Feeling trapped!

One of the worst feelings of my career as a software developer was at the four year anniversary of my first job. The company is a software company whose future was in doubt. Layoffs always seemed to be a looming reality and better times seemed like they were a thing of the past. My mentor, and manager, left for another company and I was left supporting the work that my team had done.
It didn't take long for me to get tired of supporting the software. Frequently, issues with the highest levels of visibility would come in and I would need to dedicate my time to addressing those issues. According to the metrics that were used to evaluate me, I was underperforming. I received no credit for resolving critical issues, yet I was criticized for not meeting deadlines for the issues that were displaced by the criticals.
What scared me most is that the expertise that I was developing applied mostly to the domain of the software that my company developed. The only really interested company was one that did consulting on the software that I wanted to get away from.
Other businesses wouldn't take a chance on me. It was very painful for me to come in to interviews and be told that I didn't have the skills they wanted. To me, I heard you're not good enough to work for us.
Some of the people were more polite than others. Some were not very nice at all. In retrospect, it was probably a better thing for me that I wasn't able to get a job then.
At the time though, I was a mess. Unless you've been in this position of not enjoying your work and feeling that you don't have alternatives, it's horrible. There's hope though. I was able to get out of that position.
spent my weekends learning the technologies that businesses are using and making myself a marketable developer. I took jobs that would build on those skills. I am confident that I could easily take a job with a number of other companies if I needed to.
Even when I have days that are not very enjoyable, I don't feel trapped. It's amazing what options can do for an attitude.

Job wish lists

A VP from my first development job gave me some great advice during my exit interview with her. She recommends that we keep lists when we start a job and when we end them of the things that we like and the things that we don't like. In keeping this list active we have a better idea of what aspects of a job are important to us.
I've tried to keep a list and as I feel I may be on my way towards shopping again I'm adding to the list. So without further ado, here are my lists of important things to me:
Good things:

1. An environment that promotes creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Being free to be creative and productive is reward in and of itself.
2. An organization that empowers and supports individuals to improve themselves. Training, making opportunities available, and promoting growth are ways to make people feel comfortable in a position. If I can see opportunity for growth and the position looks like something I might want to do that's a good thing.
3. Valuing efficiency. This is something I'm really looking for in my next opportunity. Ironically, my current company as a whole wastes very little, however they often times get caught in the "penny wise pound foolish" situation. For me it comes down to an organization valuing my time, I prefer to spend my time adding value.
   
4. A socially stimulating environment. Simply put I want to work with good people who are enjoyable to be around. On only one occasion have I worked with someone for whom the thought of him still makes me angry. I never want to repeat that experience.
5. Competent and effective management. This should be higher on the list and it's a bit of a catch all. I'm not even sure what it entails entirely. There are a lot of things that a manager can do wrong, but a good manager is one that is trusted and respected. Everything else is secondary to those principles.

Things that I don't want:

1. An unhealthy atmosphere--facilities, social, or otherwise. Life is too short to put up with the problems that any of those things can cause.
2. Marginalization--there's nothing worse than having problems, being unable to fix them, and having an organization that is unwilling to correct them.
3. Innovative inertia. Having an organization that is unwilling to try new things or encourage the current practices to be challenged.
4. Not having a choice of hardware and software configuration--this is one of the worst places where a company tries to save money. Saving a few bucks on an extra monitor, or an ergonomic keyboard is a wasted opportunity. Some developers will bring their own hardware in. If they believe it's that important to them, think how grateful they would be if a company catered to their preferences.

That's a pretty good list. I'm open to more suggestions.

tough row to hoe == tough road to ho

A tough row to ho refers to hoeing a row in a garden or field. Roots, rocks, and other obstructions can make hoeing that row difficult. Hence the phrase 'a tough row to hoe', which means a difficult task.
Many people mishear this phrase and assume it to be 'a tough road to ho'. I find it amusing that if you take that phrase into the context of modern speech that it means, a difficult street to whore.
If you think about it, it really means the same thing even though it is taken out of context and used metaphorically.
My new challenge is to try and find a clever way to use this in conversation.

