Mocra is awesome because their employees are some of the brightest and most “switched on” people I know. They come up with fantastic ideas and execute them brilliantly. They even sometimes allow their employees to work on open source during work hours. Putting that much brainpower into a company that small is a genius idea. Yes, they’ve struggled. But what small business doesn’t? It’s still in its early phase and they’ve refined their process down to a tee and are really getting their stuff together. I fully support the company and will remain friends with them all. If you’re looking to hire a Rails company for your new/existing Rails application, hire Mocra.
Now to being completely honest with everyone.
I’ve decided that I want a change. As of today, I am no longer employed by them. I’m not sure how to phrase what went down. I got angry, and left. This had happened before. Later Nic called and asked me to come in to have a chat the next morning. This is entirely my fault. I wanted to leave for a while, to explore what else is out there. With freelancing, I got that power to travel and work with different people. I know the whole “grass is greener” cliche, and I’m aware of that. I need something different, perhaps to only focus on one project instead of multiple at a time? I’m not quite sure. Freelancing was fun, but it’s also very, very lonely. I’ve had a couple of leads but I think it’s too soon to be jumping into another job. I need to realise that, attitude wise, I need to change it. I’ve changed it since NetFox quite a lot with some of that due to a little book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. The suggestion to read this book came from no other than Dr. Nic himself. I read it and realised there were some things in there that I wasn’t doing and that would not only improve my life, but the life of the people around me. It did exactly that.
One thing the book does not have a chapter for is anger. When we went to the Ski Trip at Thredbo I got angry with a waitress because I wasn’t served a steak. Everybody else’s order came out, and mine was simply lost in the process. They made a mistake, and I got angry for no real reason. The waitress apologised but the mistake was done! How dare she stuff up my order! She’s supposed to be a professional. I could put this down to the fact that I was tired, but that should not be used as an excuse. As long as I have the ability to breathe I should have the ability to be polite and analyse a situation before showing my emotional response. This is what I need to continue to refine. There’s no showing you how much I’ve improved since the school days, since Netfox, I can only state that I have.
And only yesterday did I lash out at Bo. I had just received an email for my car damage. I had scraped the side of it and destroyed the right mirror by reversing along side a pole at a shopping center. I was angry at myself then, and that level of anger I believe was acceptable for that situation. I made a mistake, and it was going to cost me money. The email said the repair and the service was going to cost $1,500! I tried to bottle it up and shrug it off, but it ate away at me inside. $1,500! GONE! For what? Shortly after I was writing a bash script to change the keymappings for a plugin Mocra uses called Telefrag. This plugin works with Teleport and allows me to type in QWERTY when Bo or Chendo is typing in Colemak or Dvorak respectively, dismissing the need to switch keyboard layouts with a shortcut. The script wasn’t working as I wanted it and Bo suggested something whilst I was trying something else, and I said something angrily at him. This is an unacceptable case of showing my anger, and therefore I failed, again. I was not angry with Bo and he’s not the one who cost me $1,500. It was me. Getting angry like that cost me my job and I fear could cost me future employment opportunities and eventually leave me in a worse state than where I am at now. I need to stop getting angry so easy and over such trivial things. I need to learn how to.
Mocra is awesome, I failed them and am now unemployed again due to my, and only my, actions. I will fix this, I promise you. This post needs to exist so that people can show it to me, remind me of it, snap me out of it. I will always remember how bad I felt writing it, but also how much of a relief it was to get it off my chest. Yeah, future employers may see this. At this specific point in time I am still human, and therefore still have emotions. This is me describing my journey of controlling them for self-betterment.
Thanks to those who have offered their support over the past 24 hours (friends & family), you have all been brilliant and without such a group I would have probably done something drastic. If you guys ever need anything, I am always available for a chat, as you have been for me. I don’t care if it’s 4am. Call me if we need to talk. I’m there.
Seriously, hire Mocra. They have been fantastic, and I know that they have, can and will succeed.