A year of college was under my belt and things were going great. Doubling-up during summer school put me ahead of schedule. Everything was wonderful except for the financial situation. With Christmas approaching I decided to take a temporary job.. back at Electronics Boutique. The only flaw in this plan is that since I was a former manager (at a different location) they gave me a ton of hours. They knew I obviously wouldn't screw anything up too badly so I was more valuable than the average stroke-off they hired for seasonal help.

I was now working 71 hours a week (since 31 qualifies as part-time) in addition to studying for finals. Once I got past finals it was mostly bearable but the first 2-3 weeks were rough. By the end of the year I was worn out, somewhere between exhaustion and insanity. It was good practice for later in life when I took on graduate school while having a kid.

Hey, at least the bookstore was running more smoothly than the previous year. Yeah we had some duds on the staff but most had been around long enough that we avoided any major catastrophes.

Despite the fatigue I was taking things in stride, a light began to shine in the distance. Maybe I should have called this section "quadruple duty" because I also dedicated a lot of time to finding a non-retail job...

I only had a year of computer science education, largely C++, but I was fluent in Visual Basic from independent study. I talked to the head of the computer science department at school about internships or part-time work. In 1997 less qualified programmers were being hired left and right so I figured I'd find something. He hooked me up with a few referrals and I managed to score a couple interviews.

In late December I interviewed at a company called TSI Software. I remember the date well because there were Christmas decorations strewn throughout the nearly vacant office. "Last night was the holiday party so almost everyone is out today" the perky receptionist informed me. Already it seemed like an alright place to work. The interview went well and I was offered a job pretty quickly. They'd even let me work 2:00-10:00 Monday-Friday, there was another college student already doing the same. It was a whole different attitude in the mid-late 90s, if you could crank out code they didn't care about anything else. I had to shift my school schedule around a little, classes from 8:00-1:00 five days a week now. The week would now be brutally long now but I had weekends off for the first time in 6 years.