Author: SK

I wonder. Will this work. Will this show up in DO or LIno?. Let’s see.

I’ve decided to move my host to digital ocean. By doing that, I can save $15 or $10 a month. Not a lot, but why not? I don’t use the host that much. It’s mostly for these blog posts. 

It’s review time at work. I’ve got a general idea of what scores I want to give to my guys. So far, I’ve got one all star, one upcoming one, and one in progress but showing some promise. I will tutor them  and teach them so they become stars and leaders. It’s hard. But I want them to be confident. I want them to be pushing. I want them to feel like they’re accomplishing things and gettings things done.

I want them to get better.

But am I getting better? My domain knowledge is improving only a bit. I want it to improve by a lot. We have a new project coming up. I think it should improve my knowledge about landscapes / models / model building. We still have Rumit. Well, at least for a few days.

I am not a good talker. But I can talk when I need to. I manage. One of the goals when I started my career was to improve my speaking skills. I did that. I committed a few years of my life and attended Toastmasters. I improved a great deal. But I did not became a better story teller. I did not became a quicker thinker. I don’t know if there is an easy way of accomplishing that. Maybe there is, but perhaps I need to find ways to become a quicker thinker, to become a more analytical thinker, to remember more.

Memory is my weak spot. 

With all of this, I am somehow managing. I don’t know if I have any upside, but do I need to? If anything, upside is on my own. Other than that, I don’t think I want to become a VP, or an architect. I think I am quite content with being a senior dev or dev lead. I think I should master both and stick with that.

I feel I need a little break. I wish I had more money. I feel tired.

Gotta be happy with what you have!

Am I tired? Yes. Am I getting enough sleep? No. Then, well, that’s my problem. I should be getting 7 hours at the very least. 7.5 or 8 hours on those days when I’m tired. And that’s what I will do. I owe it to myself. It’s just I’m more motivated to work lately.  But if I can go to sleep earlier, when I wake up, I’d be more relaxed.

Starting from tomorrow, I want to head straight for downstairs to take the shower. That will give me at least 15 minutes. And those are valuable minutes that I usually waste. I have a few minutes to check the status after I take the shower. But after I sit down, it’s really a time sucker. Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. 

I made a few mistakes at our team demo today. I started the demo by doing “developer” talk. I talked in terms we understood, not in terms of what the audience wanted to hear. I take blame for that. I should have prepared a better intro, or let our PM Zoe start. She rescued me a bit, but I know I can do better.

We did accomplish a lot and I’m greatuful for my guys. We did more than I thought we would.

My sons are behaving better lately. I can see that. Even Victor is not having his “terrible 2” behaviors lately. I think he’s matured. I like to see that. Fabian is becoming more responsible as well. Still lot to learn, but I can see improvement.

We might get the Amazon guy after all. I don’t know for sure that it will happen, but I think it will. I think he likes the company. I think we gave him a good interview. We asked him tough questions (sort of), but also made him feel comfortable. He can be a top weapon on our team. I think it can happen. He can be a top dog in the company. I can see that as well. I hope it happens.

I do need a few more interesting interview questions. Coding questions. I need to prepare a few good ones that I can ask. I don’t have to ask them every time, but I should have a few in my arsenal.

I am switching to writing my lessons learned before I go to sleep. I think it’s going to work out better. Plus, I am also changing my learning habits. I am going to work harder. I am going to make sure that I collect a pomo at night. Right before I go to sleep is what I want. I can then write the goals in the morning. From time to time is sufficient. 

I’ve had a good day today. We had a good candidate that we’d like to hire as a replacement of Rumit. Nothing is going to replace Rumit, but people move on. People leave. Nothing stays quite constant. I expected to see Rumit move on. It is what it is. I think he’s going to regret it, but I want him to experience that himself.

If we can get Aditya, then we’ll be in good shape. He’s an agressive learner with good attitude and a great way of explaining things. I think we can have him as a big asset to us.

Is he going to accept? Are we going to get him? That remains to be seen. I think he might. But they’ll probably want to keep him. Who knows. 

If we have him right away, then that would be great. He’d transition right away. It’d be in-place replacement.

I am stressing a little bit. I have a big day coming up. One, I am interviewing somebody. Two, it’s our last day to complete sprint’s work. And three, my best guy is leaving.

But that just means I have to step it up! Yes, that’s what I have to do. And that’s what makes the day exciting! C’mon stas, think positive! 🙂 A little bit of adrenaline is going to help!

Plus, it’s probably going to be a good step up for Rumit. He can show off his skills. I have helped him to become more confident, more vocal and more ready for big tasks. Now he can prove to others that he is special. And we have to prove that A1 can stand on its own. That’s going to be much harder. Impossible, no. Improbable? No. Harder, YES!

I am thinking I should write these journals at night. That should occupy less of my time. And on those nights where I don’t do it, I can do it the following morning. In the morning, then, I can focus on goals. I think this might work better.

My son Fabian has started to read well. Yesterday, I spent a bit of time with him reading and he reads almost fluently. That’s really encouraging. His math has also improved quite a bit. He thinks (with some help, sometimes).

Victor is a smart little boy. He’s stubborn. He knows what he wants and will fight for it. I think he’s principle oriented. But that has given my wife some trouble. But I see signs of change. He’s no longer like that.

I got some bad news yesterday. My best team member, Rumit, is taken away from me. I don’t like that move. But I’m not against it either. Rumit said that it’s OK with him. He treats it as a challenge. I get that. Would I do the same? Perphaps. But all of a sudden, we’re the Cleveland with Labron. We’ll manage.

Like I was thinking yesterday. We’re going to have to step it up. All of us on the A1 team. Without an all star like Rumit, all the other non-stars have to get on a different level. I think it’s possible. We have a good culture on the team. We can adopt and learn. It can happen and it will happen.

I have to step it up myself. I still don’t know about prospecting. It’s just not in my mind. I need to change that. Perphaps I should start writing about it? 

How does scoring happen? We get events from mapping (user visited this site), action (user took an action on a marketer site), and impression (user saw this ad on this website). These events are put on a Q. Scorers take those events and update the score. After scoring, they also populate TDS q and we have a consumer setup to populate ssc. This loop is how we have things set up at this moment. And this is the knowledge I have to keep refreshing and increasing.