California Dreaming (A Retrospective)…
NOTE: I am writing a retrospective as I left California about 3 weeks prior to this writing.
Minneapolis was fun. It was nice to see a new city, hangout with my cousin and ultimately just get away. Now it is time for the California trip.
This is hardly my first time in the Bay Area, but this is my first time going as a normal person. What does that mean? I am not going as part of a conference or work. You could say I am going on vacation but that is a partial truth. Vacation from the ordinary life, sure. However, I feel like you have to be away from work to all this a vacation and I was working a normal shift the whole time.
I am going to California to see if I like it. It will be a major financial hit for me to move to California so if I do this, I want to make sure it is worth it. Sacrifices are alright if you get something out of it. Sacrifices for the sake of sacrifice is dumb in my mind.
I stayed with a coworker in his duplex. Luckily, he lived walking distance (maybe 30 minutes) from the office so I could get some exercise in and see the sights. He’s a pretty awesome dude and his dog eventually warmed up to me.
The bulk of my trip was me essentially getting lunch and dinner with different coworkers, seeing movies (“GhostBusters”, “Star Trek Beyond”, and “Suicide Squad”), going to hockey games, doing happy hour, playing board games, playing softball, etc. I also helped a friend/coworker move.
Ultimately, I had fun. For the first time in a long time, I felt…. connected. I know that a lot of people love the idea of working from home. Don’t get me wrong, it has it’s perks. I doubt I could take this nomadic trip like I am doing if I had a normal office job.
That being said, I feel like working remotely should be an “add-on” to the job. Like you can work 4 days a week at the office and 1 from home. Or every quarter you can work a week or two from home. Something to that effect would be great.
Obviously, you aren’t going to like all of your coworkers and all of your coworkers won’t like you. However, for the ones you do get along with, it’s great to get to just say “hey, you wanna get lunch?” or “wanna go do happy hour after work?” and just do it. Even if you aren’t necessarily “hanging out”, just having the human contact is great too.
I think being alone all the time kind of makes you comfortable with being away from people and not interacting. If you spend all day by yourself, you have to learn to cope with it or find another job that allows you to be social. Once you develop the skills to be by yourself, it may carry over into your day to day life.
I feel like that is what happened to me. I made it a point to leave my apartment every single day after work. However, just because I was outside didn’t mean I was being social. I may just go to a coffee shop and read for a few hours. Sometimes I would go to a Meetup and be social but that maybe accounted for 40% of my time.
To truly feel connected was great. I also feel like there is more potential for a better future here. There are all kinds of people from different parts of the world and different cultures out there. It also seems like a “geek driven” society so it’s a place where intelligence is probably accepted along with a love of folk music.
The food seemed mediocre but I could always just drive about an hour north to San Francisco and get amazing food. More importantly, feeling accepted and connected to people was the most important thing to me. Could I get this elsewhere, maybe. But I definitely felt it here so it’s time to move.
But first, let’s tour Asia….
