I can't kid Shelby about going for a whole three days without making any blog entries, and then leave my own blog alone . . .
As I write this, the rain is beating HARD against the roof, and we're being subjected to a truly cinematic thunder-and-lightning show outside. ("Cinematic" as in "extremely impressive", but also "cinematic" as in this is the kind of storm you have in a horror movie that forces twenty people into an abandoned mansion by the side of the road because the weather is so bad and the road just flooded -- and then, with a flash of lightning, the power goes out!) It's almost 8 AM, but it's still dark like 5 AM outside, and the clouds are so thick that I can just barely see "Michel" -- the tower of St. Michaelis church, our local landmark -- outside. I wonder how many people in the office will suddenly take "sick" or decide to work from home today. This June in Hamburg is reminding me more and more of June in New Mexico -- truly schizophrenic weather, where a warm short-sleeves-and-shorts day can be followed up in short order by intense rainstorms.
Naturally, Scout wants to go outside. And just as naturally, I've put her in her crate.
Staying-in-Germany news: I had my meeting with our HR guy this past Friday. He was extremely optimistic about our staying longer, confident that all of our points of concern could be overcome. Given that, Shelby and I did some soul-searching this past weekend, and decided that we'd like to stay through the end of the year, if it's possible.
Our next step is for the company to hire a tax/relocation consultant, since a professional in this field is the only one who can tell us (and the company) exactly how much a lengthened stay is going to cost -- and who can answer tax questions with total, legally liable certainty: will Germany want to tax stock option sales, if we sell in the months to come? (HR guy says no, but I find that dubious.) Is there any way to pry California's cold, dead hands off of our income? (California is always hot to get its 9.3%, unless you go through a very specific set of steps to renounce your California residency, and then don't move back to the state for a given number of years. If you move back too early, you're liable to have them say ha, ha, you were only joking about that not living in California thing, weren't you? and dun you for back taxes.)
The biggest stumbling block to come is the six months of back taxes that have to be paid. Since we're talking a fair chunk of money, likely over fifteen percent (or more) of my yearly income, it's clear we'll have to have some form of "income assistance" from the company. My manager is extremely enthusiastic about the idea of my staying longer, and thrilled that we've consented to stay -- but I fear that the final cost may still be too much to swallow. We're not in the go-go-go late 90s anymore (when they paid about $15,000 to fly me via Business Class to Hamburg and put me in a hotel room for an entire month), and on the company's totem pole of products, we're at the very bottom (possibly on the part of the pole that's buried underground, even), so we're not in a position to make what could be perceived as lavish expenditures.
We'll keep you posted!
Sculpting With Dull Tools: It's been a frustrating past couple of days at work. In order to produce the bright-and-shiny application that goes out to stores and people pay money to buy, we use another, internal application to edit the dialogs, menus, and other "resources" inside our main program.
Unfortunately, we don't have a dedicated staff to maintain our set of tools. And since this second application is just an internal tool, and it doesn't go out and make money, it tends to get sporadic, just-good-enough updates from people who are primarily focused on working on the money-making application. This patch-and-run philosophy means that every time you need to build a more-complex piece of user interface, you're gambling with death. I was able to drag that last bit into place -- Phew! Now let me just edit this text over here . . . CRASH!
I've been spending this past week doing something that's not only complicated to start with, but that also leaves me constantly bumping into the shortcomings of this tool. So, not only do I have to design for my primary goal -- I additionally have to plot my path so as to tiptoe around the fenced-off minefields of "never do THAT" and "make sure you always do THIS before you do THIS" . . . grrrrr.
Posted by Kevin at June 9, 2004 07:53 AM