January 19, 2021
The 150-Yard Marker
I was having a virtual lunch chat with a colleague today, and we got to talking about goals. She mentioned that she was having a bit of an existential crisis about whether she was on the right path—whether she should continue as an individual contributor engineer, switch to a different IC role, or point toward management—and asked how to know so she could set goals on the correct path....
December 5, 2018
Strategy for Down Days
‪When I’m feeling inadequate and not up to the task some days, I breathe through it, hunker down, and plow on until my confidence returns. It always comes back; there’s always some win on the horizon, whether it’s a successful meeting, a good coaching opportunity, or a clever idea. It’s coming, and in the meantime there is work to be done: bugs to be triaged, advice to be given, status to be reported, negotiations to be conducted. All of...
August 17, 2017
What I Value in Software Engineering Management
Back in December 2016, my manager and I were talking about my philosophy of software development. I'd become a Director of Mobile Engineering in March 2015, but I didn't become a manager of managers until I finally filled the Android Manager position on my team in October 2015—and even then I was still directly managing the iOS team. It wasn't until the fall of 2016 that I stopped managing any of the individual developers directly. Welcome to a new...
January 27, 2015
Where the Rubber Duck Meets the Road
I swear a good part of my day is spent listening to developers make a case for why something can't be done—it's too hard, it will take too long, it will introduce another bug, it will require convoluted code or introduce a tremendous amount of technical debt—and then synthesizing their argument and making a case to the product owner or the engineering director that the work should be altered, put off, or just axed entirely... only to find that...
January 4, 2015
Traction or Distraction?
Started back at the beginning—Week 1, Day 1—of the 10K Runner program on Friday. I probably could have started at week 5, which I usually do after a running break, but after a couple hockey injuries and being sick the week of Christmas, I figured it couldn't hurt to ease my way back in slowly. I did Day 2 this morning and forgot to take my inhaler first, and I was wheezing by the end. Technically the chest cold...
January 1, 2015
Holy Shit, I'm Done with Reviews
I finally submitted my ninth and final annual review document minutes ago. If you've never experienced writer's block or the insane urge to do anything else but describe the work of the people on your team, count your lucky stars. Or, if you're into that sort of thing, I highly recommend management!...
October 23, 2014
A Sprint Parable
The Beaner is in fourth grade now. His teacher assigns homework nightly rather than weekly, and there are lots of rules. One of his nightly assignments is to read, and to note the book title, author, genre, and level—Easy, Just Right, or Challenging. He has to read so many minutes a night, across at least 8 different genres over the course of the quarter, and at an average reading level of Just Right....
January 10, 2013
Stretch Goal
"My goal today is not to be a pain in anyone else's ass." "That's a good goal. Mine is always not to get frustrated." "That's too big a stretch for me right now."...
April 30, 2010
Quiet as A...
Due to a schedule change with our nanny, Al and I are now responsible for picking the Beaner up from school on the days when he gets out at noon. We split duties, each taking a different day....
March 16, 2010
Agile in Action
Recently I started a new Flickr set called Scrum in Practice, and I've been using it to collect photos of my team (and others at CIM) practicing, as the name suggests, Scrum....
November 30, 2009
Something's Gotta Give
I'm not sure whether the fact that I haven't been able to get past the opening <p> tag in a blog post until now is because (a) after being extroverted all day long I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT; (b) I just plain don't want to talk about it, it being work and all; or (c) if all I'm going to do is write about how long my to-do list is, I'd be better off doing it than...
October 17, 2009
Sprint 1 Retrospective
Regular readers may have noticed that I'm not coming up in their RSS feeds as often these days. It's partly because I haven't felt like blogging, and partly because I've been too busy. I'm responsible for some OpenAjax editing (we're *still* trying to finish up 1.0 of the metadata specification), hockey season has started, and I'm trying to plan birthday events for both me and the Beaner. Oh, and I went back to work (on a contract-to-hire basis, which...
June 3, 2009
Wednesday (Not Saturday)
Again I'm going to start this entry with mention of my fame (!), as I neglected to mention the conversation that followed the "I read your blog!" sighting last Sunday. Al suggested that it might be he and the Beaner that made me recognizable, and I think for the most part he's right. I have certainly been recognized on my own before, especially when my hair is pink or purple, but I think it's when people see all three...
