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To maintain a good positive to negative ratio, I’ve got to sometimes step it out and do some constructive criticism. During our team meeting, retrospective, yesterday, I singled out Thomas. I told him about $100 expectactions and that’s what he mostly has given us. That might be good on some team or somewhere else, but not on A1.

A bit harsh.

A bit harsh on me. I was thinking about it throughout the night and had a hard time sleeping.

But I think I had to do it.

Coworkers are notcing. Rumit even told me about it. Seems like Yuva knows about it as well. So I’ll give Thomas a chance. Good leaders give another chances.

I am a manager now. It’s good work. It’s also tough work from time to time.

It would be ideal to have guys that are top notch. But I am also judged by ways I can bring under-performing guys to be top-notch players. And that’s not always fun. That’s not always easy.

But I cannot shy away from it.

I am a manager now.

Having guys wanting to do great things is a very good thing. We feed off each other. It’s good positive energy. I need guys that can provide that.

We have a demo coming up today. Things are looking good so far. I want to show our strength. I want to motivate others and show that we’re on top of things. 

There were things we could have done better. But I also see some good signs. 

What do I want to accomplish in the demo? Good eye contact. Good contact with audience.

Mommy does not like to give credit. Should I care? It hurts a little bit. I think about what she’s saying. But if it makes her more happy, I’m fine. Yesterday, when my cousin was here, she raised the issue of the reward system I put in. We’re trying it out. It helps. We’ll see where it takes us.

Yesterday, we went to spacefarms zoo. I think VIctor enjoyed the most feeding the little deer. He loved giving food to them. It was a good visit. Fabian liked it as well. I liked it.

It’s good to take them somewhere new. They enjoy it.

Am I learning anything? Am I doing what I preach?

I find it very interesting that I sort of “adopt” to the environment very quickly. For instance, in dev, when testing is hard, I skip it. In pulse, testing is very manual. No framework. Nothing. I tend to not do it. 

Am I learning? I’m working hard at work. I’ve been doing major improvements to the metrics extractor. 

But am I learning new things? I think I need to do better. 

For instance, we had an optimus prime day yesterday. What is a prime number? I just looked it up. A prime number is one for which there are no divisors other than 1 or the number itself. 1/2/3/5/7/11/13/17/19/23/29/31/..

I push myself into uncomfortable situations. And that’s a good thing. Yesterday, during our all hands, I asked about profitability. Tom mentioned that in an article. Not an easy question. And not the easiest to ask during all hands. But I wanted to know and my fear of speaking was not going to win with me. So I did. 

Pushing myself into uncomfortable situations is actually part of leadership. I need to be doing that. All the time.

Being comfortable is a dangerous place. I don’t want to be there.

I don’t people that work for me there, either. And that’s part of my job. To constantly try to push themself into that situation.

I had quarterly reviews yesterday. I got my expected high-performance review. Not totally surprised that I got 105%. But I was not jumping in joy either. I think I expected 110. But I got 105 and the company factor 105 so I’ll take it.

I also gave reviews to my workers. We had a very good quarter. I gave bumps to pretty much all of them. I am happy how R works. I am pysched about our new hire J. And T is showing improvement. All of them need to get better. We all have to play together better. 

Being a team lead has worked really well for me. I enjoy thinking about new schemes. I enjoy challenging guys. I keep asking for more.

My style of leadership is inline with the book that I’m reading. It’s about opening doors for others. It’s about presenting opportunities for others. 

I remember I said it: I will not say bad things about my wife in front of others. I broke that this past weekend. I have to remind myself that I have a rule like that. And I have to stick with it. No reason to tell people about all bad things about my wife. Really not.

We intented to go to the zoo. We ended up playing mini golf, looking at small fish, and also going out for a steak. How is that for a change? Not bad. It was good. I liked it. My wife liked it as well. Except my bank did not like it.