Harry's Ruminations

It's all fun and games until your audience starts forwarding your blog posts to your boss. I'm tired of shooting myself in the foot by over-sharing.  So, this is over.  Haven't decided yet whether the whole blog goes dark, gets deleted, or what (if any) content I'll post here in the future. I'd like to keep it as a place my kids can see their Dad struggle through his self-entitlement and selfishness to find the path to redemption (yes, over and over ).  At this point, the whole thing is just a liability, and that makes me sad.

So, here we are 3 years later.   In 2011, I saw my name on a weird spot of an organization chart, 3 levels up from where it had been.  I was reporting to a Director (soon to be a Vice President) and my title was 'Architect'. I went through all the phases of grief: Shock: "Wow, look at all this stuff I need to understand!  I can do anything I want..." Anger: "I've just butted heads with most everyone in power at my company.  I can't do anything I want ." Bargaining: "Maybe I can balance all this crap with things I like to do.  I can do something I want. " Acceptance: "There's an huge pile of work.  I'm spread paper thin. I can do a little bit of what I want. " During that time, I expected to live at all levels:  High-level strategy, designing new systems, coding, support/sustainment, etc.  I felt excited, because we needed help in all those places, and I thought I could do it all. Boy howdy, was I wrong...

The unfortunate thing about working in a corporation is you have to 'tie out' with people.  This sounds awfully exciting, with visions of ropes, knots, maybe even a lasso or wrestling someone to the ground. It's not that exciting.  No, what "tie out" really means is getting 2 or more people to agree to do something.  In general, that requires those people be physically or virtually in contact at the same time. This is a list of common excuses for that not happening, broken down by month: January : Sorry, I was on vacation skiing. February : Sorry, I was at home trying to shovel my driveway. March : Are you kidding? Spring Break April : Out doing my taxes.  Text me. May : Watching our (child, niece, grandchild, neighbors kid) graduate from (kindergarten, 5th grade, 8th grade, high school, college, college (masters)).  I'm also taking off the whole week of Memorial Day and the Friday before.   Really  need a break, ya know? June : Family Vaca...

Thought I'd just shout this one into the ether:  When one feels wronged by a person, the correct procedure is to go to that person  one-on-one and discuss it. 15  “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault,  just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.   (Matthew 18:15) Okay, that's what to do, but why  does God want us to do it that way?  Because it's human nature to gossip, and conflict destroys community. When you involve others, you spread the original wrong to others, "infecting" them.  Sometimes, this is entirely appropriate; when a crime's been committed, for example, the public needs to know to guard themselves from that individual.  For normal "he hurt my feelings" crap, you're making yourself feel better by spreading the poison to others who'll feel obligated as your friends to "own" your problem.  (An incorrect obligation, but one that seems widespread.)  Th...

Well, I had a good run. I exited Facebook on December 30th 2012 and remained off until 4 April 2014.  Last week, Whitney asked me to dig up some pics from my trip to Cebu in 2012, most of which were on my dead MacBook Air...and on Facebook. Hmm...quandry.  So, I bit the bullet and dove back in. It's good and bad.  As one would expect, the "network effect" is wonderful.  Most of my dad's family is active, along with some key people from mom's family.   Instantly, I saw pictures of people I haven't seen in person in 3-5 years.  Likewise, much of my high school class is on there and it's neat to see people grow, change, and rear children of their own.  It also seems they've adopted more of the "limited sharing" tools from Google+ so you can share a story with one "list" but not your entire friend group, or go whole hog and share out to "Public" like Twitter. The bad is largely Facebook itself.  The UI is an A.D.D. nig...

At the risk of sounding like a mommyblogger: It's difficult to hear yet another thing  your child's food allergies prevent.  Honestly, at times, it feels like my kids are going to end-up in some Food Allergy ghetto wearing a medical alert bracelet staring out through plexiglass at kids luxuriating with their peanut butter, quiche, and potato salad. Yeah, I'm sad.  This is part of my process of getting over it, so bear with me. Grace is 3 years old.  She's active, sensory "enhanced" (let's say), impulsive, and quite intelligent.  Channelled appropriately, those are all great  qualities.  As it stands, I'm just glad when I come home and the house hasn't burned down.  She's shown a proclivity for sharp objects, flammable microwaves, and plumbing problems. Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I got the ball rolling to get her into the new child care center/preschool we have onsite exclusively for employees.   The place is brand new, and it's nothing ...

Methodology Doesn't Matter; People Do I've been in industry for 15 years, as unbelievable as that seems.  I just want to shake people when all they can talk about is Process this and Methodology that and Tool this other. It. Doesn't. Matter. Okay, it does  matter, but only when you have the people end of things sorted out first.  Assuming an equally talented group, those with a better system will (generally) perform better over time.  However, no methodology in the world is going to make disengaged, sloppy employees perform well.  (It's tempting to draw a parallel to the Auto Industry , but I'll spare you.) So, let's postulate that it's the people that matter.  So what? Well, if you take that as true, there are conclusions to draw: You must attract top-performing people. You must retain a large percentage of those people. You must eliminate those who don't perform. It's really that simple.  Okay, item #3 is non-obvi...