Daylight Savings

Leaving work while the sun was still up was a nice feeling. Dragging my ass out of bed in the morning was impossible though. I want my hour of sleep back! Somehow I'm really tired despite it being "really" only 10 pm... :-(

The good news is that after a ridiculous amount of work to prepare for starting daylight savings earlier and patching what seemed like a zillion systems, nothing broke a work.

Burnout

A (somewhat) long, but interesting article about burnout: Can’t Get No Satisfaction (via Slashdot).

What Does Peanut Butter Tell You About Work?

The past year at work has been an...interesting?!...one and I know a lot of my friends and co-workers would have a lot to say about it too. Recent news like Yahoo's Peanut Butter Memo and Siebel and IBM settling class-action lawsuits regarding overtime feel somewhat relevant and only give me pause to think about my current situation and where I'd like to be...I'm not really sure. I'm not even sure that work can make you happy anymore...I suppose this means I should either be doing something else or find something outside of work that makes me happier...

Work

Working at Microsoft is an interesting essay. (It's one of the many articles I bookmarked and took forever to get around to reading, so I'm not sure where I found it). I can relate to many of the points in it. I especially liked the subsection "Managers". The statement "...the Seattle area is known for being somewhat isolating — lots of young, ambitious professionals with no time for making friends..." is also too true.

Web Services

I transfered to the Web Services group at the start of October. It's a little strange to not know what I'm doing, anyone I work with, or anything about where I work (as it's in a different building in a different part of town). It's kind of like the start of a co-op work term all over again. I think I needed a change of scenery though and I'm excited to try out something new.

The people I work with seem nice enough and I'm slowly figuring out the project (which has a lot of subtle points). The location of the office isn't very good (no Tully's; not much in way of lunch choice) and the bus service reminds me way too much of living in Kanata - infrequent, indirect, and has an inconsistent schedule. What distinguishes Seattle from Kanata, however, is that it is unreliable, which is quite impressive!? (Disappointing!?) [Recall that I live in downtown and I work in downtown; whereas Kanata is the suburbs of the suburbs...]. The office does have great views though. I'll have to bring my camera to work some day and take a few shots of the Seattle skyline.

In case you don't know what Web Services are all about, the articles Amazon Web Services and Extending Web Services Using Other Web Services from Linux Journal should give a sense of why they are all the rage. (Although, what's described in the articles isn't really at all what I do, so don't read too much into them! :-).

Bowling

I went bowling this afternoon at Garage with most of my co-workers. I haven't been bowling in a long time. I'm not very good at bowling, so my goal was to make it to 100. The first game, I did amazingly well. I made eight spares and score 147, which was the highest score of everyone (about 20 people)! Of course, the next game was not so impressive, I managed to make two strikes, but I still scored only 94.

Ice Cream

Last week when I was on-call I had a craving for ice cream, but I didn't have any in my freezer. When I was at the grocery store yesterday I found a flavour called Moose Tracks. It's vanilla with chocolate streaks as well as chunks of chocolate too. Watching Grey's Anatomy and eating ice cream is a good way to end the week.

How to Do What You Love

How to Do What You Love is an thought-provoking essay by Paul Graham. [Via Funkaoshi].

Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

Right now there are things I like about my work, but there are also things I really hate. So I don't think I'm doing what I love. I'm not even sure that my destination is in sight yet. I guess this is something else that I'll need to reflect upon. (e.g. If I decide to go to grad school, applications for fall 2007 are more or less due this fall).

Monday

Without a doubt, Monday is worst day of the week. I was woken up this morning by the fire alarm. After quickly throwing on my clothes, I went out of my apartment to be greeted by the delicate aroma of toaster-challenge neighbour. Naturally, it was raining too. No sleep + no hot shower + no breakfast + standing in rain = unhappy.

The firefighters didn't seem too enthusiastic either. (Is it bad karma to say that?) Two trucks came. One firefighter slowly got out and went inside the building and then back. Then another firefighter came out after another little bit and they both went into the apartment building. A few minutes later a couple more got out of the other truck and joined them and they all came out a few minutes later. Then the huddled, wet masses went back inside.

I had a 9 am phone interview to do too. I'm really more of a "the work day starts at 10 - 11 am" kind of person. It's always frustrating when the candidates can't answer simple things. I don't like to start my week frustrated. And there was the suggestion to change one of the on-call schedules again so I could be on-call again. No thanks. I'm just getting off on-call. I've already been on-call for 11 days this month. (And, yes, I know it's only the 9th of the month). And why does the on-call schedule need to change every other business day. What was wrong with the previous three versions?

I hate Mondays.

Politics-Oriented Software Development

Documentation is an essential tool in the twin goals of ass-covering and of managing management...strike the correct tone of opaque vagueness and unshakeable authority.

A kind of funny (but cynical) article about Politics-Oriented Software Development.

A New Look

It was another crazy week at work. I've very glad it's Friday. I'll probably add some new photos over the weekend.

Paperwork

I just UPS-ed my visa-paperwork stuff to the lawyers in Boston. It took almost 3 hours to drive to school, get all the paperwork I needed from the Registrar's Office, and photocopy more stuff, find a UPS outlet, and drive back home. Hopefully it won't take too long before I can start work. I'll get bored if I have to sit around all summer waiting for a visa. (I know I'll miss my family though when I move away...)