life

You Need Your Time Off

3 commentsWritten on October 3rd, 2011 by
Categories: life, work/career

One of the hardest parts about being a good developer is trying to keep up with all of the new stuff that comes out. Let's be honest: we all have a list of things that we'd love to learn more about, but we just can't get around to it, right? I'm talking about programming languages, frameworks or libraries, new techniques, new kinds of data storage, architectural styles, or maybe just certain tools like specific editors or whatever. Well, I'm sure you get the point. I have a list like that. And so do you.

Another difficult part is always having a list of things you want to do, or need to do. Implementing that pet project you've had on your mind for a while now. Contributing to some Open Source projects that you're fond of. Accepting pull requests. Writing a blog post about something. There's always something, and you never quite manage to cross off every item on that list. I have a list like that. And so do you.

And you know what? That's ok. You have to accept the fact that between your job and your personal life, there is a limited amount of spare time available to you. And you just can't spend all of it on learning new stuff all the time or working on things that you think are important. Sure, learning is important. And so is taking the time to work on things that matter to you. But what's equally important is giving yourself enough time off to sit back, relax and maybe even do nothing.

I spend about 80 minutes each day on the train. Sometimes I'll read. Sometimes I'll code. And sometimes I just listen to some tunes while I stare out the window, either thinking about nothing or thinking about whatever comes to mind. It's a conscious decision. That's me saying "I just wanna relax right now". Which means I don't even want to think about software development stuff, or blogging, or anything else that I'm supposed to do. On some free evenings I think "damn, I really should do something useful". And on some of those nights, I will. But I'll also consciously choose not to do anything useful from time to time as well. It all kinda depends on how busy I've been in the days leading up to that free evening.

Your brain is like a semi-intelligent battery. It has a limited amount of energy and it can only do so much between charges. It's smart enough to scale down its activity when it's starting to run low, but most of us are too stupid to realize it and we just try to keep going. The result is that whatever we're trying to do, we're not going to do it as well as we think we are. You will have trouble learning new things when you're running low. You certainly won't do your best work when you're running low. In fact, you're likely to do a half-assed job which ironically only increases your workload.

Take care of that battery. Recharge it regularly, and don't think you can get by with minimum recharging. If it doesn't work for your phone, it won't work for you either.

Going Independent Is The Best Move I Ever Made

8 commentsWritten on May 30th, 2011 by
Categories: life, Off Topic, work/career

As you may or may not know, i left my job late last year and went independent. It's only been 5 months, but i'm already convinced that this is the best move i've ever made and can't picture myself going back to working for someone else. The financial side of that is a big reason obviously, but it's just one of a few actually. What i love most is knowing that you make all of the decisions. I can choose the client(s) i work for. I can negotiate my own deals and set my own rates. I can choose to go into different directions if or when i want to. I can choose how much or how little time i spend working, provided that my client is ok with that of course. I can decide to follow training courses if i want to, on whatever i want. I can pick which car i drive. What kind of insurance policies i get. I pretty much have full control over whatever i want.

That's not all though... i don't have to worry about the future of my employer or the company i work for. I have no reason to be bothered by office politics since they generally don't affect me anymore, and if they ever do, i can just wrap up the current contract and go out and get a new one. My career path will not be influenced by what other people think i may or may not be good at. I don't have to care about what a superior thinks of me. I don't really need to care anymore about people being given responsibilities for which they haven't demonstrated the necessary skills to handle them right. No need to worry if you see a boatload of money being poured into projects or products that will never turn a profit. Management mistakes don't really have a big impact on my future anymore.

There are a lot of benefits to being independent, and it takes away a lot of the downsides of being an employee. But obviously, it comes at a cost. You are responsible for everything. You need to handle everything yourself. There is no secretary to handle all of the paperwork. You are responsible for finding your own work. You have to negotiate on your own which might be a little weird at first (but fun and thrilling after a while :P ). You will need to pick up the phone and make some calls to get things straightened out. You need to handle your finances. You'll need to build up some financial reserve in case you've got some downtime between contracts. The only thing i don't do myself are the actual books because i'm pretty sure an accountant is gonna do a much better job of it than i will. But even then, i'm responsible for the work the accountant does. If she makes a mistake, i'm the one who has to pay, literally even. In short, as great as it is, it certainly wouldn't be great for everybody. I don't mind the extra responsibilities, and in fact, am quite happy to have them so for me, this is pretty much as good as it gets. Well, at least until i turn the company into something bigger :)

These last 5 months have been eye-opening for me. I've learned a lot about myself, and am loving the opportunities that i'm getting. When i started i was excited about the client i was gonna be working for, and i'm still very happy to be there. I'm also very happy about how my NHibernate course is going. I absolutely hated doing all of the prep work (if you had to endure my bitching while i was working on it, sorry! :p), but it's turning out to be more than worth it. I gave the first private on-site course this month and it went great. In June, the first public course will be held, followed by another private on-site course in July and then another one in September. And i expect more courses to be booked because frankly, it's just that good ;) . All in all, my first year is shaping up to be even better than i had originally estimated and i'm excited to see what else the future is going to bring. Even more so because i'll be the one who'll have the most influence on it.