May 29, 2009
Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
My mom used to say (or maybe she was quoting someone else, I'm not sure) that there are signs everywhere; you just have to notice them. You don't need tea leaves or tarot cards to give you some help in making a decision; a newspaper will do. Open the paper (or a book) to a random page, and poke your finger at it. You just might find the answer you're looking for....
May 26, 2009
The First Day of Summer
Yes, I know the actual first day of summer isn't for another month or so, but I feel like my summer's starting right now, today. [Edited to add: If you were looking for the explanation that I promised "later" in my last post, this is it.]...
March 9, 2009
Come Co-Work With Me
I think I've mentioned here before, in passing, that I've been working at Independents Hall three days a week for a couple months now. If I have not yet mentioned that it has SAVED MY REMOTE-EMPLOYEE LIFE, now's probably a good time to do so....
January 30, 2009
Yesterday
I don't think I've written here since my role changed at work (to something I wanted to do, that I think I'm naturally good at, and that was needed on the team). Since the change I've been busy with meetings and planning and process (and a trip to California for all three), and I can honestly say I've been having a great time. I just haven't made much time for blogging, as evidenced by the "Yesterday vs. 2008" Blog...
November 26, 2008
QRB
I know this is my third blog post of the day (so much for forgetting to blog once the in-laws walked in the door!), but I'm so darn touched over this that I have to spew some more....
November 21, 2008
The Downsides of Working at Home
As regular readers will know, I work at home. I've been working at home since 2004—first as a contractor, and then, starting in 2006, full-time. One of the conditions under which I took this new job was that I'd continue to work from home. (I already had a job that I really liked and for which I could move back to California if I wanted, and I hadn't done so yet—so why would I move for a new job...
October 17, 2008
One 30-Minute Slice of My Day
I plan to try a few more of these, because any one 30-minute period can't possibly represent my whole day, nor can it reveal how I manage to fit all kinds of activities in (as Heidi asked about in her comment on my last post). This 30-minute period does reveal, however, how short my attention span is. I've said often that if something takes more that 3 seconds, I'm very likely to switch to something else—which, depending on what...
October 10, 2008
In the Five Minutes Before I Turn Out the Light, and the Forty It Now Takes Me to Fall Asleep
What I'm reading right now:...
September 17, 2008
Restless Sleep, Restless Mind
I haven't been sleeping well lately, mostly due to working a bit too hard and too long, mentally trying to get up to speed with my new job, not feeling well physically (hello, fall allergy season—otherwise known as respiratory distress season for me), never quite getting back in the right time zone after my last trip to the Bay Area (see: working long and hard), and trying to do some long-term planning for the family. Oh, and the recent...
August 19, 2008
Fueled by Futureshakes
I'm on my second week at my new job, and it's been interesting so far. It's a bit harder to get rolling remotely when you don't already know the team and its procedures, as I did when I contracted for Macromedia from Philly and later returned to Adobe full-time after the merger, but I think I've been doing fairly well. My to-do list is huge—there appears to have been some pent-up demand for someone in my position—but I'm starting...
August 10, 2008
Irony
Wednesday was my last day of work at Adobe, and I spent most of the day packing up my computers and peripherals. Since I'd received my PC laptop and two monitors from my new job on Tuesday, as I removed and packed the old equipment, I set up the new. Good LORD the new monitors are huge....
August 4, 2008
Wagon Metaphors
Titles for this post that occurred to me in the past 10 seconds: Falling Off the Wagon, Back on the Wagon, Hitching My Wagon. Three clichés were quite enough, so I stopped there and just went with "Wagon Metaphors". So obviously the first two are a reference to the fact that I stopped blogging abruptly just after BlogHer. That was partly coincidental, partly a consequence of being (un)inspired by BlogHer. The uninspiration was entirely my fault; I did BlogHer...
June 10, 2008
Burning the Candle (But Not Melting Down)
I'm on Day 2 of 7 where I'm responsible for watching the Beaner from 8:30-11:15am, then working from 11:15 to 7:15 as well as for my usual hour or so after he goes to bed. In order to fit my trip to the gym in and get back and showered before Al has to leave for work, I have to get up at 6:30am....