A conflict of culture. A conflict of market forces

It's still not a certainty, but I think I'm going to be shopping for work in about five months. I can afford to be very selective for the first time. 

Previously, when I've looked for work I'd been motivated to do so because I did not see opportunity in that situation. I currently work for a very successful company and from all accounts, they are very happy with my contributions. In a sense I do see a limitation of my opportunities within the company though.

If I were to point a finger at what is driving me to look around it would be culture and the disparity between the job markets of my local office and corporate headquarters.

My company is based in another state where there is not a very active market for technology workers. I live in a very competitive market.

My colleagues down there say you either work for my company or about two other companies and that's it. They worry about job security with the company because they believe their options are limited. Their resistance point of shenanigans for leaving the company is much higher than people who are in an environment that has more opportunities.

Workers in an environment that has more opportunity will have a much lower shenanigans threshold. Once the demands that are put on a worker outweigh the gains that the worker believes that she can get somewhere else, she will start looking for work somewhere else.
The workforce around the senior managers are going to be more complicit with the demands that are put on them. They have less with which to bargain because the prospect of leaving the company is not as real as it is in an environment with more opportunity.

I see this a lot in my own company. My own division is almost exclusively staffed with people in my office, all of the management positions up to the vice president are in my office. Within my division the norms and underlying values are very similar to what I'd find in other companies in my area. If I do say so I think we have a productive, creative and highly functional group of people in our division.

A neighboring division that is managed exclusively from the corporate office and staffed with a mix of people from my office and from corporate is very different. I hate to use the rats from a sinking ship analogy, but I will. When that team was formed from a reorganization all of the local contractors who can have their pick of employer left in short order. The rest of the employees who are competitively skilled found locally managed internal positions to transfer to. Almost every single one of them. There are many reasons for this, but I believe the following explanation describes the reasons behind what happened.

How do these forces affect the cultures in the locations.

From my own observations I would say this: people in the other office, as a whole, are far more averse to taking risks. The perceived cost of failure is far too great to justify deviating from the safety of following convention.

In the competitive environment the perceived cost of failure is much lower, as such workers in that environment are far more likely to take chances.

This is just one example, but I believe the economic conditions between the two offices plays a key role in the cultural differences.

The most powerful conflicts to the people in the competitive office is that there is more managerial power in the non competitive office. Those managers are far more aware of what is around them than what is not. The perceptions they make of their nearby environment influence the way they deal with all of their reports. They are more likely to create a culture based on the norms and values of the non-competitive office and extend them to the competitive office. Some of the norms of the competitive office will transfer to the other as well.

So, in the case of the neighboring division. Well, the managers there were not accustomed to having employees who are able to quit. The managers shenanigans exceeded those people's thresholds and they left as quickly as they could.

What does all of this mean to me? To me it means that my company's culture and behavior towards me is not as favorable to me as other companies that are based within my market do.
What does this mean to you? When you look for work, try to find an employer that is based within your market or based in a more competitive market. Your experience will tend to be no worse than most of the companies around you, and with a stronger likelihood of exceeding the local market.

Try to avoid employers that are based within less competitive markets. Your experience is more likely to be less favorable than a locally based company.

This is a simple model and a simple axiom. There are many more factors to take into account than this one component. It is a very strong component nonetheless.

Is Management The Answer?