Walk Out On Sources Of Negativity

4 commentsWritten on January 28th, 2011 by
Categories: life, Opinions, work/career

I'm not a religious or spiritual individual but there is one thing i strongly believe in: if you put out negativity, it will come back to you in one way or another. Similarly, if you have a positive disposition you're more likely to benefit from other people responding positively towards you, though that's obviously never guaranteed. I know that when i walk around pissed off and filled with negativity, nothing good ever happens to me. People stay away from you or don't want to deal with you at all when you give them that "leave me the fuck alone" vibe. But on the other hand, when i feel good about myself or my life, good things just seem to happen. It's at those moments when i meet interesting new people or when new opportunities seem to present themselves out of nowhere.

If you keep that in mind, the question of "what exactly causes me to be negative?" becomes pretty important. What's the source of my negativity? Are there multiple sources? Why am i keeping those sources of negativity in my life? Those are questions you ought to ask yourself regularly. And you have to be prepared for the fact that the true answers could be hard for you to deal with. In the past 2 years, i've seen a few of my closest friends deal with situations where they got out of serious long-term relationships or seemingly fantastic jobs because those situations were hurting them in a way that could no longer be ignored. And in each case, it was a tough decision but it was made nonetheless and i'm very glad to say that none of them regret the decisions that were made. In fact, they're all better off nowadays.

In my case, it was my previous job. I had been there for 8 years and those years consisted of some great times, and some that were pretty bad. Regardless, i had a strong belief in the company and its future and was truly convinced that it was the best place for me to be. But this summer, i guess i started looking at things differently. I just couldn't believe in the future of the company anymore. I was still working on very interesting stuff, but the attraction of that goes away quickly once you realize that whatever cool stuff you're working on will only be used by a handful of people, if that even. Combine that with some seriously conflicting viewpoints on how your career could evolve and i'm sure you can see how that became a huge source of negativity in my life.

And as with any source of negativity, it ends up influencing your life more than you can imagine. I wouldn't go as far as to say that i was depressed, but it did turn me into a bitter and angry individual. So i thought about it for a few weeks, and decided that the best thing for me would be to just get out of there, which isn't as easy as some of you might expect it to be. After 8 years, you kinda have the feeling that you've invested a lot of yourself into it and there are a couple of people who you consider to be more than just 'coworkers'. Nevertheless, the whole situation was making me miserable, which influences a lot more than just those 8 hours a day when you're at work. I didn't just feel bad at work, i felt bad outside of work as well. Because of how bad the whole situation at work made me feel in general.

Fast forward a few months, and things are looking a lot different. I left my job, went independent, found a great gig and it's having a very positive impact on my life for more than just those 8 hours a day. I don't walk around being frustrated and pissed off anymore, and good things are happening to me because of that. If there's one piece of advice of mine that i'd really like you to follow and to remember, then it is the one that i wanted to share with this post: walk out on the sources of negativity in your life, no matter how hard you think it may be because in the end, it will make you a lot happier than you used to be. That doesn't mean that you have to walk around like a happy hippie all the time because it's only human to feel some negativity once in a while. Just don't let it dominate, that's all. And once you realize it does start to dominate, walk out on the cause of it so it can't manifest into something worse.

Don’t Be Afraid To Change Your Mind

22 commentsWritten on January 23rd, 2011 by
Categories: life, Opinions, work/career

The ability to reevaluate your position, thoughts or feelings on something is a very valuable asset to posses. There are quite a few people who have issues with this though. How many problems, in any field or situation you can think of, could be avoided if we'd all be able to say "you know what, i was wrong and i no longer feel the same way about it". Or "well, times have changed and my previous position on this no longer makes sense". Yet there are still a lot of people who are afraid to state that they've changed their mind on something they've made strong statements about in the past. I don't know why that is, though i suspect that in most cases it's all about fear of being perceived as weak. After all, if you're smart and strong you're surely quite capable of forming the "right" opinion initially, so there wouldn't be any reason to actually change your mind about it later, right? Right...

