And so it came to pass that after 14 years of exemplary service (if I do say so myself), I left engineering and consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff and joined engineering and consulting firm Parsons. It all happened pretty quickly. I got a message through LinkedIn at the begining of November (who’d have thought it could be so useful?), went in for a chat, got an offer, thought about it, got an increased offer, accepted the offer, and started on January 14th, ten days after my 14-year anniversary with PB.
That means I’ve left the California High-Speed Train Project, and I’m now doing Systems Engineering and Requirements Management for the Caltrain CBOSS PTC project. I didn’t leave for any particular reason – I like to say I moved towards another opportunity, rather away from my old one. Certainly any doubts about my loyalty or gratitude (they did bring me to the US, after all) would be dispelled in any rational mind by the fact I worked there for 14 years, 4 of them on the last project. In the end, it was just a business decision in favor of my family.
As far as High-Speed rail is concerned, I wish that project all the best. California, the US, and the world needs it. It’s expensive, but well worth it. People who disagree are wrong for many reasons.
It also means a move from IBM Rational DOORS to IBM Rational RequisitePro, which is a chance to learn a new tool, but sadly still means I’m subject to the IBM sanity tax.
The new place will be easier to tell people about, certainly. Just “Parsons” instead of “Panarsons Bricknerhoof(sp?)”. And of course they use a variant of one of my favorite typefaces, Microgramma, as used by awesome things like the late Gerry Anderson’s UFO, the current Iain M Banks book covers, and HAL 9000’s displays in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its derivatives.