My days are probably numbered at my current company. I'm beginning to feel tired. I plan to finish my current project--about 4 months or so--then consider my options then.
I feel that I will leave within a year because I don't see myself enjoying working at this company as my career progresses. I just don't see the things that aggravate me changing. I do my best to fight the good fight, but I feel like I'm in one of the lone non-dysfunctional divisions of my company, but the dysfunction is creeping in.
When an incident that occurred in a neighboring division was used as a negative example of how to innovate at a conference I think I got the hint that my talents may be better utilized elsewhere.
So I've made the decision to leave. I'm currently in a leadership role in a project that spans to the Summer. I would like to finish the project. That gives me a pretty nice time frame. A lot of hiring seems to happen in the summer.
Ok, the target timeframe is set, what am I looking for?
There's always the more of the same approach. The environment would need to be much more akin to what I want for me to consider that option.
I'd really like to try my hand at managing. At the level of a manager or director I think I could really make a difference. I could try my hand at running a team or a department in the way I'd like it to be run.
How would that be you ask?
That's my assignment. Well, that's the million dollar question.
I would like to have a team that is innovative and dynamic. I want a team that is able to think abstractly and strategically. They need to be able to see opportunities for change and act on it. They need to value quality, but also be aware of deadlines. This team would excel in coming up with creative ideas.
Yeah, this team will be awesome. So if you know of any openings to lead such a team please let me know.
Ok, since that boat will probably never hit the harbor I'm going to prepare to build that team. I see my mission as two fold: environmental and behavioral. I will need to find the right environment for this. I will also need to prepare to lead such a team through my actions. Since it is easiest, I will look at environment first. More to come...

Paul's Heros: Bruce Schneier

There is a limited place in my mind for the people who I hold in the utmost respect.

Bruce Schneier is one of those people for whom I have that pinnacle level of respect. Bruce is uniquely talented as a writer of very complicated technical materials, yet makes it understandable by dopes like me. Without Applied Cryptography I would have never really understood some of the implementations of cryptographic techniques.

What I admire most about Schneier is that he is somewhat of a maverick in the Security field. He does not assume the posture of an authority figure and use fear as a tool to push his ideas.

In his book, Beyond Fear, Schneier uses his easily digestible style of writing to communicate the role of fear in security. From the beginning Schneier differentiates the concepts of actual security and perceived security, or what he coined "Security Theater". He explains that the two are equally important and that a good security system should have elements of both.

Unfortunately people don't listen to people like Bruce. The fear soaked rhetoric and sensationalism of other security experts tend to stick in the minds of the unanalytical masses.
Regardless of his lack of mass appeal, Bruce Schneier's blog should be on your short list of frequently read content.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/

Bruce, you're alright.

The Lefty Advantage

Like my fellow 10% of the population I write with my left hand.
As other lefties can relate, the world is not made for us. We all learned that we need to adapt on our own.
I find that this permeates through lefties personalities. For our entire lives we've needed to find ways to overcome the challenges that the right handed world presents us.
I chose to use my right hand for many things: scissors, sports, eating. As a result, I am moderately ambidextrous.
As a side effect, adapting to conditions has never bothered me. I never plan things out in greater detail than I need to. Deviations from a plan are not a big deal. My world is not rigid.
There are people who are not so adaptable or welcoming to change. I bet most of them are righties.

Failure is not a bad thing

Recently I attended the Code Freeze 08 conference. The theme of the conference is innovation. There were three speakers who talked to the culture of innovation. The first speaker, Mark Striebeck, represented Google and described Google's culture. From the description, we could clearly see that Google values innovation.
Compared to the companies that I've worked for the differences are huge. Aside from the company provided food and concierge service, Google also encourages their people to try things that may very well fail. Google values the knowledge learned from failing. I can think of one time that I had a boss who didn't mind that a project we participated in failed to achieve its goal. Every single organization I have worked for since would treat that failure as a demerit. The phrase that I gleaned that sums up the philosophy of constructive failure is "Fail Quickly".
Hey Google, you're my kind of company.
I have to admit that most of my own personal breakthroughs have been through experimentation and failure. I always found that I didn't learn much in my classes by following the prescribed experiments--deviating from them often yielded far more interesting results. Unfortunately for my academic records, it wasn't until my senior year in high school that I learned how I was really being evaluated on science labs--Pro Tip: treat a science lab like a fundamentalist religion, read one chapter ahead of the lab material and find the principle that the lab is trying to illustrate. Instead of simply following the instructions and making observations, figure out how the instructions are trying to illustrate the principal and make sure that your steps help facilitate that. A little bit of direction helps a lot.
Oops didn't learn that tip until most of my secondary education was complete. Instead, I used to play with the materials and try to observe the results of messing around with the lab materials. You know, really learn something. Say for example when we had a lab on the principles of serial and parallel wiring in electricity. Sure you get the basics out of the way, but what if you were to combine batteries with your friends and put about a dozen D cell batteries in a series, what would that do to the light bulbs in the circuit? What if we replace the bulb portion with steel wool. Whoa, we didn't it to ember up like that. Now that's an experiment. The teachers didn't see it that way. There were more than a few times that I'd end up in the Vice Principal's office for conspiring my classmates to destroy lab equipment.
But I digress, the freedom to experiment is ultimately a good thing. It's been a while since I have really had the freedom to innovate at work, but it happens from time to time. The last time I was able to create something truly innovative was when I wasn't really part of any project and I could spend a few days experimenting with some ideas. It's been quite a while since I've been able to do that.