An opinion is always formed within a context. There are many things that can influence or form a context, but a lot of them are temporal in nature. Simply put: things change, as do people (to an extent). The reasons behind an opinion of yours are unlikely to remain the same for the rest of your life. Granted, some of them can remain the same, but the majority of them won't. An opinion that was formed within a certain context is thus likely to become invalid sooner or later within the way you look at things.

Obviously, i don't think there's anything wrong with changing your mind about something. It shows that you've given the issue some new thought. An inability to change your mind, even when the context in which the original opinion was formed has changed, shows a few other possibilities. Perhaps you're unable to assess how the situation has changed. Perhaps you don't want to be perceived as weak for changing your position. Or maybe you haven't even gone through the trouble to think about the issue again. Or maybe you have, and you still stand by your opinion. In the latter case, you can at least rationalize why you're sticking to your opinion. In the former 3 cases, you can't and people will only think less of you because of it.

Wanna Improve Your Life? Then DO Something About It!

4 commentsWritten on October 25th, 2010 by
Categories: life, Opinions

Meet Tim. He's smart, he's talented, and he's somewhat ambitious. He's also unhappy at his job because he doesn't get the responsibilities that he feels he deserves. He knows he's more than capable to deal with those responsibilities but he continuously gets overlooked by his superiors. He often complains to some of his coworkers about how he would do a better job than Michael and Jimmy, who're doing the job that Tim believes he'd be better at. All he needs is one shot. One chance at showing people what he can do.

Meet Lindsay. She's stuck at a dead-end job because some events in her past prevented her from graduating from college, which led to her having to accept this job just to make ends meet. She's actually pretty smart, and quite capable of a lot more than this shitty job at the local supermarket. She's mad, frustrated and generally unhappy because she thinks life handed her a raw deal. She makes sure she shows up for work every day and makes sure she doesn't get in any trouble. When she gets home, she watches TV or she hangs out with friends. She secretly envies some of those friends who're gradually moving up in life while she isn't.

Meet Christopher. He works for a company that sells heating equipment. He's pretty happy with his job, but he feels he's capable of more. He recently enrolled in a program where he can study software development at home, in his own time, and he just needs to take (and pass, obviously) the exams on the dates that will be assigned to him. He's not even sure whether or not he'd actually go out and get a software development job once he's done with his education, but he's glad that he took the step to learn something new.

There are a lot of Tims and Lindsays: people who are unhappy with something in their life, and do nothing but complain about it. There's nothing inherently wrong with complaining. Everybody does that from time to time. But you can't expect people to feel sorry for you if you don't actually put in any effort to improve the situation that's making you unhappy. Tim needs to quit complaining to his coworkers and he needs to put in some effort to convince his superiors that he's capable of dealing with the responsibilities he's asking for. Lindsay needs to cut down on the TV hours and needs to spend some time actually looking for a better job, or even better, go to night school so she can go find a job in something that interests her.

To a large extent, you make your own luck in life. Life can always deal you a bad hand, but what you do with that hand is entirely up to you. Sometimes, people lose even though they were holding a royal flush. Sometimes, people win with a pair of 9's. Sometimes, you can win without having to show your hand. It all depends on how you play and read the game. Sure, you can't lose if you don't play. But you won't win either. Obviously, you can't control Really Bad Luck (like disabilities, diseases, mental illness, accidents, etc...) but in the large majority of cases, you can improve the situation you're in if you're just willing to put in the effort to make that happen.

Wanna become really good at something you like doing? Work hard, hone your skills and be patient. It's not gonna happen overnight, but if you keep at it, you will have put yourself in a much, much better position to reach your goals. Want more responsibilities at work? Then don't sit around waiting for an opportunity to fall in your lap. Opportunities often just fly by, and you just need to grab them while they're in front of you. And if there really aren't any opportunities, either create them yourself or go someplace else. Wanna get a job in a different field? Then make sure you're capable of doing that job and educate yourself. Yes, even if it means having to do that on your own time. It's that simple. If you want change, you are the one who needs to make that happen because nobody else is going to do it for you.

Christoper is putting in some effort which may or may not lead to a big change in his life. If he 'fails' in his studies, it's still a win in my book because at least he tried. And if he 'fails', he's gonna end up trying something else. And sooner or later, he's going to enable the change he wants in his life on his own, without any complaining. And since i know all 3 of these people in real life (though they have different names), i can state that Christopher is not only happier than Tim and Lindsay are right now, and i'm quite sure that he'll be happier than Tim and Lindsay in the long run (provided that he doesn't get a dose of Really Bad Luck). Simply because he's willing to actually DO something about the things that he's not happy with.

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