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How To Work At SocialServe.com

Here are my instructions to anyone else who may want to work at SocialServe.com:
  1. Have a strong enough interest and passion for development to start a contracting business without any formal training. Support yourself for about a year and a half working for one client and the next.
  2. Move to an area populated enough to start a user group for your favorite development language, tool, or concept. (Mine was Python)
  3. Be suggested to send in a resume to the company of one of the first members.
  4. Sweat your way through the first real interview for the kind of job you've wanted your whole life.
  5. Cross your fingers not to screw it up.
So, that's my story. I had my interview last Tuesday, called Thursday, and started Friday. I've enjoyed it a lot. Learning my way around the codebase has been going pretty well and I've already got my first couple of commits in, as well as two small projects. I like to think I'm moving along nicely.

One of the things I need to get used to is that all of our development boxes are Macs. I have a company issued Macbook Pro (2.33ghz dual intel, 2GB RAM, 17") and I'm really enjoying the Mac life. The UNIX background is great and the interface is just slick. Installing applications is just fun. I've got the entire KDE suite installed, so I've got a lot of my favorite tools and toys right there.

The time away from the house, while somewhat nice, is probably the biggest downside. Caelan misses me a lot while I'm at work and I miss him and his mother quite a bit. After all this time at home, and all of his life so far with me there every hour, it is tough. It may be harder for me than him.

Finalizing the whole picture is my commute. 30 minutes or less to work and an hour to and hour and a half to get home. What's up with that? I need to see about leaving early or I might just leave an hour late. I'd still get home at the same time, so I might as well spend it in a comfortable chair instead of my ugly car.
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