May 27, 2008
Dreamweaver Next
Yep, I fell off the NaBloPoMo wagon this weekend. I considered trying to keep up, but I decided that a couple days lost wasn't a big deal as long as I got back on track this morning. (The same goes for my diet, actually; I'm back logging away.)...
May 14, 2008
Wednesday Miscellany
My cheerful, encouraging note to the Beaner this morning (I left for the gym before he woke up) did not have its intended effect. He was sent to the hall again today, and "doesn't remember" why....
October 22, 2007
Test Week
I'm back from San Francisco and eager to see if the trip helps me get through this week. I suspect it will, if for no other reason than I have some small, specific tasks to work on which will be relatively easy to complete. Many small successes are exactly what I need right now....
August 1, 2007
Career Ambitions
I think I could have a kick-ass future as a computer-science cartoonist. I've got the great little metaphorical stories all framed out in my head, the dialog, the actions, the gestures. I've got a wealth of material from my day job. Too bad I can't draw....
June 28, 2007
Tipsy
After an intense two-day wind and rainstorm, during which the Elbe overflowed its banks around the Adobe office (a not-uncommon occurrance in spring and fall, but much rarer in summer), the sky still looks a bit threatening, and it feels more like a fog-shrouded San Francisco evening than a European summer morning. I chose to walk from the subway yesterday just in case the bridge at the Altona ferry landing was flooded, to the peril of my umbrella and...
June 26, 2007
Yeah, I Know What I'm Doing, Part II
I have figured out the subway. I am a pro at ordering a decaf cappucino in German. I can ask whether a sandwich has only cheese in it, and I know how to get only steamed milk out of the coffee machine at work. And I just took a second birth control pill rather than my thyroid medication. Yep, I'm a regular whiz kid here....
June 22, 2007
Yeah, I Know What I'm Doing
Arrived in Hamburg yesterday and made it to the office without any trouble. The cab driver was astonished when I gave him a 40% tip, though, so maybe that's not done here. (I was feeling a bit generous because he'd made such a great effort to chat with me after stating up front that his English was nicht gut.) I dropped my tip to 30% for the ride from the office to the hotel at the end of the...
June 14, 2007
Outlook
So I'm starting to freak out about my business trip to Hamburg... mainly because I leave next Wednesday, I have a bunch of laundry and packing to do (plus some house-cleaning and preparation for my parents' visit while I'm away), and our entire weekend, from Friday night to Sunday night, is full. (Also, I haven't done any Father's Day shopping. I totally suck.)...
Job Myths
Al forwarded me this one from Boston.com: 6 myths about work. I can personally vouch for at least two items on the list:...
June 1, 2007
Well Spent
I should know better. I often extol the virtues of a workday that might include a trip to the dry cleaners when I'm feeling unproductive, and a late night of fixing bugs when I'm on a roll. I also often request that I not be congratulated as a "hard worker" for being online at 11pm; just as some people get sleepy at 3pm, I tend to get a third wind after 10. (I usually get the second at about...
May 10, 2007
Busy Busy
Sorry for the slim postings over here lately. I now have so much to say about the Beaner that I don't even know where to begin... and so I don't, because I don't have time to write a serial novel at the moment. Work, you know. Lots to do....
March 26, 2007
Zeldman Gem of the Day
What is project management?...
March 16, 2007
The Certification We've Been Waiting For
It's entirely possible that this will only be amusing to me and to the people with whom I work (as opposed to the people who actually read my blog), but Joseph Cooney has come up with the certification program every developer has been eagerly awaiting: The "It Works On My Machine" certification. W00t!...
February 28, 2007
Cramped and Upset
I actually have a lump in my throat right now and feel ready to cry... over mouse software. It's bad enough that MouseWorks, the software that drives my beloved Kensington Expert Mouse, conflicts with the Acrobat Connect Add-In (which I need for work). Now Logitech's MouseWare is conflicting with an application that I also need to use for work. In this case it's not causing the application to crash, as MouseWorks caused the Add-In to do, but it's severely...
February 22, 2007
The Work Dreams Have Started
How you know you're in "crunch mode" at work: Even when you're sleeping, you're working....
December 7, 2006
Obviously Taking a Break After NaBloPoMo
I didn't actually plan to take a blogging break after NaBloPoMo (I won prize for sticking with it, btw—yay!), but I'm actually on a roll with work at the moment, and I haven't wanted to take time out between snuggle breaks with The Beaner to convert all the notes I have on my desk into blog posts. Sorry about that....
