Yesterday, I found out that my company had done three layoffs and they were reorganizing. Ok, fine. Whatever. It never affects development of the flagship product, that's where the money is!

Well, it did this time. My boss is being transferred to a legacy product, the the other member of my group is being transferred to product support. So, yesterday, I had everything in my mind about how being the only member of a department is going to mean I change what I do.

Well, today I find that I have the new boss but I get to do the same thing. It's odd. You get to this "No one is quite sure of what you do, but keep doing it" level of knowledge and you're never sure whether you're not appreciated and thus expendable or if everyone would be too afraid of losing you, and thus making you relatively safe.

I tried to leave the company at once. They all told me how sorry they were to see me go, but you could see a lot of people not too sorry about it actually. Honestly, people leave all the time, and "he's just a junior programmer, after all." (My title wasn't junior programmer, but I kind of felt like that on the totem pole.) Eventually, people realized what I did around here and they gave me a counter offer. And that flattered me enough that I felt compelled to stay. And suddenly, I'm given a lot more respect. (And a promotion. And a few raises. And lots of pats on the back -- which I enjoy, damnit.)

I just pray that things stay pretty much how they are. I get to node for a little while each day, read a little news, and type out some code while listening to MP3s. I don't really relish that changing.