Author: SK

Keep it dry, shy and tell the other guy.

Yes, that was my presentation that I gave yesterday. It was well received. I did not prepare enough. And that’s something I want to change. For future, I want to know ahead of time what I want to present. And then, week before the presentation, I want to start preparing. Not a whole lot more, but when I start earlier, I can refine my presentation.

But overall, I think the presentation went fine. Things flawed smooth. 

Feedback from others. I am asking for it. And this quarter, I’ve been getting good feedback back. One criticism I received, is that perhaps I introduced TDD a bit too fast. Valid point. Well taken. I should have warned him a bit. 

One day is good, one day is bad. Yesterday, I felt it might be time for me to move on. Today, things reversed, and I had a good day and don’t want to move anywhere.

At this stage of my career, I don’t want to make any hasty moves. In fact, I don’t want to make any moves at all! Yes, that’s right. I’ve been there. I’m at the place where things are stable and I can make a difference. I am at the place where I have a lot to learn. I feel stupid a lot of times. It’s challenging. But it’s a good challenge. 

I am challenging myself to learn the prospect side. I want to master it. How do I do that? I need to spend at least half an hour doing that. I need to learn and master model building. I need to learn and master scoring. And most of all, I need to learn diagrams and learning how to decompose complex problems.

Those are good problems to solve. Those problems will define me as a developer and as a lead.

I love Authentic Leadership book by Bill George. He’s becoming my lead tutor. Love following him on twitter and reading his books.

My life is just starting. I’m not ready to go away. After having such a bad day at work, I think I’m ready to make some changes. I don’t want to feel guilty after a weekend. I want to do something with my kids. I want to take them somewhere. I can’t rely on my wife to take them to places. I have to do that myself. And I will.

Places I can go. Places I can see. Yes, the possibilities are there. Things are up for grabs. They will not come to me. I have to grab them. There is no reason why I cannot spend a weekend actively. Yes, it’s rough. Yes, it might mean some traveling. But that’s what I have to do.

Am I a good person? Who am I? Do I like myself?

I know I’m cheap. This has been confirmed time and time again. Even today, my wife asked whether we want to get sushi. I declined, but then she said that she’s going to order it. I said that I hope she has the money for it. She got upset. She started to call me names. And she said I’m going to dye as a loner.

I am a loner. I don’t need other people, but mostly because I have others. I already have a family. I don’t have friends because I never keep in touch. Friendship is never one way. But I think I can have friends. I just have to open up a bit. I have to pick up friends from work. I have to call people from time to time. But I’ve never done that. I’ve never been able to do that.

I have a desire to get better and better. That makes me happy. That creates a destination for me. And that’s who I am. Otherwise, I am not happy. So should I stop being myself. I don’t think so. I should do what I was born to do. 

I like to help others. And even though I am a loner, I think I can do that very well. 

I see myself as a leader. I am a leader. I know that. I am pushing myself. I am pushing others. And I enjoy doing that.

We had a good demo. In spite of having some difficulties, we were able to achieve what we were asked for. On the surface, everything is as it should.

Which I’m happy about.

But I’m not happy with a lot of things. quality with the lower q is not what I’m looking for. putting off the risky stuff towards the end is not the way I want to work. Naming things xExample and xImpl is not what I had in mind when I took the OO class.

We’ve got some work to do! Yes, we need to work better, faster, more efficient.

Those are topics for tomorrow’s retrospective. I have a few things that I want to raise. Few things to consider.

I had a really rough day today. I had my biggest nightmare when I saw code written by Justin. It’s quality with the lowercase q. It’s not something I want to put my name on. 

I’m letting some of the steam off of me. But it’s going to be an interesting retrospective. Really. It’s monday and we were working late. 

It was 3 of us working on a single project. And it’s quite possible that we might not be able to finish it! Yes, it can happen, but even if it does not, what we’re going to release is not of high quality. Really, I don’t think it is.

So what happened?

I’m giving those guys a lot of ground, a lot of leeway, but I’m wondering if that’s the right approach. Perhpaps I need to make sure that we’re on track and we’re making a step by step approach. I’d rather not do that.

I’m not going to dwell on these issues.  

I should ask the guys: it’s likely that somebody else will now work on the project. Are you feeling confident that you did the best possible job?

Maybe I’m not such a bad person after all. I am getting good feedback from others and even though I think I’m not that good, they seem to think I’m different. People generally like me. I’m good to them, though, for the most part. 

But there is also one other thing I learned. I really need to step up my game with kids. I have to find a game or two I can play with them. I should find hoops, or something else. Something that will make me want to do more activities with them. I can’t just put the tv on and let them off. In fact, I should forget the word tv and kids. Let mommy allow it for them, not me. So I am a bit dissapointed how I just found a movie for them and we were watching it.

I am being a mgr lately. I am pushing guys around a bit. Especially tom, who’s not doing such a great job. Yes, he’s trying. Is it always the case. I don’t know. But he’s trying more than he used to. And that’s good. I’m looking for steady progress. I’m looking for improvement day to day, week to week, quarter to quarter. So far, I’m not getting that.

But I have to take it slow. I can’t rush him. I don’t want to discourage him, either. We’ll get there, step by step.

But my patience is not unlimited. 

Hmm, hiring good people is hard. Really hard lately. I’ve been lucky enough to have been employed for the past 3 years at media6degrees, m6d, and now dstillery. Same company. I’ve been promoted to a lead software engineer at the beginning of the year. It’s been fun so far. 

I’ve been working for my guys. I’ve been pushing them around. But my main goal is helping them. That’s the type of leader I want to become. Leader that opens doors for others. That gives me joy and motivation. I enjoy doing that.

I have a lot to learn as a leader. But I’m learning. I am willing to learn. Willing to fall down to get up again.

I’ve made a lot of progress with my websites lately. I moved all and migrated all to the new server. It’s working great for 75% of the price. Can’t beat that. I did not expect such a good transition. But it took me a while. But it’s always best to just copy everything and keep everything as is. Then migrate if needed. I did that with wordpress and it worked out of the box! That’s amazing! I still have some work to do, but at this point it should be a matter of minutes.

Our company is going through a lot of changes. We’ve acquired esm but ESM is now 6 or 7 people. Out of 20 that were there initially. I guess it’s a good thing as long as we can still run it.