Tag: amWriting

Categories
Tech Work

Team leader _or_ leading a team

I had the opportunity to lead a team today. Although my current role is to be in charge of disparate groups of people trying to fix an “incident”, it isn’t team leading. Today had me in a different role.

Yes, it was a cheesy team building exercise, but I’ve never done one before so it was all new to me.

I remember in other jobs, part of my role was to help new team members (usually young) get up to speed, teach them some things, show them how to learn about whatever technology we were using. There is a great feeling of reward in doing this, and I hadn’t done it for years.

Today it was brilliant getting dropped back in it. To see the different personalities and how they reacted and interacted will be “thought food”* for a few days at least.

The cast:


Young lad (mid-20s) white tee-shirt. Turned up early. He just got called out in the previous session for doing a good thing, and is coming in feeling on top of the world.

Younger lad (early 20s). Seems new but is in a good position (product manager) so probably very good at school. Unfortunately, as a PM, he is pulled outside for the first part of the activity and told (for this game) he has to act like an asshole.

Young lady (20s) seems confident but is quiet. Likes to do the work but isn’t the one standing up, being loud.

Younger lady (early 20s), also new but in a good position, so probably a high achiever. She seems to know the “younger lad”, giving him some support when things got a bit shitty. (Read on!)

Slightly older guy (30s). Been around a while, happy in his life, but maybe isn’t as high in the company as he would like to me.

Me. Ould lad, very much enjoying this (the “project” involved a bit of art so I was all for that), competitive (even though there was no “winner”), and very comfortable with organising chaotic ad-hoc teams into achieving something.


Step 1. Young lad (white tee-shirt) is up at the White board, marker in had, starting the planning. Younger lady hasn’t arrived yet, and the “PM” has left the room for 10 mins.

Jobs are given out (make pictures of things), and the work starts. Deadline is halved half way through, but I give them a bit of “perfection is the enemy of good enough” and we make the thing.

Before we can present it:

Step 2. PM comes back in, acting the asshole (literally acting because he was told to outside for the last 10 minutes), saying the customer wants “more” but when questioned couldnt say what the “more” was (this is extremely realistic to my mind).

White tee-shirt starts getting well pissy. I thought this was so interesting, and have seen it so much when tech people collide with the “customer”. An expectation that there is clarity, truth, and the “right answer” out there. That something can be done “right”. Younger lady steps in a bit to support the PM, because although he is acting, white tee-shirt is genuinely frustrated, and pissy.

PM then has to “present” the project with no notice. While acting the asshole. Impossible of course but so interesting to see people from his own team start to argue and shoot him down mid presentation.

To my mind, the next “natural” step would be the team fragmenting, the quieter younger folks disengaging, and the louder folks taking over. I would have found that a bit boring to be honest so I thought fuck it, I may as well get something out of this.

And I learned a few things. If I ever do become a team leader/manager I think I would do these things I found out. I’m the oldest one on the team, and used to running call bridges, so I have “the voice” and could kinda step in easily enough.

Step 3. The retro. We had to do a retro on the last session. The team happened to be standing, my lazy ass was sitting, so I said, “right, everyone has a minutes, starting at the left, give us your retro”.

And the retro was good. White tee-shirt spoke over the young lady once, but he caught himself before I had to say anything. The feedback was great.

For such a silly thing it was so interesting. White tee-shirt wanted to take over as PM (without realising as a team member, the PM is in reality just giving suggestions). Slightly older fella agreed and pointed out we could choose who we wanted to present the next round, and indicated white tee-shirt or me. Younger lady came up with something awesome; no matter what we should be supporting eachother and work as a team. When it came to me, well I just repeated the feedback I liked…

Lessons for me: Make everyone talk, even the “quiet” ones. As a leader I didn’t have to come up with anything myself, I just leaned towards the positive (“let’s support whomever is presenting next time, nod and smile, and don’t shoot them in the back”).

Step 4. The next round. PM suggested that younger lady present next time. Slightly older guy shakes his head “no” at me and points to white tee-shirt. Fuck that shit, Younger lady was to present.

Lesson for me: make sure the less experienced people are up front. All the “experienced” folks can support them, but throw the youngsters in the deep end, and see them kick ass. They will have a viewpoint and way of doing things that will be different and fresh.

Step 5. Honestly, I didn’t do much after that. Made a few jokes, went around everyone to see how they were doing (as the rest were able to self assign roles thanks to the retro and “planning section”). Of course the “deadline” and requirements were changed a bit but I was free to keep an eye on the time, and keep the team on track by.

My goal was to have people feeling good afterwards, maybe even having learned something. The young lady who was creating a lot of stuff had to also place the art and organise it and add her vision to the overall “product”. The younger lady had to stand up, and draft a presentation in a few minutes. I tried to guide white tee-shirt to a place where he understood Customer requirements can be all over the place, and it is on him as an engineer to make good decisions based on shite information.

I told the PM he was doing a great job and we know he’s not an asshole in real life! In the last round he got to play the good guy and give the team loads of encouragement which was a nice way to end it.

Corporate sessions like these can be fake and shit, but the people involved are real, and as with anything in life, in some ways you can choose yourself what you get out of them.

The two lessons for me was: make everyone talk, and put the less experienced people up front, with the more experienced people giving them support.


*Food for thought even!

Categories
quick stories

The greatest cure, only cure, for tyranny, is death

Bezo Scent was entering his 800’th year.

What he has seen. The power he accumulated. The wealth. He was right to start that xompany so long ago, to start colonising other planets.

Earth was simply not big enough for him. The ability to declare his state “sovereign” under a flag of convenience certainly helped.

Making the spaceships also helped. It’s not like anyone was able to get a “peacekeeping” force into space without his say so.

