You don’t manage people, you manage things. You lead people.
You don’t manage people, you manage things. You lead people.
–Grace Hopper, American computer pioneer
As I was sitting aboard my 2nd out of 3 flights during my long day of travel, I realized something. I’m Honolulu-bound. This is my vacation and all I can think about is work. Plus the cute girl from my date from the night before. But we’ll get to all that in a minute.
For today’s flights I started reading a new book, The Girl on the Train, but I find it’s hard to pay attention. Since I booked this whole trip in first class, the stewardess gave me a double strong drink. It keeps reminding me of the days in high school and college when we basically drank turpentine (plastic bottle vodka is not your friend). Instead of slowing my brain as it should, it just made it want to think about the past. I spent one chapter thinking about what would have become of my life if I’d picked the other fraternity on campus. (I saw them in the news this week. Something good, I think.) Different connections would have changed my path drastically. For sure, I would never have known about Lincoln and my years designing and destroying ovens. My college job office likes to take credit for “placing” me in that job but it came solely from my connections at Phi Kap. I’m not sure if the same events would have transpired that pulled me to Madison or not. Would I even have switched out of computer science into engineering? Maybe I’d be at some tech start-up on the west coast somewhere. Maybe this Hawaiian vacation wouldn’t be so out of character. Maybe it would be a normal thing. I suppose that’s the premise of too many movies these days.
Let’s start with work. Why was I thinking about it while sipping cocktails in first class destined for Hawaii? It probably had a lot to do with an email I got the day before I left. There’s a program you can enroll in that lets you take graduate-level Computer Science courses, taught by University of Wisconsin, hosted on-site at Epic. Once completed, it allows you the opportunity to be considered for a full-time transfer to Software Development. As it sits, I’ve been working a good deal toward being more development focused, but there is only so far I can go with it. As a TS, I’ll always have customer commitments, which always take priority over internal projects (including dev, usually). My team lead sees this frustration and is trying to help, but he’s not the decision maker when it comes to customer staffing. Back to the email, it was to tell me that I am approved to enter the program and my tuition reimbursement is also already approved. While this may sound like a good thing at first glance, I’ve spent a considerable amount of brainpower trying to figure out if it’s right for me. A decade ago, I left CS because I couldn’t see myself being a coder all day. Today, I have to ask myself if that same thing would happen. I’m a different person than I was a decade ago when I made that choice. I have other (non-work) distractions that could temper the day-to-day grind. Then I think about what has kept me in TS for so long. The ever-changing problems is a big part of that. As TS, I don’t specialize in any one module of the software like R&D does. My problems are wide ranging and complex. R&D problems are always in the same module, but still reasonably complex. So my problem is this, if I know now that I probably wouldn’t want to be a full-time Dev, why should I start taking the classes? I could save myself countless hours of frustration and keep at the status quo. On the other side, I can see that my burnout time is quickly approaching along my current path. The TS job in general has changed quite a lot in the years I’ve been doing it. We’re now so much more project management focused. I supposed to spend so much of my time babysitting projects when my customers instead want answers to why their shit is broken. I’ve watched this landscape change over the last 3-4 years and I see it’s only happening more quickly now. The end is in sight, but I don’t think it’s the ending that I want. Some soul searching is definitely in order, but I’m not going to find that answer at the bottom of a blog post.
Cute date. It’s been a long while since I’ve had a proper first date. Every other relationship (and quasi/non-relationship) I’ve had previously started with being friends first. Or at least being acquainted for a while. I probably dated halfway through my sister’s friend circle in high school. What I’m really saying is that real first dates aren’t exactly my forte. However, I think this one went alright. I’d been out of town the entire week leading up to this, and was obviously flying out the following morning, so extravagant plans couldn’t be arranged (which is probably good). The plan for the evening was dinner at Vintage and then some indoor mini-golf nearby. Except, halfway through dinner, she invited me to her friend’s White Elephant party that evening instead. Golf was out, and now I’m on my way to a houseful of strangers. I’d have probably said no if I thought I wasn’t into her: we all know my social proclivities. The party turned out to be relatively fun. We got there late (it started at the same time we met for dinner), but they still let us join in. (I walked away with a poem book from a local author and a pair of used drumsticks, if you were curious.) I think most of my thinking problems were caused by not really getting through the first-date requirements. Because we cut dinner a little short, and were then surrounded by a party, we didn’t really have the opportunity to talk about what we’re looking for and where we’re going in life. We got some general life stories out, but that’s about it (there was still filler conversation, don’t you go thinking I’m a moron [I mean, I probably am a moron, but not about this. I hope.]).
Long stories short, I’m taking this relaxing 2-day Hawaiian trip to contemplate where I want my priorities to be in the next several months. Work is primed for a change, and it needs it desperately. The relationship scene is poised to try something new, and I need to figure out what that means. In the meantime, I should find some dinner. And use these copious drink tickets the desk clerk gave me. Maybe walk on the beach afterward. The night is still young and I’m off this island in 26 hours.