November 28, 2006
More Clingy Toddler Woes
Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Clingy Toddler Syndrome that I work at home? On the one hand, it means that The Beaner has access to me if he really needs it. On the other hand, when he needs it often, it totally interferes with my work. And then there are moments like right now, when he really needs my attention, and I need to be in a meeting. Thank god I have a headset...
November 16, 2006
6 Paltry Bullet Points
You'd probably never guess this from reading my blogs, but I'm not very good at self-promotion. I hate updating my resume. I suck at interviews. "Focal reviews" at work make me cringe....
November 15, 2006
Patent Pending
I just got word that the patent my colleague and I submitted for some work we did recently has been filed with the U.S. Patent Office. It'll probably be 2-3 years before it's approved or rejected, but in the meantime, I HAVE A PATENT PENDING. How cool is that?...
October 27, 2006
3 Days
I left for MAX2006 in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning, before The Beaner woke up, and returned last night a little before midnight, long after he went to bed. While at the conference, I attended a few CSS sessions; talked to a lot of customers (something I realized I hadn't done—face-to-face, anyway—in three or four years); took lots of notes and filed a few bugs based on what I saw and heard; battled a cold, dehydration, and noxious clouds...
August 30, 2006
Now *That's* Cold-Blooded
From Al: RadioShack lays off employees via e-mail...
August 3, 2006
Short Attention Span
First, let me say: You know it's going to be a scorcher when you're forced to seek the shady side of the street at 7:30am. Phew! Second: This isn't a humorous post, and it'll probably be totally boring to everybody but me, but I wanted to write about this subject, SO I AM. Feel free to move along....
July 27, 2006
Home/Office
I can't believe I'm functional right now. I said to Al when I set my alarm for 4am last night, "watch, this'll be the night that the Boopster wakes up screaming in the middle of the night instead of sleeping until 6 or 7." Sure enough, at 3am, we heard him cry. Usually we let him settle down on his own, but within minutes his screams turned frantic, so Al went up and got him. The irony, of course,...
July 21, 2006
Wasp!
So I'm sitting here at my desk on the top floor of our house, quietly fixing bugs, when a bug of the actual insect variety suddenly FLIES RIGHT AT ME, out of nowhere. I shrieked, of course, especially when I realized it was a WASP. I finally got him with a rolled-up stack of source code printouts, but not before several misses that really seemed to piss him off. I'm still kind of freaked out. Where the hell did...
July 18, 2006
Another Heat Generator Arrives on My Desk
My new MacBook actually arrived last week, but as I haven't had to do a Mac build until today, I didn't bother setting it up. Now it's up and running, and man, is it FAST! It's quite a thrill to see two files compiling at the same time in XCode. I kinda want to stay up to see how long it takes to do a clean build so I can compare to the regular PowerBook, but I also want...
July 12, 2006
More Iced Coffee, Please
[Yes, I'm drinking decaf again, though I'm back to the 3 or 4 parts milk:1 part coffee ratio I thought I'd evolved from when I went to short decaf lattes*.] I love my cozy little nook of an office in what I call the gallery, a 100" x 75" (yes, ", not ') space with a window at the top of the stairs, but goddamn is it hot up here. There's an air conditioning vent just to the right...
March 24, 2006
We're in San Francisco!
Austen, Hannah, and I are all in San Francisco this week. I'm here working, and Hannah and Austen are busy climbing hills, chasing pigeons, admiring the views, and taking public transit all over the place....
March 3, 2006
Blogging Block
I am feeling so overwhelmed by the backlog of blog posts waiting to be written that every time I get a chance to actually write one, I end up reading other blogs instead of writing in my own. So yes, I am WELL AWARE that I owe y'all (and myself) a Vacation Summary, Part 2 and an Austen @ 15 Months update, not to mention various and sundry other observations that have been piling up on little slips of...
January 14, 2006
6.50
I had a dream last night that the plan to hire me back full-time at my old company had been delayed, and that in the meantime I was going to contract for them. My boss' boss asked me what I proposed for an hourly rate. After doing some quick math in my head that involved my old salary*, I came up with $6.50 an hour....