My take on some of the effects of piracy.

This is my opinion on piracy: in the grand scheme of things it's a good thing.
There are many forms of piracy: but it all comes down to making a copy of intellectual property, IP.
Those who sell that intellectual property, be it as a book or a CD, a movie, or as software will claim that copying that IP is stealing. What are you stealing? You are stealing the opportunity to pay them for the IP. They will claim that you benefit from that IP without compensating them for it. Odd that they aren't apt to compensate people for their time when the IP turns out to be a waste of the audience's time.
Here's the thing, there's are two assumptions that content sellers are trying to sell: people who pirate content would have purchased the IP had they not pirated it, and sales are from people who do not pirate content. There is a third group, those who pirate and purchase content.
There are two extremes. On the one hand you have people who exclusively pirate who take content. They will never ever pay for content. Consider them the same as those who books, music, and movies from the library and will use freeware alternatives to commercial software. They aren't going to buy content no matter what.
On the other extreme you have the people who will buy content at every opportunity. Take a look around my inlaws house and you'll see a mess of books, cds, and dvds, all legally purchased. Oh, BTW, they won't load any of those DVDs onto their iPods because the content sellers say it's piracy and my in laws comply.
Between those two groups is everybody else. We all "pirate" content in one way or another. We borrow books and CDs from each other. We lend a DVD to a friend. We load MP3s onto iPods etc. There are even some of us who will download software, movies, books, and music. There are opportunities for purchase that pirating takes away. I borrowed a DVD, or downloaded it, and therefore I choose not to buy it for myself. There are also opportunities for purchase that are created also. I borrowed a DVD that I really like, or I downloaded it, and I want to add that to my collection.
It is difficult to measure how these groups affect each other. It is a complicated issue.
What I see in content sellers is that they are doing two things to try and stop piracy: they try to make examples of pirates in court, and they try to make piracy difficult.
Both of these approaches are damaging. Legal bullying is a wellspring of bad PR. Having trade group lawyers argue that things that most people feel is fair use, e.g. putting music from CDs on an iPod is illegal, is not going to win any sympathy towards content sellers.
The second tact of trying to make piracy difficult is also counter productive in a similar vein. Most of the so called piracy safe guards makes the legitimate use of purchased content more difficult. That is, those who pay for the content are experiencing a lesser experience than those who just pirate the content.
Pirates will filter the safeguards and take only the content.
The content sellers, especially the music industry really treat their customers like criminals. Look at what Sony did with the root kits that they snuck into some of their CDs back in 2005. What they did was install software onto their customers' computers that allowed people at Sony to look at the content of the customers' computers. They had free reign to do what they want. If I did this to you, I could go to jail. I'm not sure why Sony hasn't faced any legal problems.
I see piracy as a market force. It is impossible to stop it.
What I would like to see is a paradigm shift in the way that IP is sold that embraces piracy, i.e. it uses the force of piracy as a way to benefit those who sell content. The first people to do that, will benefit immensely. The important question is how?
If I may, I think I'll infringe on some IP by saying, "ay, there's the rub"

