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On a day like today, after having a pretty good break, things are not looking so bright. This is going to be one tough year for me! But I am not giving up now. No, not yet.
It’s not going to be easy. But I knew that it was not going to be. It will be a struggle for months, but I do see light ahead and I will strive to get there.
We had a very good end-of-year break. We went upstate for 4 nights and overall, I think we had a very good time. There were a few things that could be better. One of them is that the fireplace had a leak. We could smell the smoke in the room. Having 5 families in one house is also not desirable. Other than that, this was a very nice stay. Well worth they $600 or so we spent.

Christmas is around the corner. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Too bad I have to work. But the stock market is open for half a day, so I think it’s understandable. Especially since we are a financial firm.
Things are failing left and right with the product I’m working on. I have the new release in mind. It’s not going the way it should go. But, and this is a positive, it’s good that I did not work on it for the majority of time.
I have to get back to writing my goals every night before I go to sleep. I have a lot of things I still need to work on. I have to improve as a person. I have to improve as a writer. I have to improve as a developer. I have to improve as a husband and a dad. But I have to work on this every day. Writing and rewriting goals every day allows me to focus on the important tasks. I think that’s very valuable.

I think my job here will be a constant struggle. It does not get easy at all.
First, I have one guy who’s just not performing to my expectations. I think it would be better if he just quit and found a new job. I am tired of giving him a tough talk. I am tired of expecting more out of him and then seeing him totally ignore that. I don’t think our relationship can really be repaired. It’s gone offways and it’s going to be very hard, or impossible to repair it. He’s going to get a tough review from my manager. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be ugly, actually. But that’s the truth and I only tell the truth. As simple as that.

I am having a pretty interesting and, oh man, a totally different day today. Yesterday, I wanted to quit, today, I want to work more and more. Hmmm… things change fast!
I am going to make things work differently here in Connex. Either we are going to make it work the way we like it, or we don’t do it at all. That’s the bottom line!
What do I mean? One of the requests I got from our last meeting, is that guys would like to work on different projects. Guys would like to have an opportunity to work on “green” projects. We don’t have that now. All we’re working on now is basically infrastructure problems. There’s no way I’m going to keep the developers happy this way. I have to have something more interesting for everyone. And it has to be something they’re interested in! We all can benefit. How? First, the developer will be happier if he’s working on something he likes. He can teach us or improve the environment with the result of the project. That’s how we can improve and that’s how we can make things better.
These projects don’t have to be big. In fact they should be fairly small. They should be finishable in a few days of work. Or some weekend work… if desired.
Another thing happened today. This is definitely more exiting… I am getting a raise that I want! During my performance review I got a bump from 98 to 102 with a 12 bonus. This would be very good if I had stayed a developer. But where’s the premium for becoming a manager? Where’s the encouragement? I told that to Tim. I told him that I was looking for something around 110. Guess what? He said today that he fought for it and that’s what he got! That’s excellent! I am going home happy! 

I am having a rough day today. Nothing is going right for me. Things are just not right. I am getting requests and I am not sure what to do. I just feel overwhelmed. It would be best to give up and escape this mess. But I am not ready to do that. Not yet, at least. 🙂
I could have expected this. Things are just way overcomplicated here. Most people that generated the code that we utilize are gone. We’re left with this legacy code that we just can’t find out how it works. It’s a nightmare, I think.
But we have to go forward. We have to move on. We have to move a small step at time. That’s the only way we’re going to be successful here. That’s the only way we’re going to survive, actually. Otherwise, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed.

We have a new person that started working for Connex today. I think he’s going to be a major contributor. He has a very good overall knowledge, has good architecture/design skills, and I think he’s a good communicator. I think he can help us a lot.
Marta had a big party yesterday. Not really big, actually, but big enough, in my opinion. She prepared some food and we ordered some more. The food was generally very good. My family came and it was a good party. I got a headache, but overall I had a good time.
On Saturday we went to a Toastmasters party. We had a very good time there as well. We met the Konarski couple. They seemed very nice. I think we liked each others’ company. We should setup to meet sometime in the future. Maybe we go to their house. It’s possible.
I feel timid at times. I am not a go getter and I feel like I want to stay away. I need to get out of that type of thinking. I need to open up. I need to say whathever I have to say and don’t worry what others will think of me. I need to just do my business and be happy. I know I can do that.
In Toastmasters, I have to open up a bit. I have to try things out of my comfort zone. I have to try to be different.
I have to get better speaking. I have to read for 10+ minutes a day. I just have to because I feel that my English is getting worse. Really. 

I got results out of my performance review today. Guess what? I’m not really satisfied. I got a raise of only 4K. I am not totally satisfied with that. At my previous company I got 5K, out of the base of 87K. And I am officially going to become a manager! C’mon, they can do better than that. I told my manager that I am looking for more. He said that he want me to be happy and that he’s going to inquire about this. We’ll see what happens.
I got a nice surprise in terms of a bonus. I was expecting something around 10K, but I actually got 12K and some nice stock options. That’s not bad. I am happy with that.
I am curious to see what happens. I am really looking for a base of around 110K, I told him. If they meet me around 105, that would be cool with me. But less than that? Not sure if I am going to be happy.

We got snow today! And we are after a fairly big and successful holiday party.
I have a feeling that this year, we are going to get a whole lot more snow than usual. Today, we were hit with an inch or so of snow. It now turned into a freezing rain. It’s nasty. I think we’re going to leave at 5PM. It’s going to take me longer to get home anyway.
We had a holiday party yesterday. The place was fairly nice. A bit crowded at the beginning but it spread out after they opened the food buffet. Nice place, plenty of food, and good drinks. I think it was a decent party. I think the food quality was not that great. It did not compare favorably to my last year’s party. Last year was the best I”ve been to. Also a little crowded, but the food quality and the setting of the place was great. But overall, it was a good party yesterday.
We left Fabian at my parents house. We came back at 11 PM and he was still happy. He was still playing. Great boy!

I got a performance review today. I am generally happy the way I scored. I am happy with the review criteria and the goals I set for myself to accomplish. Things will be tough next year, no doubt about it, but it also gives me a way to really contribute to the team and make the team a whole lot better. I believe that I will have a very good, positive influence on the team.
Next year should be interesting here at Markit. We have a new guy on Connex coming in next week. Another guy will come in next year. Things will improve a lot. I will have a good chance to improve on what we have and hopefully things will not get any worse.
I am quite happy that I was finally able to find a new guy to hire. I don’t think it’s going to be all that nice and easy, but I think Stewart will make this team better and improve on what we currently have. I really do think so.
I think I am going to stay here at Markit for at least 2008. After that, I can evaluate my position/salary/etc and make a decision. By this time next year I should have a better idea.

As I dig deeper into how Connex work, its structure, I get more worried. It contains so many different components, so loosely structured and coupled that it is not even funny. Realy. It’s not funny. How it got to this point is out of my imagination. How do we get anywhere from here is also not an easy question to answer.
I will monitor the situation and I’ll see what happens. I think things will straighten out in 2008. I will decide whether I want to do this and we’ll get better, or whether we’ll just have to give up.
I like this position. I like managing other people, but I hate working on an overcomplicated projects. Connex is in that state right now. Things are just way too complicated. It’s almost no way out from here now, I think.
What I think we should do now is regroup. I think we should focus on 2 major things now: a client and a server. If things will get worse on any of the components, then we’ll have to regroup, but at this stage, we really cannot continue on too many fronts. We just don’t have enough firepower and knowledge. It’s just the way it is.