Everyone who knows me wants to know how my job is going. The problem with that is twofold. The first is that Alert Logic has very strict policies in place regarding what I can and cannot say publicly. The second is that my job is so highly specialized that if I started talking about it, your eyes would glaze over within about 30 seconds. Believe me, you really don’t want to know if you aren’t “in the know,” you know? For instance, today I had several clients whose threat detection was in alarm and I had to ssh into the appliance and run nmap, traceroute, and ping. Geeks would know what I’m talking about, but for the rest of you, it just sounds like Lanaganese.
See, I told you. You really don’t want to hear about my job.
However, I can tell you about the culture at the company, and I am a big fan. We work and play hard. Sodas, coffee, and tea are all subsidized by the company so that we can stay caffeinated for next to nothing… which is good because we are a 24/7 operation. There is a Pac-man table in the break room and the first Wednesday of every month the company gives us waffles.
My team lead is a sassy black woman named Jasmine, and everyone is a little bit in love with her. She is just too cute, and she knows it. 🙂 I look forward to work every day because Jaz is going to be there. I am overjoyed that I look forward to work every day, and I am blessed that they pay me an obscene amount of money.
Well, it’s not an OBSCENE amount of money, but it seems like it because Texas doesn’t have state tax and having Dana on my insurance policy isn’t SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH. Plus, we live about ten minutes from my office, which, in Houston, is kind of unreal. Most of my coworkers commute almost an hour in traffic.
This is the first time I’ve worked in Houston where literally none of my coworkers are from here. They’re all transplants from the rest of the country and completely in love with the city because, despite the heat, their cost of living is in the basement and they have more disposable income than they’ve ever had before. Of course they miss home, but being able to live large is appealing no matter who you are. They’re glad to live in a place where they don’t have to choose between food and rent- a problem that most of my friends in Portland struggle with even still. I know I’ve been there, and I hope every day that life ceases to be a struggle for them.
My personal life is blooming because all the people that I’ve missed while I’ve been away are showing up in droves. Apparently, I am a very popular writer and Facebooker. It’s been exciting to hear people say things like, “how come we didn’t know you were so damn funny?” I am flattered and just stand there and blush all at the same time.
Being mired in grief is over, and gone are the days of endless running monologue regarding it. Losing someone so fundamental to my personality was devastating, and if that seems entirely too codependent for words, it was. That’s why you recover from emotional abuse, you don’t snap out of it. There is just no way to surface gracefully when you are flailing and drowning in anxiety. Recovering from my abusive relationship was frankly just embarrassing, because my experience was that my abuser took little to no credit for anything and just blamed me for everything, even though the relationship started before I even turned 13.
I knew I was a child and I still thought she was right. I felt stupid in a way that I never had before.
That’s why this job is a miracle. I get to sit with the smart kids every day, and sometimes, I get to be the smartest. I get to say a hearty “fuck you”to grief and a gregarious “bring it on” to my own life. I get to welcome every day the fact that I think. I have opinions. I know stuff.
I’d tell you what it is, but you know…
Stories That Are All True 
You had me at waffles.
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