Author: SK

Samir, who works under me now is struggling a bit. He just cannot get things done. I am trying hard to motivate him, but it is hardly working… I setup a daily schedule to force him to work harder. I meet with him weekly and tell him how he’s doing. I try to challenge him by setting aggressive goals. Plus, I give him a chance to create his own schedule so he can finish it by himself. Maybe he’s not productive enough? Maybe he’s not smart enough and does not care about work. It could be. It looks like that actually. When we find a new guy to work here, I might have to tell him to look for something else because this type of performance is not going to work.
Things are challenging here. I have to finish a task for David tomorrow. It’s a lot of work, but I think I can do it. Then there is another task tomorrow, but I think I should be able to finish it.
Fabian is starting to get interested in books. He really likes it when I read “Goodnight Gorrilla” to him. He is staying mostly focused when I read the book to him. That’s a change from before. He could not focus for the whole book. Now he can. And that’s great!

I finally got into doing taxes. The last day of the extension is today, October 15th! And you know what, I don’t have the paperwork from Ask! Asking for trouble! I was able to get in touch with Tricia and she got back to me the email addresses and telephone nums to get in touch with the right person. With that, I was able to import my w2 information.
What am I using this year?
I like TurboTax. I tried entering several transactions into TaxAct but it is just too painful. It’s a no comparison to TurboTax online. I think TaxCut is also good but I saw the W2 import in TurboTax.
I think I found a good way to generate a list of my stock transactions. In Quicken, there is a way to export Gains for the given year (I had to enter a custom date). It is exported and categorized into transaction dates. In TurboTax, there is a way to enter a batch entry, just enter “Various” and specify whether this was a LT or ST transactions. That is a time saver! Especially when I have a systematic – dollar costing – approach where I invest a lot in the same stock. I really like that and I only found out about it this year.
Lesson
If there are any lessons, I should try to do my taxes in March. No extensions. No stressing whether I would have to pay, etc. I might have to pay a lot next year. If I get a bonus, I should save around 2K for tax purposes.

Installing programs in Linux
When you get a Linux program, it’s usually in a .tar.gz (or .tgz) file, which is a TAR archive that has been further made into a GZIP archive. Before anything else, you must uncompress these archives, just like you need to uncompress a ZIP in DOS before you can use the files in it. The usual way of handling .tar.gz files in Linux is with this command:
gzip -cd filename | tar xfv –

Things are not always the way they should be. I got a pretty good start to the day, but things are getting complicated. We just have a very complicated product with us. Things are very hard to change. It’s almost unmaintainable software! That’s the last thing I want! But that’s what we have and we have to take what we have and make it better!
A weekend is coming and I’m looking forward to it. I love playing with my son. He is just a lot of fun! I love it. He is enjoying things more and more. I read the whole book, Goodnight gorilla to him. He was very interested in it. It was one of a few times where he stayed focused for the whole book!
In Toastmasters, I really have to be more aggressive when I speak. I really need to inject more humor and more energy towards my responses. I am going to try that tomorrow. From the start, get into an example, add something humorous to it, have a lot of energy. That will fire them up!

I started reading Peopleware today. What can I say? I only finished reading 2 chapters and I’m already loving it! This is a classic that everyone recommends. Slowly, I’m beginning to see why. I will not only read it now, but I’m planning to re-read it for several times!
I am liking – loving – being a manager. I like to be in charge. Things are just so much more interesting. Time really flies!
My goal is to leave by 6, it’s almost 6:30 and I’m still here. Why? Because I’m so engaged. I am engaged in launching the application on Jboss.

Things are slowing down a little at work. That’s a good thing. It gives us a little breathing room. But things are still failing at times and it creates stress. Things are difficult because I don’t understand the environment, but we’ll improve them as time goes on.
Fabian is the most amazing boy ever. I love him so much. He is such a cute boy. No matter where we go, almost everyone says how cute he is. “Oh, he is so adorable. Oh, he is sooo cute.” He smiles a lot. He waves sometimes. He is such a nice baby.
He is not always the easiest baby. He likes to play with “garnki” a lot. It seems that is the only thing he wants to play with.
He also started saying “tata,” “mama,” and “papa.” It’s so funny when he says that.
He really gives us a lot of joy!

Things are moving SO fast in my manager’s role. There are a lot of things that need attention. There are a lot of components that need work or that need to be changed. It’s just not a good situation right now.
But I did receive some potential good news. I think that Sergey might be convinced to come to US. I think he is interested and I’ll talk to him about it. We’ll see.
I do feel some stress. Not today, but I have been experiencing stress in my new role. I think this is temporary and will go away. It has subsided already. What can I do? I am doing what I can. I am learning a lot. There is nothing more I can do. Thus, I don’t need to stress because it is not going to help!

I am tired. I am really tired. My project is getting into the very complex mode. Things are not working. I am burning out. It’s not the best situation. But I signed up for this!
A consultant from Russia is leaving soon. He will be leaving in roughly 2 weeks. I have to transition all of the work to Samir. And Samir is not doing the best job. This is just not the best way to proceed.
I believe this is going to prove the toughest time for me ever. I don’t know the product that much. The product is very complex. The product is not the cleanest and not implemented in the best manner. Whoa, things are just in flux!
I am hoping that if we can survive the next couple of months, we will survive altogether and things will improve dramatically. I think by then we will see some results out of my work.

Things are in flux in the Connex world!
We are already short staffed and today we got even slimmer. One of the guys in Russia just quit. He was pretty good. I liked him a lot and what now? Things are not looking very good. Things are going to get tougher before they get better. That’s just the way it is. What can I do? Not much.
What this allows me, though, is a chance to build my own team. I’ve had the opportunity to do just that today. We interviewed Sheeraz and I think he’s pretty good. I think he can do a good job here. I think we can have him work on a new jabber server to connect Connex with the AOL federation framework. I think this can be done fairly quickly. But we’ll see.
We went on a vacation over the weekend. On Saturday, we went to Cape May. It’s a pretty good town. But I guess it must have been because it is after the season, but there were a lot of old people! I did not like that. My wife hated it! We then went to Rehoboth Beach. That place is a shopper’s paradise. But not much after that. I got myself a set of nice shirts and I’m happy about that. I did not want to spend too much time there, so we decided to go to Atlantic City on Monday. Good choice! AC changed a lot. It also has a lot of new stores. We stayed at an excellent hotel, Sheraton, ate some great breakfast at Cavo and just enjoyed our time there. We’ll be back AC!

I am a bit stressed. I don’t really know why. It must be the new position and a vast array of new responsibilities. I am not sure. But I don’t like the feeling. I like it when I’m relaxed, can enjoy and play around.
I am going to get to that state soon.
I like my new position. It’s a lot of work but I think it’s something that I’m going to enjoy doing. We are in a transition state, but things will improve in the future. I think this will be a great position for me. Possibly for years to come!
Yes, that idea does not scare me. I know that I can do the job. I know that I LOVE being a manager. I know I can motivate people. I know I can do a very good job here! And I am going to prove it by the end of this year!
Things will fail. Things will break. Things will go wrong. But if we can survive for a few months, I think we can be in a very good position. I am sure of that.
Fabian is such a beautiful boy. He is such a nice boy. He understands more and more. He likes to play. That’s very good. I like to play with him as well. He enjoys that. I do enjoy that as well.