed confused as to why there was already another truck in the loading space. Some mass confusion ensued between the two trucks, two doormen who were rotating shifts, 4th floor couple, the two movers who were three hours late, and the boy and me. After a few minutes of chaos, the boy and I said to the group:

"Here's the situation. You have ten minutes left on your 9 AM to 12 PM elevator slot. Technically your truck should be here and not ours for the next ten minutes, but I think we can all agree that it'd a waste of time to switch them out to unload ten minutes' worth of furniture from your truck." Nods all around.

"We have a tight deadline and want to move out as quickly as possible. We're not willing to share the elevator, but we think we'll be done in less than three hours and would be happy to give whatever time we have left to you in our slot." 4th floor couple brightened upon hearing this. Not all hope was lost - maybe they could still move in today after all.

At this point we paused and looked deliberately at the two movers who have just showed up three hours late for their gig. "But...it's just the two of us moving. It'd go a lot faster if we had some help." 

Before I go on, let me pause and describe the two movers. We'll call them Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Tweedledee was heavyset and had a tattoo of a dollar sign on his face. Tweedledum was older with white hair, thin as a rail, and looked like he'd escaped from a retirement home to make some sweet side cash. 

Tweedledee picked up on the hint and immediately leaned in, all cool and hush-hush. "Well, ya know, we could help take care of you, as long as you help take care of us, ya know? Throw twenty or thirty bucks our way?"

Now 4th floor couple went from looking miserable to angry. Their movers showed up three hours late, brought on all of this confusion, and were now trying to do business with another group of tenants. The boy and I glanced at each other, knowing that we ultimately had the upper hand in the situation. 

"We'll think about it," we said lightly before walking away from the group and heading up to our unit to prepare the first load for the elevator.

Not five minutes passed before Tweedledee and Tweedledum appeared in our condo and announced that they were here to help us move, at no cost. Golly, how generous.

And so the move began. I barely did much beyond give instructions and move some of the lighter boxes and items. Most of my attempts to help were thwarted with "Here, let me get that for you, missy"s. Truth be told, things probably did go faster when I was out of the way; Tweedledee proved to be an ox and was able to lift heavy boxes I could barely budge with enviable ease. I felt like I should've put on a bathrobe and waltzed around with a flute of champagne. 

So that is the story of how we managed to score free movers and load all our shit into the U-Haul from our 30th floor unit in just over an hour's worth of time. Sounds pretty awesome - and for the most part it really was, except for the fact that Tweedledee and Tweedledum's motivation was to get us moved out as quickly as possible, not necessarily as well. As a result of their speedy handling, a few pieces of furniture were scratched along the way. I'm also not too optimistic about the state of the contents of a few boxes marked 'fragile'. Despite their rough work, we left a generous tip to show our appreciation - labor is still labor and we were much better off with their assistance than otherwise. I just won't be calling the company they work for, All My Sons, the next time I'm moving in the Chicagoland area. Something tells me 4th floor couple won't be calling them either.

After the hard part was finished, the rest of the move was as smooth as a baby's bottom. The boy's brother arrived in town in time to accompany us out on the drive to Elgin where our storage unit awaited. We were in good spirits and still had plenty of energy so unloading the truck into our 14x10 only took about an hour and a half. Ravenous and feeling accomplished, we wrapped everything up just as the sun was disappearing, put our trucker hats back on, and drove our now-empty U-Haul to the nearest well-Yelped Mexican restaurant, where we rewarded ourselves with a feast of tacos.

The boy and I have been shacking up at his brother's ever since Saturday. It feels weird and liberating to have most of my worldly possessions locked up far far away. The world is my oyster and I'm ready to take it on - now with a lot less baggage!

Goodbye Texas

Thank you/holiday gifts I'm making for my team

This week is my last here in Dallas. I can't believe almost an entire year has gone by. Like always, it feels surreal to be packing my things, zipping up my documents, and saying goodbye.

I suddenly have a heightened awareness of the finality of everything I'm doing, even the most banal and routine things, such as "This is the last time I'll eat this delicious pizza from Cane Rosso" and "This is my last Wednesday night at this Residence Inn" and "This is the last time I'll hit the curb in this huge-ass rental car...hopefully."

At just a bit over 11 months, this will wrap up my longest project in my three-and-a-half years here at ThoughtWorks. Usually at around the six-month mark within any project - no matter how engaging - I find myself wondering about other assignments or roles and starting to feel the itch to roll off and try something else. This time I think that because I switched roles about six months in from BA to scrum master, the shake up was almost big enough that it seemed like a new project despite the fact that I was working with the exact same team, supporting the same technology, and sitting all of three feet away from my old desk.

I've learned so much here over the course of my assignment. Since our team supports no less than ten different applications - all of which are quite dissimilar - I've had to find a good balance of broad versus deep domain knowledge. We've delivered some pretty awesome software too, like a service for crew members to access their own security line, updates to be compliant with the latest FAA regulations, and a huge Websphere to Tomcat application overhaul (whose improved performance led one customer to exclaim, "Mikey likie!")

I've also learned that the airline industry is incredibly insane. Just getting crew on board safely and in a cost-effective way is complex enough to make my head spin sometimes. I've always thought flying was pretty neat. But now, having seen truly how much work goes into every little aspect of a flight, I view every takeoff and arrival as nothing short of a small miracle.

Beyond its intricate domain, this project was also unique in that I developed some pretty meaningful relationships with my team mates. I felt like I thrived within client's culture and was able to partake in many of the interesting and meaningful events on site. I feel grateful for having been on a team that has welcomed me and treated me as one of their own.

This team was also quite unique in that there was a strong female presence on it - a setup I'd never been lucky enough to have before. In our 11-person group, 7 of us are women. Women who hold full-time technical roles, who are mothers and wives, who juggle Cub Scouts meetings for their sons and volleyball games for their daughters, who make arts and crafts, who bring in baked goods for the team to enjoy, who volunteer their time to those less fortunate, who trade jokes and stories, who write beautiful code, who walk their dogs, who compare Candy Crush scores, who stay up all night caring after a sick toddler, who break the rules (when it makes sense), and whose yes-I-can-do-it-all-and-still-find-time-to-treat-myself-to-a-manicure confidence was truly fun and inspiring to be around. I'm going to miss being around these strong female role models.

Despite being reluctant to leave a wonderful team and an awesome client, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for what's next. I don't want to jinx anything but so far things are looking - dare I say it? - awesome for my next assignment. As in going international awesome! But ThoughtWorks can have a tendency of being a place where no assignment is truly final until the last minute (and even then it can be iffy) so I'm trying not to get myself too excited yet :)  I keep having to remind myself that there are 12 full days of vacation to enjoy with loved ones before it's time to fret about work again.

So Dallas, for the second time, I bid you adieu after an extended stay here. So long, and thanks for all the breakfast tacos.