I am in a cubicle on the third floor of the building opposite the Tesco in Děčín in the Czech Republic.

My television at the hotel in Hřensko had only ten stations available: two in Czech, eight in German. I watched an episode of Scrubs dubbed into German this morning. I don’t think the people doing the dubbing were adequately replicating the speech cadences of the actors; in particular, the Dr. Cox character lost a little something. Had I not needed sleep, I might have watched an episode from the first season of Prison Break in Czech last night.

It’s very difficult trying to eat well here. Wait, scratch that. It’s very difficult to eat correctly here. It’s no trouble at all eating a sufficient amount. I just wish they’d serve Coke in something larger than the lilliputian size; I think the bottles are 250 milliliters (about eight ounces).

I’ve driven twice this week. That’s a bigger deal than it sounds because our car has a manual transmission and I don’t know how to drive one. I understand the concepts, but the techniques aren’t in muscle memory yet.

Tonight we drive to Praha (Prague) to stay at the Marriott at the airport. Our flight leaves at 9:20 AM for Amsterdam. After a little more than two hours there, we leave at a quarter after one on our eight hour and forty-five minute flight to Detroit. We’re scheduled to arrive at four.

I’m going to Děčín again. I’m leaving late Sunday afternoon and returning Friday afternoon. Then, Friday night, I’m taking the girls camping with my family. I might be a little sleepy at that time.

I’m a software developer at Autodesk. I’ve worked on Inventor since around 2003 (give or take a year).

One decent way to judge a company is to look at how likely its employees are to refer friends and family. Me? I’ve referred three people over the past few years. One person didn’t have the right skill set for the open position, another had to take another job because of time constraints (the company gave him an absurdly short amount of time to accept their offer and he didn’t have enough time to shop around), and the third … ah, the third.

The third is a good friend of mine. (Wait, that’s not quite right. He stood in our wedding. He’s godfather to one of our daughters, for cryin’ out loud. That’s beyond “good friend”.) And I thought he would be abso-friggin’-lutely perfect for a position Autodesk has just created.

Well, to make a long story short, his current employer told him no. Why should that matter, you ask? Apparently his employer has some sort of secret agreement with Autodesk where Autodesk won’t hire their employees. Unless they give permission, that is.

So he asked for permission.

They denied it.

But that’s not all! They also said that because they now knew about his desire to work at Autodesk, if he quit, they’d contact Autodesk and make sure he wouldn’t get hired there for a year.

Incredible.

By the way, I’m back from Děčín. The trip was uneventful, which I believe is a synonym for “successful” when it comes to international travel.

Looks like I may be going to Děčín sooner than I thought. There’s a group heading there at the end of February, and if I can get a passport by then, I’ll be going with them. I’ve found my birth certificate, so now all I need are some 2”-by-2” pictures and I’ll be all set. Autodesk will apparently handle most of everything else.

My manager started a conversation with me this morning with the words, “Do you have a passport?” Not a good sign. read more »