November 21, 2005
I Have to Work At It
I'm thinking about going back to work—traditional, for-pay, intellectually-stimulating work, as opposed to the heavy manual labor I do at home for free. At the moment I'm feeling too mentally and physically exhausted after a difficult day with Austen to explain how I came to this decision (or maybe I just did :), but suffice to say it's something I've been thinking about for a while. I think I'm finally at the point where I want to describe publicly...
August 28, 2003
The End is Near
Well, we announced on Monday of this week, so that of course means that the end of the cycle is approaching. Not a moment too soon, as my right wrist, and now arm, are killing me. Typing now hurts as much as mousing, so to kill two birds with one stone, I am typing up my blog entries and diddling with my style sheets in Dreamweaver as a scenario test. I'd rather not be typing at all, but it's...
August 19, 2003
My Life in Philly?
Via mightygirl: The Key to a Successful Freelance Career: A Diary...
August 15, 2003
Mo' Muffins
I'm realizing that I have all these things that I'd wanted to say, and I can't quite believe that I haven't blogged about them before now. I am *so* looking forward to having some time off and being able to write daily! Actually, that's probably a good thing to mention right there: I may have alluded to it before, but to end any confusion, I am planning on being unemployed for a while when we move to Philadelphia. I've...
June 10, 2003
The Grind
My right hip is grinding a bit today. It was sore after last night's hockey game for no reason I can discern, and it definitely ached during my step workout this morning. Now the gnashing is unignorable. Wonder what's up? Meanwhile, I've been extremely busy at work; so much so that I've barely written in any of my blogs for over a week. When you're too busy to blog during working hours, and you're spending some of your leisure...
May 28, 2003
My Husband The Optimist
Al just called to see what time I wanted to be picked up from work. He started the conversation with a bright, "how are YOU?" I replied that if yesterday (a long, horrible, demoralizing day) was a 2, today was a 4. "That's twice as good as yesterday!" he exclaimed. "Quite an improvement!" I was thinking of it as "still below midpoint," but I find his attitude so cheering that I'm determined to see it his way....
May 13, 2003
Dumb Day
Gak, I'm having another day where I'm feeling really stupid—and really panicked about it. Finally prioritized most of the tasks on my plate, but the ones at the top are the ones I'm feeling most insecure and useless about. Wish I could be struck with a bolt of competence (or is it just confidence?) right now......
May 2, 2003
More Water Woes
Plumber #2 is still working out in our front yard (2 days later), but that isn't the day's biggest water news. The big news is that it's been a really rainy spring, and for some reason, my office building has its gutter drainpipes *inside* the building rather than outside it. (You can probably guess where I'm going with this, right?) Well, for those of you who couldn't guess, here's the story: At about 2pm today, I heard a loud...
April 17, 2003
Hubris
Arrrrgh, I broke the build AGAIN! Just when I get all proud of myself for figuring out some really complex thing, I forget to check in a key file, or don't realize that I have to add the files to the Mac project as well as the Windows one. Can I just have one moment of glory, or pride always cause a fall?...
April 3, 2003
I'm Just Waiting on a Build
Spent most of yesterday noodling around in various bits of code. I compiled the files I'd changed, but I guess I never did a rebuild of the whole project, because when I went to run it this morning, everything was out of date. Must've been the #ifdef I added to one of the main framework files. From The Ageless Project, 5 people who share my birthday: Sarah (1953) Peter (1959) Dan (1972) James (1979) Jessica (1984) From my mental...
April 2, 2003
Double Rainbow
I just saw a rainbow that was bigger, brighter, and more complete than any rainbow I've ever seen before. I could see the entire curve and both ends, and it was so vivid it looked like a child's painting. There was a fainter, second rainbow just behind it, too. I took a bunch of photos, but I'm not sure any of them will really capture the magnificence of it....
March 10, 2003
It's Magic
I hate that I don't know why/how, but my sandbox build no longer crashes on startup. The main build does, but for some reason, my sandbox is fixed. I'm afraid to breathe on it....
Wit's End
Well, updating OSX didn't help. :( Everything's running fine on Windows, though, so I might just check in and let the chips fall where they may. If I break the Mac build, I'll pay for it tomorrow (or later tonight). I hope it's not later tonight......