Lace Up Yer Boots!

Lace up yer hiking boots and grab yer alpenstock, 'cuz that's a mighty big mountain we be climbin'!

I thought my last role as a consultant for the Rational tool suite had a steep learning curve. I had felt like I was hauling myself up a long and rocky slope with a few trusted companions to keep me company and administer first aid if I fell and scraped my knee.

There were a few nice views that helped make it worthwhile, but on the whole the outlook was barren and the path was beset with robbers lying in wait to ambush me as I passed by.

Working for ThoughtWorks is a completely different proposition. The mountain is higher, longer and steeper. But there are a multitude of different paths to explore, each with its own character and rewards along the way. And there are hundreds of ThoughtWorkers travelling with me, offering me guidance and support, and lending me a helping hand from above.

I've changed languages from Java to Ruby. Instead of test-driven development with JUnit I'm doing behaviour-driven development with Cucumber. I've switched from Spring to Rails, and from predominantly back-end development to predominantly front-end.  I'm learning frameworks with amusing names like Jasmine, Gherkin and Capybara.

Then there's the supporting technologies. I've switched from Windows to Mac (yay!) and from a centralised repository (SVN) to a distributed one (Mercurial). I'm using Mingle instead of Trac for tracking issues and Go instead of Hudson for automated deployments.

All this while trying to remember dozens of new faces and names, living in a  new city, and memorising a repertoire of songs for my new chorus (did I mention I'm a singer?).

XConf and the YOW developer's conference were like chair lifts, giving me a boost up new terrain with relatively little effort. My ThoughtWorks colleagues answer my dumb questions with endless patience and good will. But often it's my own hard legwork that carries me forward.

It's daunting at times, sometimes downright scary, but also terribly exciting!

2: Windsor on Kent

Arrival

We moved in on October 24, my first day at ThoughtWorks. We had arranged for David to meet the manager at 2pm while I was at work. Dave very manfully hauled our luggage the 1.9 km from Central Station by himself, and met me at Wynyard Park after work to show me in.

Cost

ThoughtWorks is assisting my relocation by providing this apartment at no cost to us. Thank you ThoughtWorks!

First Impressions

	It's an East facing apartment and the morning sun streams in; so much easier getting up in the morning! We have city views, and I find it fascinating focusing in on the little details of the buildings. I like having a leisurely breakfast while watching the workaholics in the office across the road already hard at it.
	I expected to be disturbed by the city noises I'm not used to, but I've found the city has a music all its own. A background white-noise hum punctuated by sudden outbursts; a siren; a souped-up engine; late night revellers. At dusk and dawn a solitary bird cries out for her missing mate.
	When we first arrived there was an odour in the laundry as if the previous month's tenant's wet washing still inhabited the washing machine. But that dissipated after airing for a while. Really, it would be churlish to complain about anything - this is a terrific apartment and I'm very grateful to ThoughtWorks for providing it for us.

The Neighbourhood

This location is great; we're five minutes walk from Darling Harbour; 10 minutes from the George St cinemas, Town Hall Station; 15 minutes from the ThoughtWorks office on Pitt St. In my second week I was working at a client site in the very next block - love the 3 minute walk to work!

I've joined Fitness First and there are three gyms within walking distance. I really should get to them more often...

I miss the flora and fauna I'm used to in Canberra. The street has a few trees on it but the nearest grass is at Wynyard. Even pigeons are conspicuous by their absence here.

It is a fantastic location for food. Nando's is across the road. We had a wonderful Japanese dinner at a restaurant around the corner, and some very nice Yum Cha in Chinatown, about 10 minutes walk up the street towards Paddy's Market.

What will I miss?

The building has a lovely pool and spa. It's really nice being able to duck downstairs for a swim whenever I want.

Departure

Tomorrow the lease runs out on this apartment. I have selected our next residence, but it's not available until December 10. ThoughtWorks have come to the rescue and provided us with an additional two weeks in their corporate apartments on Elizabeth St opposite Hyde Park.

I was very impressed by Corporate Housing, the apartment managers. They're sending someone over tomorrow morning to help me with my luggage (Dave's in Canberra) and drive me over to the new place. I expected to have to haul my luggage down to a taxi and manhandle (or personhandle?) it into the new place by myself.

Salmon and Sardines

A Random Walk

My apartment on Kent Street is four blocks west and roughly seven blocks south of the ThoughtWorks office on Pitt Street. My first week in Sydney I'm working in the TW office. Morning and evening I explore Sydney by a series of random walks governed by the state of the traffic lights at each intersection I come to. As I walk to and from work I take the direction with the first green light and thereby explore most of the rectangle defined by work and home. My commute has a casino flavour to it, every corner a two-up game.

The Back Entrance

My second week in Sydney I discover what seems to be a convenient shortcut from my apartment on Kent Street through to the office on Pitt Street. There's a back entrance to Wynyard Station on Kent Street. Traversing a fairly narrow passageway, I come to a pair of escalators one of which takes me down towards the station. Skirting the station and angling left I can wheel my laptop case up the gentle incline of the Met Centre shopping mall through to George Street, avoiding stairs and several sets of traffic lights.

I am a Salmon

I discover the drawbacks of the Wynyard route the first time I attempt it at peak hour. Coming back from George Street I flow with the crowd through the mall as far as the station. As I round the station proper I am suddenly confronted by an onrushing horde of pedestrians. I feel like a salmon battling upstream as I struggle against the oncoming masses. Reaching the escalators, I am dismayed to see they are both running downwards into the station. I am forced to battle both the crowds and the force of gravity as I haul my heavy bag up the long flight of stairs.

Bargers and Saunterers

I worked in the city in Canberra before coming to Sydney. The pedestrian traffic in the centre of Canberra bears little resemblance to the masses of people I'm commuting with in Sydney. I have to develop new techniques to cope with the various classes of people on the streets.

The smokers are easy to deal with. I learn to hold my breath as I see one approaching, and exhale slowly as the plume of carcinogens envelopes me.

Then there are the saunterers. These are the folk without a care in the world, who amble slowly along, building up a backlog of frustrated commuters behind them. There are several classes of saunterers; the chatting saunterer (face to face and mobile) the texting saunterer (usually mobile, but at least one genuine book reader); the window shopping saunter; the gawking tourist saunterer (guilty, yer honour!). After missing several walk signals stuck behind saunterers, I learn to duck behind a barger and follow in their wake as they forge through.

A barger disregards anything in their path. They are determined to get to where they're going without deviation or pause. Bargers also come in several flavours;
the white rabbit barger; the oblivious barger (with their eyes fixed firmly on the ground 1 metre in front of them); the aggressive barger. I learn to spot them coming and shelter behind a light pole or in an alcove till they've passed. If they're going your way though, they do come in handy.

Sardines

I am reminded of fish again in my third week,when I start working at a client site in North Sydney. Now I have to brave the peak hour exodus from Wynyard station to take the train to North Sydney. I have discovered that the York Street entrance, though further from the apartment, is much friendlier to the few travellers swimming upstream. Of the four escalators, one is going the right way for me.

The platform is packed with people, and when the train arrives we all squeeze madly into the carriages, jammed in like so many sardines. I am fearful of being spat out like a watermelon seed when the doors open at Milson's Point.

There's a woman standing near me who complains bitterly about the state of Sydney public transport. She's not used to slumming it with the common folk. But she relieves the tension by making a risque joke when she is thrown against the young man next to her, and we have an amusing conversation for the rest of the trip.