Guide to pants off living
April 2008
Keep your eyes on the fries
Sunday, 27 April 2008
You know what it's like; you're learning to ride a bike and you have to learn not to look at obstacles, 'cause you can become transfixed by them, and if you're not careful you'll run into them! Before you know it -- you're on your arse.
I love my new gig with Cogent, but since landing the gig one of the main things on my mind has been "don't fuck it up". And I can't help but think, I've been pre-occupied with failure rather than success. If I'm not careful, I'm going to be on my arse.
So I have to work at turning my mind to success.
The last six months have been great - I've not been more challenged both technically and personally since I started web development in Melbourne nearly ten years ago! Working with Cogent, and in the open and transparent way that they do, has been a revelation. It is a very real business experience -- I'm closer to the work, the business development and the bottom dollar than ever before.
I have embraced a new platform (Mac, OS X - not to mention Unix), a new language and framework (Ruby, and Rails), a new way of working (strict BDD with Rspec, coverage, complexity and similarity analysis before check-in), and since I started I have deployed two really great web apps. Not too bad for six months work. Not to shabby at all.
The staff at Cogent are awesome, they're super, super smart guys who are always on their game and always ready to lend one-another a hand or provide support where needed. It just doesn't get any better than that.
So, focus on the candy. Accentuate the positive. Celebrate your victories - no matter how small - and keep your eyes on the fries.
Posted by travo at 8:26:31 PM
Brief and Succinct
Sunday, 20 April 2008
I'm starting to become concerned that I'm failing to engage with my colleagues because I can't be well, brief. A post to our group email usually goes like this;
So what do people think of implementing blah on our blah?
And then usually someone will respond inline;
> So what do people think of implementing blah on our blah?+1
But I come unstuck trying to offer a genuine opinion...
Well, I think that to truly understand blah-de-blah, we should first consider how we present our blah in that context. ... and on ... and on ... I go.> So what do people think of implementing blah on our blah?
The point is that despite my best efforts to engage in a discussion, I'm not getting any traction. My genuine believe is that this is a forum for hashing out issues and exploring ideas. I also believe it's a place to get consensus and group decision making.
The real reason here (as my esteemed colleagues have suggested) is that they're mostly time poor. If time were currency, my colleagues and I are living below the poverty line.
What doesn't help is that I'm also trying too hard. Which brings me to my next point...
Posted by travo at 9:16:33 PM