The best television program I ever saw

An evening that I consider to be a pivotal moment in my life was one night as a child spent watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny's guest, James Randi, or the Amazing Randi, showed how many people misuse the principles of magic for fraud. Randi showed how mentalists can easily bend silverware, how mediums can cause tables to shake and levitate in a "seance", and how people performed "psychic surgery".
Randi's approach is to show how a person could produce the same illusions that so-called psychics were claiming as authentic supernatural phenomena. Silverware can be bent through slight of hand techniques and discretely applying pressure to the silverware, a slipping a toe under one of the legs of a table can give a person complete control over it when they apply downward pressure with their hands, and some blood and chicken parts can be palmed by a person and then produced from someone's belly--it's really the same trick as pulling a coin from someone's ear, just bloodier.
Randi's explanations turned me towards a skeptical path that I have since traveled. I viewed outrageous claims with a skeptical eye. I always sought to find a more simple solution than magic or pseudo-scientific explanations.
This was a huge breakthrough for me. At that time I was living between two worlds. In one world I was learning to use the scientific method and discovering how to explain the physical world. I loved finding scientific explanations for things that I could not explain through the scientific method. Observing something, hypothesizing as to how it happens, creating an experiment that supports/refutes that hypothesis, analyzing the data and drawing conclusions from the data.
In the other world I was told that there is mystical power that created everything and interacts with our daily lives. One hour of every week I would hear how real this god and Jesus are. My whole family believed this. I went to a school that taught the Catholic faith alongside science. Everywhere I turned were christians who basically believed what I was being taught by others to believe.
At this point I knew things to be true for two reasons: I could observe them and provide an explanation for them through observable and reproducible steps, or someone told me it's true because it's in the bible.
That night of seeing Randi explain supernatural claims tipped the scales towards my skepticism.

Not so bored

Sweet, my project is kicking off this week. No lapse and now I need to hustle to get those two weeks of work done in, about a week and a half.

Boredom, that time of year

It's the beginning of the year at my company. That means that new projects are afoot.
There are about 2 weeks of work scheduled for me until I am scheduled to work on the big project. Unfortunately, the big project's about 3 weeks out.

What a way to start the year!

Yesterday I had an incredible breakthrough in understanding myself and why I've done things the way that I have. I realized yesterday morning that from an early age I've lived my life with a fear of rejection. I tracked the origin to a series of multiple events when I was only 11 and 12 that shaped the way I behaved for a good 20 or so years!
The better part of my youth was spent coping, poorly, with this fear. I don't think I really got over it until I made something out of myself professionally.
Part of my coping process caused me to behave in a hurtful way towards people. If you know me, and feel that I've hurt you with my words or actions, I ask you to accept my sincerest apology. It was unfair for me to do that to you.
Have a good year!

Think like Paul tip #1--don't use your emotions to think

Emotions are a piece of evolutionary luggage that served as an instinctive guide to help humans survive in an often dangerous world. The dangers of that world were often real. Fear, for example, is a way to keep from falling prey to a predator. If I am fearful of sharks I am going to treat possible interactions with sharks with a healthy dose of fear and respect. I will probably be more weary of my actions in areas where there is even a remote possibility of encountering a shark than I would had I not that fear. For example I may choose to not swim in the ocean because of my fear of sharks even though the probability of being attacked by one is incredibly small. I don't personally have a very strong fear of sharks, but I do have one. I find myself fighting my fear of sharks when I swim in the ocean. If I were to be rationally fearful of the dangers that are most probable I should probably be more fearful of rip currents and drowning.
I consider myself a person who is guided mostly by logic and reason, more so than most people.
Yet, I find myself acting irrationally because of my emotions. I recognize this and because of that, I can overcome my fears. I use logic and probability to overcome my fears.
I have trained myself to consider communications that strike an emotional chord as suspicious. If you hear things that scare you, make you angry, or make you feel good there's a strong chance that the person who wrote that message intended for you to feel that way.
Consider advertising. If you were trying to advertise a product, wouldn't you want to create good emotions to go with your product? How many product advertisements can you name that make you angry? The only ones I can think of are ones that do are from banks, and that's because I know that the purpose of most credit card advertisement is to make people more comfortable with living in debt.
Advertisements that are meant to anger me are usually political ads. Towards the end of an election you always hear the real dirt on the flaws of the candidates. I think the thought behind those ads is to anger voters into voting against a candidate. This is the art of Rhetoric--using the emotions attached to language to evoke an irrational response to a message.
When you act on emotions created by a message, you're really complying to the will of the creator of that message. You are allowing yourself to be used by someone else. Most people allow themselves to be manipulated like this every day and have no idea that it occurs.
If you can recognize this pattern you can keep control over your actions. I personally consider everything that evokes an emotion as suspicious. Consider the sources and consider their reasons for evoking those emotions. You can then question what they want from you and possibly conclude why.

