work

My work involves mostly thinking and just occasionally writing those thoughts down. The work isn't tied into one place, it mostly doesn't even have to be done in front of a computer. Doing it remote works well, maybe even better in some occasions than doing it at the office.

For the past two days I have been working on a hard problem. The kind that eventually end up on my desk when everybody else have had their try. I'm the last hope, the one thing to try if all else fails.

I don't always have the answers. Actually I rarely do. At least in these kind of cases. If I would have known the solution I would have been able to teach it to somebody else. And if there would have been somebody to ask how to do it somebody would have already done so.

As an architect and technology strategist, it's my job to choose the technologies we use in projects. It's not always easy, especially when you meant to move forward and explore new technologies while still keep the delivered services robust. At the same time we should be innovating and choose stable, boring technologies.

 It's a challenge to balance those two. But in the end moving forward is the only option. New technologies need to be evaluated and tested. Not everything will end up in our toolbox and most importantly not everything should be changed at once. 

These past two weeks after the vacation have been quite relaxing. There isn't much of anything important going on at work as most of the people are on vacation and projects on hold.

It's not like haven't got anything to do. Quite contrary. The doing has just been something different. Things that have been long overdue, but haven't got done due not being "business-critical" or otherwise urgent.

It's the final day of my vacation. At least for now. I only had two weeks at this point and still have another two coming up in a month.

Despite these two weeks being quite busy, I still feel refreshed. As I already wrote earlier when I had a couple of days without anything to do I was getting bored. If I would have had those other two weeks now in a row I'm sure I would have bored to death now that I wouldn't have that much to do anymore.

The follow up two weeks in August will be spend mostly travelling to Dublin for world on, so no danger of getting bored then either.

Lately, I have been much more efficient in my morning routines. Basically, I still do all the same things before leaving to work. But for example today I was already ready to go almost half an hour earlier than I used to be. Enough to catch the previous train.

I'm generally an early bird, I can't sleep long even if I try. But even for me, there is the too early. No matter how early I go to sleep it's rough to wake up at this time. It's funny how a couple of hours makes such a big difference.

I don't stress easily. Actually, I don't remember I would have been stressed ever. But recently, I think I have had a bit of it.

I think I know pretty well the reason for it as well. My transformation to a new role at work. While I'm really excited about it, at the same time it brings so many new things I need to learn I feel a bit overwhelmed. But that's nothing new. I know I'm capable of learning, and in the matter of fact love it.

Yesterday my initiative for making our company carbon neutral was accepted by our happiness team. It has probably been one of the most anticipated thing coming up lately. A lot of people have expressed their interest and support in this kind of initiative. And it also aligns well with our companies new strategy.

Unfortunately, unlike most happiness team decisions, this one would need some considerable financial investment so it still needs to be accepted by the leadership. But I'm pretty sure they won't decline it. Or should I say, they can't afford to deny it.

Being on-call is mostly boring work. It's just waiting for something to happen. Good thing is that you are not tied by the work. You just need to be able to step up and start working any moment. So it's a good thing when nothing happens and it gets boring. You have a lot of time to do other things. Things that might otherwise not get done.