Overtime

So, what's so important that I don't have time to write blog posts? Well, work, family, health for starters. Astute readers will note I didn't mention school; I haven't had time for that either. Wise readers will note that I listed those first three in the wrong order. I would agree, but I won't pretend that's been my reality lately.

This isn't unexpected, though it's coming a few weeks earlier than usual. Work usually shifts into overtime sometime in June and really heats up in July and August. The reason for this is that the primary initiative my group supports goes live every year on September 1. If that was the end of it, I'd be fine with it because everything in St. Louis heats up in July and August. Writing code in an air conditioned office isn't a bad way to pass the time.

Unfortunately, that's not it. September is usually pretty normal, but October and November, the two months when it really is nice outside, get busy again as the aforementioned initiative comes to a close and we get hit with a lot of support calls from folks frantically trying to get stuff done before the deadline.

I've tried to inject a little sanity into the process. I'm finding this a bit easier in my new group. We're smaller and our part of the system, while it has it's challenges, generally gets fewer changes from one year to the next. We're putting out some big efforts right now, but there's every reason to believe that we will be finished with development in the next few weeks.

That's a good thing because, for reasons that are unknown to me, the powers that be are planning on turning this thing on in early August rather than waiting for September. That's compressed our schedule a bit, but not tragically so.

This is what I signed up for. I had the good fortune (though that's not how I viewed it at the time) of working on a very high-stakes, deadline-driven project before I even got through undergrad. I realized that this is just how the industry works. I could either embrace it, resent it, or find some other line of work.

I chose the latter option, leaving engineering to become a bike racer. I learned that even "dream" jobs like being a pro athlete have some pretty serious negatives. But, I also learned that if you can get past that, it's possible to derive tremendous satisfaction from almost any job as long as it's something you have a passion for and are willing to put out some effort.

And, it's been mighty useful for this whole grad school thing to be able to look at the effort required and realize that I know how to put that out. So, I'm not complaining. I just have a lot to do.