But not forgotten
After a record-short 333 days, my tenure at Buildium is over.
Last winter’s ludicrous snowfall finally put the nail in the coffin of continuing to live in Boston. But it also became clear that moving out of Boston wasn’t compatible with my employer’s plan to centralize their personnel locally and stop supporting people working remotely. I had hoped to stay on while relocating, because it would obviate the need for any Pittsburgh job hunt, but given our opposing directions it was inevitable that Buildium and I would have to part ways when I left town.
In the past, when I left a company (as opposed to being laid off or having the company move out from underneath me), I’ve always been fortunate to move on to something better. In 1995 I jumped from a failing medical software company to a rapidly-growing nascent internet consultancy, which was without question the best career move I’ve ever made. And in 2006 I left a tiny professional services contractor to return to large-scale internet consulting just as open-source and “Web 2.0” were taking off. It would be awesome if this departure leads to similar improvement, especially given the way front-end coding has transformed over the past couple years.
The unfortunate aspect of my departure is that I’ve been really happy at Buildium and would prefer to stay. While property management software isn’t the noblest purpose in the world, it was a huge improvement over my previous job spamming students and funneling leads to student loan companies. I greatly improved my technical skills, the hours and stress level were uncommonly humane, and the pay was good.
And the people were awesome. Buildium’s leadership team has its share of challenges, but it’s been very satisfying to once again work with and for people with a healthy dose of both intelligence and common sense-as might be expected from a company founded by and stocked with fellow Sapient alumni.
But more than that, what makes Buildium unique-both among my former employers as well as across the industry-is that its staff are enthusiastic and uncommonly personable and caring, without being contrived or dogmatic about it. From top to bottom, the positive attitude of their team members sets Buildium apart from other places I’ve worked.
That’s a big reason why I would have preferred to stay on as one of several remote workers on their engineering team. Sadly, the commitment to centralizing operations in Boston made that impossible. And after 25 years here, my life is taking me in a different direction.
Although that didn’t stop me from feeling a certain righteous amusement when HR asked the employees to vote on what Buildium could do become a better place to work. Someone added “Work remotely” to the list of ideas, and sixteen people put their checkmark-votes next to that item: more than twice as many as any other suggestion!
And if that input had been put into practice, I would still be working there, rather than going my own way and diving back into the job market in an unfamiliar town.