Hey. I’m so glad to be back in touch with you.
Yes, one big reason I left [the company] was that they seemed to lose interest in pursuing employee home-basing a couple years after I started it. So getting the level of infrastructure support I needed became more difficult. Plus, being home-based effectively dead-ended my career; my last year with them, I got no raise, and my last boss suggested that if I wanted to get my advancement back on track, that I’d need to return to Ohio. Couldn’t do that, as I’d moved in with Mom by then, and really enjoyed living here in my home town again. Nope. There’s no place like home. Managers got frustrated with having to deal with me over the phone so much, and as you probably know, I was thought of none too highly by Release Coordinatation and Software Support (I didn’t think much of them either). So many hardships and tough choices all converged on me in March of 2003 that I had no idea how to deal with. Thus, I just had to get out.
I’ve been a writer for the past eight years, and began blogging my work fourteen months ago. The bandwidth on my blogs is inching upward (5.5 GB / month at present), and so far, I’ve earned $10 from them. J Hopefully though, that will pick up as I post more pieces, more people learn about me, and I better optimize the blogs for search engines.
I suspected you were gay but never felt comfortable asking you about it. However, now that you’ve come forward, for whatever it’s worth, I support you fully, and I’m truly glad that you’ve come out. I did peak at your pictures; you’re much more “smiley” these days. Not that you appeared sad when we ran around together. But you certainly look happier in your present life, and I’m so happy for you now that you’re no longer in the closet. Just be careful who you tell though; there are some real jerks still lurking around out there, and I would never want to see any harm come to you.
I want you to know that I’ve never forgotten how kind and supportive you were to me when we lived together, and throughout my entire sojourn in Ohio. You made the Dayton years possible for me. But eventually though, my vision got in the way too much at work, the higher up the ladder I went. This would not have occurred however, if all the employees there would have been as helpful and understanding as you. If they had, I’d have made president of the company by now. J But eventually, it became clear that due to my home based status and my low vision, I’d hit a sort of glass ceiling there, and found that I simply could not continue working like that. So, I resigned, without a new job to go to. Thank goodness I was eligible for Social Security Disability Income. I do DJ work several times a year, and I have around 68,000 music and radio show recordings on the computer these days, that I play at the gigs. I also perform PC upgrades for the locals (one or two computers a month I work on). But though my income is only a third of what it was as a full-time software engineer, I am much happier myself these days. Leaving was the best decision I ever made.
Sorry about your Mom. Though your work might have suffered, you did the right thing by caring for her as much as she needed. It’s unfortunate that your boss wasn’t more compassionate. But now, you have a clear conscience as well as all those great memories of her, which will enrich the rest of your life. She took care of you growing up, and you took care of her, growing down. That’s as it should be, though our duties in this capitalistic society often make living that way difficult, as you found out at work.
You seem healthy. That’s good. I’m still doing well; though I developed an enlarged thyroid gland in 2002 (probably from the stresses at work J), and I’ve battled high cholesterol too. Otherwise though, I feel great. No girlfriends, but I do hang out with a very special woman from Pittsburgh; we get together once every couple months for a week or two at a time. She’s a lot of fun.
Well, to avoid the risk of this turning into a novel, I’ll close for now. Take care and write more when you so desire. Take care.
Tom Hesley
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