The Woes of the N.C. (1)s: The productivity of geeks.

The irony of the post of the actual blog itself, here am I wasting my productivity for productivity.

In the new company [NC], which I have been in roughly how-long-can-you-get-pregnant months, I have learned that for a company who is in the taking-care-of-the-sick industry, the kicker is we were being reminded constantly of the importance of cost.

what the f*ck does that mean? we are being trained to be this term called efficient which is doable in non-multi-tasking ways and it doesnt consist you juggling truckloads of work in different contexts a day leaving you burnt like a crisp after an 8 hour workday, or running into the hills screaming FUCK THIS. 

So, if you weren't coding project A while project B is running and reading a quality improvement document for project C while solving a bug from Project D, you're basically inefficient.

Geeks supposedly have a one-track mind. As a fellow multislacker and I were in conversation a few days ago, we like doing one work fast, efficient and w/ quality. Give us another task in the middle of a phase and it throws the whole tempo of, up to the point where you have more than 2 completely different tasks and while you try to be like a multi-threaded machine, turns out, threads aren't even simultaneously run together and you end up confused and lagging behind. Screwing productivity, screwing your quality and most definitely screwing your cost.

I am a geek. I am a developer. I am an engineer. I would like to focus on my productivity more than your company losing money, and if you don't like it, sorry to say, how many times do I have to tell you I'm inefficient?!

This concludes part 1 of the many parted post called The Woes of the N.C.

i am seeing the signs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! o_O

and I am not liking it one bit.

Greener Pastures

someone resigned last week (someone always resigns every week at this office)
"sana makahanap na rin kayo ng greener pastures" [i hope you all get to find greener pastures]. which roughly translates to: "you are all losers. i found greener pastures and you haven't. ".

this has got to be the most insensitive resignation speech i have ever heard. not that i'm not looking for greener pastures myself. but hey, some people's grass is green enough as it is.

I'm A Professional

I hate meetings. Some meetings are really needed, like brainstorming or stuff like that. Those meetings are just fine, I still don't like them, but I understand. What I abhor most though, are the "study group" meetings.

There are I think two facts that we can assume here. People want to control how they use their time. I think that's a fair assessment, even if you're not Type-A. And second, people have differing ways of learning. They pace differently, people have different styles. Some study at night, some at day. Some prefer reading from a paper book, some from a PDF. Some learn very quickly, some need the slow ingestion of data. What we can assume rightfully so is that it differs, and no two persons are alike in studying style.

What "study meetings" do is throw those two facts into the air, and when they fall, spit and stomp on them for good measure. It forces people to "use" (I'm using this word very generously) a specific block of time to enforce "studying" (again, used very generously). A topic that could have otherwise been studied by an engineer, by herself/himself, for 15 minutes, is turned into an hour and a half of mind-numbing Powerpoint slide-infested reading session. It forces people to "learn" by reading slides on the screen and ingesting the interpretation of the presenter. Hey, isn't that familiar? Yeah that's right! That's school.

I thought when I graduated I got away from that. Apparently, No. From experience, people spend most of their time trying hard *not* to fall asleep during these meetings (lights closed, and only a slide projection up front as illumination, why not?). To enforce this "study meeting" style is to be callous to the differing needs of people, and is a stark failure in recognizing we are all mature and responsible, professionals.

I don't understand why the engineer can't be told "Study this. We need to learn about it by [date]." Why is that so hard? Is it because the boss doesn't trust the engineer to study it by himself? Excuse me. We're all professionals here. We all know our responsibilities. When I fail to study, that's MY fault and my ass on the line. He did his part by telling me to study. He's absolved! Why does he feel the need to hold my hand through the goddamned process? What am I, eight? Jesus H Christ.

I'm sorry, but I just can't wrap my mind around this shitty "style" for learning. All it does is waste time, which could've been otherwise spent on something more productive. Or I could've spent that time learning by myself, at my cube. I could've finished earlier, and studied some more stuff. About the only thing it is viable now is as a time-eater. And if we're having them for the sake of appearing busy, then that's just sad.

The Job

A job, for most people, has one primary purpose: source of income. We work to obtain money. Money to pay the bills, money to buy stuff, money to eat. In a slightly narrow-minded view of the world, we could say we work in order to live. Something like that.

Now when your job doesn't pay you enough money (its all relative really), you turn to its secondary purpose: satisfaction. It makes you happy. Some are really lucky to find a job they absolutely love. Not just the people they work with, but the job itself. Perhaps the work offers challenges. Or it manages to fill your interest in one specific area or whatnot.

But when your job fails to make you happy and doesn't pay you enough money, then you've got a problem right there. It just doesn't make any sense to stay. Not only are you doing yourself a disservice, but you are almost torturing yourself (masochism is now being served).

And no, logic doesn't make leaving any easier. It makes it heartless and cold, but not easier.

Why I'd Rather Burn In Hell Than Fill Up A Design Portfolio Document

A handful for a title, right? Just like a Design Portfolio document.

I don't know whose idea this was originally, but I have to applaud the sheer *ingeniousness* of putting ALL of your accomplishments the past year into one document. I have trouble recalling what I did last week. Let alone LAST YEAR.

If the aim of this document is to make rating as objective as possible by relying on physically recorded accomplishments, then bravo. Riddled with document titles and page numbers, source code files and line count and other nuggets of information deemed "appropriate", this document is to objectivity as cookies are to basil. No, that doesn't make any sense. Neither does a Design Portfolio document.

Sure it makes for good reading of what you've accomplished during the past year. If you just didn't spend an unwarranted excruciating week filling it up.

I know of no person that likes doing this document. The rookies don't like it either. I think the general sentiment toward it is borderline HATE. When the majority of people who have to do one thing don't like it, there's a real problem. Yes, nobody likes throwing out the trash either, but that's a NECESSITY. Doing this unholy abomination of a task, is NOT.

If the aim is to create an objective atmosphere in terms of rating, why not do the rating 4 times a year? That way, the accomplishments will still be fresh in everybody's (the rater's and the ratee's) minds. Plus you don't have to create an ungodly 10-page document that nobody really reads. Rather than waste everybody's time with something that serves no purpose other than for ego-boosting (or deflating, if you find yourself at a complete loss on what to jot down), why not inject a little bit of creativity here and go with a different style. Surely almost a decade of doing this crap has tired somebody out.

Oracle solutions...good, great fantastic, but do we have the money?

Today, a bunch of us went to the oracle solutions forum . Aside from nourishing us with the thousand calorie breakfast, we were also fed information regarding the three oracle products in store for application development namely

The Oracle *10 (seems to work 10* faster than Oracle)
The Oracle Berkeley (no SQL needed, straightforward access to database)
Oracle Light (online sub when the server is away)

They also talked about partnership and everything embedded with their product. starting from the Cisco Routers, Google, Amazon, Shisheido, HP, Miscrosoft, Linux and our client whom I will not disclose the name anymore.

It's an eye-opener and a wallet burner maybe, since it seems like a fantastic product, does the company have the budget for it anyway?

o_O

not to mention one of our crack jokes was is their employment opportunities in oracle.