Words On Wednesday

Work in any industry is often broken down to man-hours, the expected amount of work that an average person can finish in an uninterrupted hour. While that’s great for planning and budgeting purposes, I think it’s a terrible measure that gives inaccurate estimates at best and coerces people to work absurd amounts of unpaid hours at worst. And much like Fred Brooks probably suggested in 1975 (I’ve never actually read the book that I based this title on), there are several reasons why basing expectations on the work capability of some theoretical person in some theoretical hour is unhelpful and often harmful. The first problem with man-hour estimates is the amount of work. Who is this average based on? In the software engineering industry, there are vast differences in experience, specification, and familiarity with different products. If you ask me to build something in a language I’ve never written for an industry that I have no exposure to, it’s going to take a while. A recent code sch...

A condition of my new lease on life  is that I continue making myself better: socially, personally, and professionally. One way I’m engaging that drive is with LinkedIn Learning certificates. When I lost my job, I was devastated. I made a pact that I would never let myself get put back into that situation. The biggest problem was that my skills were too dated to be relevant for most employers. Obviously, the fix for that is to refresh my skills and learn new languages and architectures. Fortunately, I did get a great job, and my new position does allow me the opportunity to grow and learn. That’s fantastic, but it takes time. What happens if the company suddenly takes a negative turn and they have to terminate some employees? I’m the low man on the totem pole, and I’m almost definitely going to be the first person cut. I can do my best to modernize my skills quickly, but I can’t affect market trends, and I would be helpless to combat that. My best option, after some analysis, seeme...

On Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at approximately 10:00 am, I died. Not literally, I just got laid off from QS/1 Data Systems (RedSail Technologies), but a part of me was certainly gone at that point. Where it Started (and Ended) I was shook. I had dedicated 8 years of my life, my entire career, to this single company. QS/1 was my professional home. I started as an intern during my last year of college, got hired on full time after I graduated, and I stayed there. At some point, I imagined I would probably be employed elsewhere, but I figured it would be on my own terms, and in my own time. For the time, though, I was comfortable. Comfort is a big deal to me. Looking back, this was naive of me. I should have known that I might be terminated, and I should have prepared myself for that possibility. Sure, there were several rounds of layoffs at the Q, but it was always somebody else. I hated it for them, but I was sure they would all go on to find gainful employment elsewhere. That wasn’t someth...