I've had 4 jobs since I graduated in 1999.

The first was a powerbuilder shop endeavoring to branch out and explore new technologies and use them to build a better product. I signed on being told that I would be able to be a major part in bringing this new technology into fruition and that my experience with software development would make me a valuable asset in defining better development processes for the company. Pipe dreams, unfortunatly. This dream was one held only by the few who interviewed me, others were more set in their ways as Powerbuilder zealots. i quickly came to realize, there would be no change in technology, no change in process. They liked their non-version control no bug traching system way of doing things. So I left.

I went to work for a java consulting company thinking I would enjoy working on different projects and working with different people. Sadly, this was right before everyone stopped hiring consultants and the dot com boom went belly up. I did some good work there, but was layed off after 5 months.

So I mowed my lawn religiously for about 3 months, it never looked so good. I couldn't find a job in Tulsa to save my life though. So just as I began to look elsewhere, I got hired by a 95 year old energy company. The everlasting bedrock of Tulsa.

I worked there for a year and a half. It was a very good job. I worked with people I respect and who respected me and my skills as a software developer. We wrote software used by thousands of people every day. We used CVS, Bugzilla, Linux, Perl, Python, Java, etc. There was a high degree of appriciation for using the right tool for the job, a philosophy that I strongly agree with.

Like all good things, it came to an end. Enron collapsed and we were taken in it's wake. My company never did anything wrong, but there was a general fear of energy companies everywhere at that point. Marketing projects were canceled and I bounced over to the IDS team.

IDS was an interesting job, but there was no programming involved and they were preparing to shift me to the graveyard shift. Then, my current company called and offered me a job.

I had that feeling that said, "I'm not sure about this place." But stuck between a rock and a hard place, I chose the hard place. I can't say it was a bad decision, but it wasn't a good one either. We are directed on a whim, one day things go well, the other bad. Any attempt to design or plan for software is admonished as a waste of time. We are very much of the "Just start coding" methodology and the "please, reinvent the wheel again will you" way of going about things.

I think I've exhausted the career oppurtunities in Tulsa. The problem is, I don't want to leave.