Emancipation

Slavery is real.
I am a slave to many masters.
There are fewer now, but there still are some.
The first master I escaped was smoking. The freedom from that addiction is a gift that I enjoy every day.
The second master I escaped is religion. That freedom is just as sweet.
The remaining masters are lenders. Since I took stock of my situation I have cut the number of lenders in half. With each credit card balance I pay off I feel my anxiety drop.
My goal for the year is to have only our mortgages outstanding in 12 months and to have the remainder of our credit card debts paid off by April. It can be done --about 16,000 in credit card debt left--down from around 30,000.
Another 6,000 left on the car.
I enjoy my life more with each shackle I break.

We can build bigger strollers! We have the technology

Strollers just don't take up enough space in crowds!

What makes you feel valuable?

I was chatting with a friend this morning. She's a veteran BA/PM. She's really frustrated that the development team and business team that she's working with.
One point of frustration that she has is the business process and the computer application that performs this process is unnecessarily complicated. The thing that frustrates her is that there are people who take pride in the process' and application's complexities. They take pride in the fact that they have mastered, or are capable of using, this process where others need to suffer to learn it. The process is very valuable to the company so therefore they feel they are valuable to the company
This is not uncommon in IT. People get a big ego when they create something that nobody can understand. You hear a lot of hushed bitter voices snickering "If I ever decide to leave, they'd be screwed without me."
It's true to an extent. When you lose people with specialized knowledge it can hurt. When it happens, it usually isn't the end of the world that the person predicts.
I think this is a fool's argument though.
I would argue that making a complicated process difficult for other people to understand is no great achievement. It is true that there is some value that your process, and by extension you, will be to your company/customers.
First off, wouldn't you rather make a complicated process more simple? Aren't simple things easier to work with and understand? Isn't it easier to train people to work with processes that don't have a whole lot of special and/or irregular rules?
Secondly, do you want to be valuable because only you can support something you created? Do you want to be rehashing work you did five years ago?
Finally, think about what that says about your work and you. Unless you personally are there to constantly tend to what you built, it will fall apart. That really just says that you're not a very good designer.
Is there any profession where that attitude prevails? Imagine a mechanic who thought that way, a carpenter, or a doctor.
I, personally, would rather do new things. I don't care to support old applications. I'd rather not rehash the same issues I worked on a year ago. I'd prefer to get things right and move forward.
Instead of making a system so complicated and intricate that only you can make it work, how about making a system so simple and straightforward a non-techie could operate it. Wouldn't that really be the greater achievement?
Having the ability to create applications that work and are easy to understand, and more importantly, c is going to provide more career security in the long run.

My stupid name game

I play this head game with people's names all the time. The rules are simple, switch the first consonant sound of the person's first name with the first consonant sound of their last name.
For example: for the name Fun Paul; I'd use Pun Faul.
Let's do some more(I'll grab a few from whatever's on my browser):
Haris Pilton
Shnuce Breier
Agberto Lonzonles
Donney Jepp
Tonald Drump
It can be fun form of self amusement.
I must have learned this from all those issues of Mad magazine I read as a kid.

