For 6 years I worked for Macromedia, I went from a Support Engineer to a member of the Architecture Commitee and Sr Engineer for all CRM efforts. Then last december Adobe took over, it was a long drawn out process and during that time we moved to Idaho because no one was getting any information on their fate.
So nine months later I'm finally coming to the end of my contract next month, there have been no less than 5 attempts to keep me on but the manager of IS has held steadfast that they don't want remote employees. To say this has been a frustrating time for me is the understatement of the century, I pride myself on my work, the users who work with me want to me to stay, my colleagues are dumbfounded that they would just let someone go with my background and I've made every gesture I can that I would willing to stay.
Yesterday it finally came clear that I'm out, not because of anything I've done but because of one mans ego. I'm getting a sweet deal at the end with a severance and bonus, but it was never about the money for me it was about the job, and the love of it. It was about doing things that others said could not be done or would take a long long time, that was my calling card to get busy and deliver the goods.
I have gotten a ton of emails from Co-Workers who really want me to stay and they have made some noise about it but when your a manager and you make a decision, it would look really bad if you had to go back on it, even if it means making the company suffer. That's pretty much how I see this whole thing..
So now that it's all about to end I'm feeling pretty blue, when the company was Macromedia we had one of the best teams I've ever worked with, we had lots of fun and where able to really help the company move forward. All that's changed, big companies sometimes move much slower (it at all) and it's easy to get lost in the mix. My experience of the last 9 months has really spelled out for me how great a company macromedia really was and how special it was and it makes me miss it all the more. I would move back the California to work there again....
I don't know what I will do next, my wife who is ever studious has already found a number of places around here looking for engineers, one actually wants someone who knows Coldfusion, I laughed because well I worked for Macromedia who made it, was trained and did a good deal of testing on it both released and unreleased versions. I should be a shoe in..
I do know that I'll be building guitars no matter what happens, I'm starting on a classical right now and I'm starting to get repairs which could turn into good money at some point. I have a guy bringing by a spanish classical to have me work on his tuners. I was going to take some time off and kick back but the shop ate all my money!!
so I've become the proverbial penny pincher which is a shock to my family, they just didn't know me when I was single. 
I just wanted to get some of this off my chest, it's been eating me up and there are some good friends here, it's more than just a place to talk about guitars. Which is good
Cheers
-Paul-
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