So Many Changes
Lots of things are changing these days - work, mostly, but there's plenty of things going on at home as well. Hey, it's the season of change and renewal, right?
I got jikes source code for barney by SGI box and sherman by iBook. Both are a little disappointing in the java compilation speed department. It's interesting that sherman is a 600MHz G3 and barney is a 195MHz R10000, but their compile speeds are quite comperable. Just goes to show that MHz isn't the real determining factor in system performance.
Anyway, jikes is a Java bytecode compiler that's a lot faster than javac - like taking a 30 sec. compile to 5 sec. - it's really impressive. Anyway, I've been using it in my development on Linux for a while and it's given me good bytecode so there's no reason not to take advantage of it on my other platforms. Now I've got a lot zippier compiles on my other development machines. Nice.
Work is difficult in that the layoffs are starting to 'happen' - meaning that work is piling up and the management isn't really yet showing any interest in selecting projects for 'mothballing' due to the cuts. What it seems like is what I feared most about the cuts - that it was assumed that everyone that got cut contributed nothing or next to nothing, and so their absence will not be missed. This is, of course, sheer maddness, and as a result, the work environment is getting more and more detached from the management, and less productive.
It's kind of funny, these cuts... it's done two things that I'm guessing the management didn't want to do - make the place less productive as a whole, and cause there to be a significant gap between the workers and management. I know they expected for things to slow down with only half of the people (overall) remaining, but I'm guessing they didn't plan for the toll on those of us that stayed that the increasing workload represents. It's a demoralizing level of work, and clearly cannot realistically be done by any human being. So without some 'relief' in the way of mothball projects, each of us is left to wonder about the relative priorities of all the jobs we've just taken on.
Added to that the fact that the "Dilbert Gap" that's developing in the ranks, and you have a group of people who are far less interested in making the managers look good, feel good, and since there's clearly no money for bonuses and raises, there's even less motivation to work hard. It's a circle that feeds in on itself - more disconnection and work lead to a "who cares" attitude, which leads to more disconnection... It's a very bad scene.
So it's fair to say that depression is a constant companion these days for about everyone I've talked to - both those going and staying. I talked to two guys today in the elevator - one going and the other staying. We talked about how things are going, in general. It was depressing, but also at little bit comical. I mentioned that I thought those that were going had a larger short-term pain than those staying, but the long-term pain for those staying was far greater. It just depends on the job market. I'm betting that if the job market were better - regardless of the profit/loss of this place, there'd be a lot more people leaving because the short-term pain of a mover would be next to nothing.
I've talked to others that are staying and they are actively avoiding management because they don't have any motivation to do the work that they have been saddled with, and rather than have a confrontation, they simply avoid them. What a place!
I know that this is not like having a terminal disease. It's not even like having a real problem like a bad back or even a really bad sinus headache. But it is demoralizing. It eats away at the soul and argueably causes more damage to a person than all but the cancer. There really isn't a way to remain in this situation and not be effected. Maybe, with time, the place will get better, but I'm not overly optimistic on that. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but it's hard.