Out of the pot and into the fire

I read a fun little post about SST Card Services over at the Consumerist. They are reporting that people are complaining about deceptive, fraudulent, incompetent, or outright crooked practices that SST is running.
I feel for the people who are stuck with credit card like that.
Oddly I performed a little experiment with a credit card from Providian. Which, at the time was considered to be one of the worst predatory lenders.
In college I thought I'd see for myself how bad these guys were. I responded to a 0% Aria credit card ad online. This was a card that our friends at Providian ran. I named it my ghetto card because it was a colorfully ugly card with sparkles.
I was meticulous about my use with the card. I never spent more than I could cover and I always sent in a payment in full within a couple of days of receiving my bill. To mix things up I took out one cash advance.
Here are my observations:
The 0% that they advertised was the 0% that they'd charge you for the initial grace period. This is a standard feature of just about every credit card. After that the APR shot up to something like 19.9%. What they really should have advertised is 19.9%
19.9% is really high.
The limit was incredibly low. I'd like to say it was $500. It may have been less. My other credit cards had limits of $20000 and $5000 at the time. After 4 months of diligently paying off my balance they raised my limit to $750. They offered me one of the most absurdly terrible deals ever, which was an additional $250 in credit for $50. They were going to charge me money for the privilege of charging me money.
When I took out a single cash advance I sent in sufficient funds to cover the entire bill before the statement came. I was surprised at the acrobatic bookkeeping that they used to keep that cash advance interest rate, good old 29.9% going. Somehow my payment would not seem to get processed until I made a regular purchase at the lower rate.
Their customer service was horrible. I used to work as a trade journalist. I had to call people behind phone trees all the time. I like to think that I'm very good at navigating these things. Theirs was a true labyrinth. I don't think I was ever able to get a human on the phone when I called them. Even the old don't push any buttons trick didn't do anything.
Their web site was no better, it was all about setting up another account.
On the plus side I did receive a check from a class action lawsuit.
I decided to close the account after I graduated and the account had been paid off in full for a few months--I overpaid the final statement by $25 to avoid the double cycle billing or trailing interest pitfalls.
With a $-15 balance I set out to cancel my account. I tried calling their customer service. No luck there. I eventually called the corporate office of the parent company Providian. Luckily for me, they are a public company and I was able to get their corporate contact information through a finance resource, e.g., http://finance.google.com. I then worked their phones until I was able to get the executive customer service for the card. I think they were glad to get rid of me because they didn't put up much of a fight.
What were my conclusions.
Well, I was a responsible credit card user. I was kind of hoping that they would have charged me a late fee, after all I was paying off my balance the day that the bill arrived, but that never happened.
I can only imagine a person using their card less responsibly. If they miss a payment or let their balance exceed their limit I'm sure Providian would have hit them with the default rate at the first opportunity. With that said I did play by their rules and didn't get hurt too much. I did pay the cash advance interest rate when I don't think I should have, otherwise I can't say they took undue advantage of me.
That is the best that I can say of them. On the downside their customer service was horrible. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to try to dispute a charge or to get an explanation from them.

I love my Wii

I think Nintendo Wiis are awesome.
If you can get one, I give my unqualified recommendation for the Nintendo Wii.
The thing I like about my Wii is the amount of interactivity and activity that is required to play a lot of the games.
The technology is incredible. I think that the direction that Nintendo took with the elegant Wiimotes is a real breakthrough in human/computer interaction. If you haven't heard about these, what they are are candy bar sized controllers that have motion sensors and IR sensors. What that enables players to do is to provide input by moving the Wiimote. You can use it like a pointer or, in the case of a game like Wii Sports, swing it like a baseball bat, tennis racket, or a bowling ball. You can also plug in a Nunchuck controller for two handed control. The Nunchuck also has motion sensors. Wii boxing is a game where you hold the Wiimote in one hand and the Nunchuck in the other. You literally throw punches in real life to punch in the game. It's a lot of fun and it's a good workout.
I haven't played all of the games that I have so far--I broke down and bought the 6 game bundle from Wal Mart. So far we've had a lot of fun with the following games: Wii Sports--included, Wario Smooth Moves, Excite Truck, Cooking Mama, the Rayman Game, Trauma: Second Opinion.
I have been a little disappointed with Call of Duty 3 and Tiger Woods. With both of them I think that the controls are not quite refined enough.
I'm especially disappointed by Tiger Woods. I think there's a huge potential for making a great golf game, but the control issues are a huge negative. I'm not willing to put a whole lot of time trying to adjust to the game's quirks. I think they could have a real winner if they keep the course content and make the controls work perfectly.