I sense a change coming on in the winds of my life. Not a big change But I've been drifting with the tide for some time now. It is time for me to set sail and chart a course that might actually go somewhere. Ok, maybe I don't want to go anywhere in particular. But since I seem to be going I may as well select the destination.

The metaphors I have chosen carry special irony as I've never liked to sail. I like a kayak on quiet waters. I love to snooze in a row boat and listen to the slap, slap, slap of wavelets against the sides. But I've never felt a desperate need to go somewhere.

A little over seven years ago a friend of mine listened to my grumblings about my then current job and suggested I might be a good fit for the team she was on. She was right. It was a company of like minded folks. Even the CEO shared my passion for dogs. Our pets were allowed in the office. I found there a niche that appreciated my form of being "anal". Everyone on the team was that way. That is what made us good. Our primary task was to take technical information and to make it available to non-technical people. Most of this information related to using software and computer hardware.

The job perfectly fit my technical orientation coupled with a long history of teaching science to the general public. When I started that job I had literally never seen any Windows version about 3.1. Supporting Windows 95 was my new job. And supporting hardware. No one else really wanted it. I was supposed to be assigned a subject matter expert who would review my documentation and ensure that it was accurate. Well it turned out that the folks assigned felt they had a lot more interesting/important things to do. Getting information from them was difficult enough, but getting them to review the information after I had written it up was almost impossible. So I became my own subject matter expert, and a darned good one at that.

I remember that after collecting about 3 months worth of documents yet to be approved I prevailed upon my manager to allow me to publish them without the approvals. I presented her with some statistics I collected from the tickets the support analysts handled. I said they needed the information sooner rather than later, there was nothing risky in it, and darn it, I wanted to produce something for all this money they were paying me. I got the approval to go and a new chapter in history was written.

As time went on my co-workers became increasingly comfortable with my technical orientation. Soon they were coming to me for problem solving. At first this amazed me, I was the new kid on the block. But over time I realized that we each had different strengths and mine ... Well I grok technology. Extrapolation and a willingness, even a desire, to experiment have served me especially well.

Another thing that was a foundation to my success at this new job was my experience in running an information oriented web site, and participating in Usenet with the goal of educating the clueless. In 1996 I first created my Dog-Play web site. I had surveyed the web and I found lots of sites about dogs, but nothing explaining the activities I found mentioned here and there. I had become involved with taking my dog to convalescent homes to cheer people up, and I found little on the web about that activity. So I decided to create a web site that would introduce people to these activities. In doing that I learned HTML, web design, and some very good practices that have served me well in my current endeavors. I also participated in the dogs groups in Usenet. I deliberately chose to participate to improve my skills at tactful education. It was difficult at times because I feel so strongly about things. That activity was key to honing my skills of persuasion. Taken together, the HTML skills, and the tactful education skills, proved to be the basis on which I made our technical knowledge more accessible to everyone.

Everything changes, and big software companies change more than most things. So it wasn't too long before the company lost its standing in the top 100 best places to work. Still I found the work a challenge, and I had a great team to work with so I kept drifting along. And naturally I continued to develop my technical skills. I found that beyond the job I was hired to do I was often solving technical problems, like how to make a change to 2500 documents, or how to analyze our web logs in a meaningful way. One co-worker and I became well known as excellent testers for software roll-outs because we could break things in nothing flat. As technical as I am I also can think like, and behave like, an ordinary user. And that is how I tested stuff. Plunking around and clicking this and that and not reading instructions.

My lastest tack on the ocean of life came when the company got swallowed by a bigger fish. I didn't want to commute to the new HQ, and I felt that I didn't want to commit myself to accepting a position with a company I knew only by rumor. As I explained to one co-worker "If I stay on for transition with a termination date and we like each other we can negotiate. And if I don't like them I have my severance and a graceful way out". Well, just about the very first thing I did was solve a problem my new manager said was impossible. When I listened to the situation I couldn't believe it would be that difficult to solve. I didn't know their system, it just wasn't very logical that the task would be "impossible." Of course they didn't mean literally impossible, just that it couldn't be done with a reasonable investment of time and effort, but still .... So I asked them to please send me the file so "I can see the magnitude of the problem" It took them almost a week to get it to me. When I got it I opened it, took one look, shook my head. 3 hours later I had the problem solved.

Well now I've impressed the heck out of them and they want me to stay. I've agreed, but honestly I have my doubts. So I've got the scope out, searching the horizons, seeing if there are any likely new waters.