In season 2, episode 2 of "The Big Door Prize" they talk about "Finding your Joy". This seems like an inspiring new years resolution, or at least a theme I should focus on for 2025.
You only live one life and you should take time out to enjoy it. There were many aspects to 2024 that constrained my joy, so I will endeavour to may 2025 a most joyous year.
Practicalli Updates:
Quote
If a technology was truly dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it on the internet
When people state that some technology or practice is dead via the internet, it typically means that thing is the mainstream.
If something was truely dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it as that topic would not relate to anyone.
This technique is essentially click-bate and trying to persuade you to 'buy-in' to something else (usually for the profit of aother person)
Converted some audio files to Opus codec, which provides a really optimum compression and allows for relatively low bit rates and results in much smaller files with the same quality.
Neovim upcoming changes
Starting to update my CV from recent commercial experiences, focusing on the areas of product, delivery and people.
Black Friday as a concept is confusing as it no longer has anything to do with a specific Friday and currently seems to cover at least 2 weeks of promotions. I did get some good prices even before Black Friday actually started.
Adventures with SSD and NAS Versions kept me busy over the weekend, resurrecting an older NAS unit with Solid State Drives for a very quiet media storage device.
Starting to plan work for the Practicalli content for the next 3 months.
On the Practicalli GitHub Org, action log retention time was minimised to a week (from 90 days) as I don't need to wade through that history and it will save a bit of storage in the Cloud. I am surprised GitHub have such a high default for their free plans.
Upgraded to a Dell 40 inch 5k2k monitor for work and it makes a huge difference. Its a beautiful monitor and it works really well with Linux and the tiling window of Regolith Desktop (i3).
I am continuing my search for a new place to live, even further into the countryside with easy access to hiking and cycling activities.
Although I am always thankful for an opportunity to work with a commercial company, I do feel the weight lifted from my shoulders now that relationship has concluded. Within hours I started to feel the return of much of the energy I have been lacking for the last few months.
They do say a change is as good as a rest, so investing time in Practicalli content is giving me an energy boost.
Quote
You are only a leader if people are willing to follow
It has been hard to shake the concern that my current commercial role has not worked out, probably not really been working for quite a while in hindsight. Was it ever really working?
Some aspects have greatly improved but there are some fundamental communication constraints that I really didn't understand the cause of (plenty of assumptions, but not enough communication or time to really address these challenges).
There are the common systemic challenges that come from working at any startup that is working hard to establish itself as a long term sustainable business. This was a given. A new person coming into this environment that has been running for many years leaves a lot of context unknown and typically unspoken.
I continued to try identify the causes throughout the week and trying to evaluate if there is any appetite and opportunity to address these within our typical schedule. It did feel that the more I tried to connect the quicker the feeling of connection slipped away.
I believe my frustration and disappointment have been leaking out over the last month, which I am disappointed about as well.
It is always a challenge for an engineering manager to identify where they can add value. For much of the current role I never seemed to connect with the team at a deep enough level. It is too easy to feel I am simply not needed by the team as the communication has been very limited. In once exceptional case, it was easy to feel my presence was simply not wanted.
Tuesday I was really exhausted, partly because of the continued cough but also the concerns that I still wasn't able to break through to the team (especially if they feel unsafe to ask questions). I am not sleeping well and need to find energy to exercise more.
Wednesday I made time for self-reflection as part of the company feedback initiative. I did struggle to quantify to myself what I had done. In hindsight I should have spend more time on this and consulted my journal, although I still feel I would come up short of my own lofty goals for the role.
Friday was the end of my commercial current role.
The title of this article is from the first episode of the first series of the Black Adder TV show. There were quite a few Shakepearean quotes used for comic effect.
A Tail of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Johnny Stevenson (maybe others)
People are wonderfully complex experiences
My feelings of disappointed with my current commercial role are returning to the forefront of my mind. Many aspects of the role and company seem to be clear in peoples minds but not always effectively shared. I think I understand the role and then something else happens that makes me feel I don't. I believe something will need to change soon for the benefit of all.
There have been a few highlights with the role, but I expected more of myself and the company. I do set high expectations for myself, although have learned to be more kind about what I can realistically achieve and 'which battles to fight' (figuratively speaking of course).
During this engagement I have continually reset my expectations about what could be achieved and what I could realistically achieve. There are a couple of peers where there has been conflict without understanding of why I am seen as the cause. I have tried to explore but if people do have issues with me its not clearly being communicated to me.
In hindsight, many opportunities to get support from my manger and peers were missed. Mostly as we had so many challenges to discuss and partly due to pressures of delivery.
When a person doesn't have clarity around a problem then there is very little they can do to resolve or adapt.
A self-reflection review is in progress and its is a good opportunity to take my own time to reflect on my current role and if its still the right fit for me.
Busy week at work getting ready for a new team member. I spent Friday afternoon building up a relationship and getting accustom to spending time working together. Several weeks of work had been done to get ready for the new starter.
One of the interesting challenges for anyone starting a new job is to ensure too much enthusiasm doesnt lead to missing important steps. It will be a good first check-in with the new starter to see if they have been too enthusiastic or taken a more measured approach.
Current issues
After being ill for most of the week I am finally starting to enjoying my second week of holiday, binging on some Paramount+ and having a lazy Sunday enjoying the extra hour in bed after the end of summer time.
Updating Practicalli Journal and Clojure CLI Config repositories, fixing links and markdown issues from the Megalinter reports.
Updating to Megalinter 0.8.1 GitHub action on Practicalli repositories as I work on them. The upgrade will include each repository in the Grafana dashboards for Practicalli projects.
Issues
I am enjoying my 2 week at home vacation (stay-cation) and have already completely rewired my desk, laptops, Monitors and NAS storage devices on the electronic standing desk. It feels a lot more organised and easier to find everything as everything has its place.
Now I can focus on getting lots of Practicalli content done (as well as catch up with shows on Paramount+ and maybe a little Polybus on the Playstation4 VR headset)
I am interested in switching to the Hyprland, although its changing fast so I dug out an older laptop and installed Arch Linux with Hyprland using the archinstall tool. Unfortunately the laptop I used doesnt seem to support Hyprland or something is missing from the install.
I am taking a stay-cation as I am still recovering from Covid and the weather is also quite grim. I am getting out for walks each day and on Friday I completed a short cycle ride as it was nice and sunny outside. Unfortunately my chest started feeling like it was on fire a few minutes into the ride, so I slowed down and limited myself to 10km.
I was feeling really sleepy after the ride, so I kept myself awake by sorting through the cardboard boxes in my attic. Many boxes made the ultimate sacrifice (for an uncluttered house) and went to the recycling service.