General
News
A week later, and here we find ourselves at another Saturday! I really ought to try writing more during the weeks again.
Things are finally starting to settle into a routine with my new job, which feels great. A huge breakthrough came in the fact that "another me" started this past week-- it feels a bit like I have a "comrade-in-arms" now, where we're both new and trying to find our feet at the same time. That's helped me feel much more comfortable.
He's not only from Mexico, but from the same city as one of my very closest friends ("hi", if you're reading this!). I don't know what it is about Mexican culture, but they are the nicest darn people I've ever met. It's also the new fellow's first-ever time in the United States, so I've been helping him find a church, answering questions about English, the culture, and so on-- just trying to help him and his wife feel settled.
I took him to a conference room the entire day on Tuesday, and taught him a ton of stuff I wish I'd known in those first days-- but "didn't know what I didn't know", so had no way to ask. Our brand new department is now three people, and I'm excited to see how we organically start to fill roles. Already I could see it shaking out like the following, as one potential timeline:
Also at work, here is the book our IT Director borrowed me, I'm about a quarter of the way through it. It's very interesting, although I'm also finding it stressful and sort of anxiety-inducing, just given the incredibly high pressure the main character is under. It strikes a little too close to home! On the right is a game my new friend at work borrowed me-- he knows how much I love 2D titles. Notice it's not a just a physical edition, but that he keeps everything in sleeves: he's very miticulous!
Today I'm going to jump into that game a bit, read some more of the book, exercise, and so forth. But my daughter and I are also leaving for NCYC overnight on Tuesday! So I need to really get my ducks in a row for that trip, being only a couple of days out. I also lector tomorrow at Mass, so I'll probably practice the readings a bit.
Things are finally starting to settle into a routine with my new job, which feels great. A huge breakthrough came in the fact that "another me" started this past week-- it feels a bit like I have a "comrade-in-arms" now, where we're both new and trying to find our feet at the same time. That's helped me feel much more comfortable.
He's not only from Mexico, but from the same city as one of my very closest friends ("hi", if you're reading this!). I don't know what it is about Mexican culture, but they are the nicest darn people I've ever met. It's also the new fellow's first-ever time in the United States, so I've been helping him find a church, answering questions about English, the culture, and so on-- just trying to help him and his wife feel settled.
I took him to a conference room the entire day on Tuesday, and taught him a ton of stuff I wish I'd known in those first days-- but "didn't know what I didn't know", so had no way to ask. Our brand new department is now three people, and I'm excited to see how we organically start to fill roles. Already I could see it shaking out like the following, as one potential timeline:
- Our Boss: He's unbelievably good at listening to the engineers, rapidly understanding super complex flow streams, then translating those into technical solutions. I could see him overseeing the requirements and architecture.
- Me: I'm very strong on the coding side. I could see myself being the primary one to take the requirements and architecture, then implement those. I also have very good planning abilities, so I could see myself taking on de facto project management-lite stuff too.
- New Fellow: His background is that he spent years on the QA side for automotive screens and their underlying circuitry. I can easily see him being the guy who literally keeps our department functioning: doing all of the documentation, the QA testing, the deployments, managing the acceptance testing sign-offs, and so forth.
Also at work, here is the book our IT Director borrowed me, I'm about a quarter of the way through it. It's very interesting, although I'm also finding it stressful and sort of anxiety-inducing, just given the incredibly high pressure the main character is under. It strikes a little too close to home! On the right is a game my new friend at work borrowed me-- he knows how much I love 2D titles. Notice it's not a just a physical edition, but that he keeps everything in sleeves: he's very miticulous!
Today I'm going to jump into that game a bit, read some more of the book, exercise, and so forth. But my daughter and I are also leaving for NCYC overnight on Tuesday! So I need to really get my ducks in a row for that trip, being only a couple of days out. I also lector tomorrow at Mass, so I'll probably practice the readings a bit.