Space was the wild west, he was the sheriff, mayor and outlaw rolled into one, and he was dammed if he was going to let death get in his way. Life was not enough however, sex was not enough. He needed power and he needed to wield it over someone else. He needed a nemesis.
Categories
stories

Sitting here on Silicon Docks

Sitting here at the docks. In a fancy Café in a fancy hotel.
Taxi driver tole us when he was young, they were tole not to go past O’Connell Street. Bullshit of course, yewd have to be able to go as far as Busaras.
“The Gardaí have been notified” the PA system used to announce, admonishing us to be beware of pickpockets.

The hippy lookin fella who looks like he has moved in on one of the benches give you a bag of mushrooms.

Docks now are a bit different. I remember U2 complaining that their recording studio was going to be torn down. Poor things, I hope they got over it.

I’m perched on a bar in a fancy café looking at the Luas going by. There are old terraced houses rammed up against glass shelled hotels.

I’m a nerd, so I want to see the sights. This has to be planned. I needed a disguise. I packed up my laptop backpack with it’s small unobtrusive logo on the back. Multinational logo. A fucking Nerd magnet. I generally just have it packed with baby wipes, nappies, the kids water bottles, but no… Not this time, this time I put a laptop in the laptop bag!

Stop number one on my sight seeing tour was the VEEAM launchpad conference. In my hotel I got to see the schedule. Wow, they got an awards ceremony and everything! In the National Conference Center and everything.

This looks very fancy to bogger boy here from the shticks.

There seems to be two types of people in the area. A load of people dressed all fancy, business causal like (grey, black, long coats and slacks). And a load of people working, builders and stuff. Unfortunately, I am dressed as neither.

I’m there with a bloody orange hoodie and long hair. I misjudged this. I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I threw caution to the wind, and headed across the river cause I wanted to see some more sights.

Crossing the big bridge with what looks like a TV screen stuck to the side of it, a loud South African fella (to judge by the accent) shouts behind me “Happy to be at (name of logo on my bag)”. I do hope this impressed his colleagues. Yes, my disguise was working, but fuck it, these weren’t the wildlife I wanted to see. I wanted Nerds in hoodies, not these business causals!

Bridge crossed, planning to get to nerd headquarters “google”, I see a pub. It looks old, like when the docks were actually docks. I can see a bunch of guys in there, with their long black coats, having a pint for lunch.

I worked a small while in London. In London, the sales guys, the account managers, the project leads, they all wear these long black coats. They work too long, go for pints after work in a suitably “traditional” looking pub, and get hammered. And talk. Talk shite. And here I am and I can see them, and it’s on the Docks in Dublin! How things change.

I continued to walk down the freezing street, towards the Google building. It was one of those winter days with blasting sunshine but fucking freezing. My back was sweating from the dam laptop bag, and my hands were about to fall off from the cold. Aggressive weather I would classify this as.

Then I realised. All the nerds will probably just be working from home. All the hoodie wearers could well be getting forced to “enter the docklands”, maybe once a week. Some see their future, knowing full well that some day soon, they too will be in “business causal”. Some will question why they are even working for this crowd.

That’s why the South African guy shouted at me, he recognised me, he knew who I was, and that I didn’t belong here.

For now.

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (9)

If you want to read from the start -> Coming of age, 2484

The heavy grunting in the toilet cubicle next door is very distracting.

Alone in the known universe, Dervlah’s home, the moon, still had single sex toilets. So unique were these, they featured prominently (just under the ad for cheese) on the “Welcome to the Mooooon” brochure (a mandatory training item for all tourists). People travelled far and wide to gaze perplexedly at these gendered restrooms from a time long past, some even brave enough to use them!

The grunting continues. How the hell could anyone focus? The grunting is getting louder. Dervlah is attempting to “find her centre”, sketching drunk kittens, taking a well earned break from Punice’s penetrating questions.

Ah for fuck sake, is someone slaughtering a pig next door? Dervlah turns up the music in her ear pods to try and drown it out, but the cubicle’s walls start to shake. There is a small yellow post-it note just above the toilet roll, stuck to the wall. The bottom of it is flapping in time with the shaking.

She enjoys using a real pencil and paper. But my God, the lines are getting more and more shaky.

Dervlah stands up, opens her door, turns smartly and boots open the now visibly vibrating neighbouring door. “What the fuck are you….” Inside, a goat fucks a pig. At least, that’s what it looks like. The goat has the pig bent over. Are these people dressed up as a goat and a pig? She’s not quite sure, and doesn’t actually want to find out.

Devlah’s pants are still around her knees. Now is a good time to hike them up. Wash hands. Exit to bar swiftly. Need another drink. Fucking sure that goat winked at her.

“So Boss, you come up with a plan?” Punice queries as Dervlah returns to her stool. She looks at them for a while. Take a long pull from her beer. Opens mouth to speak. Thinks better of it. Another pull of beer. “Nope. I was a bit distracted there. de’was a goat fucking a pig.”

“Ahhh, Mars” Punice sighs wistfully. “I’m sure I saw something about this in the “Welcome to Maaaars” brochure…. “I’ll be right back”. Heads to the toilet.

‘Judas Goat’ were actually a pretty good band, Dervlah admits, a few hours, and a few more drinks later. Although, there is something about those slit pupils of the Goat. They seemed to follow her around the bar. Seemed to follow her into the toilet. But the Pig drummer, he was fucking great, no denying that.

To be continued…

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (8)

If you want to read from the start -> Coming of age, 2484

Dervlah kicks the exit doors open of the casino, catching the doorman a nasty blow to the shin. Striding down the big, town hall looking steps, Punice scampers behind her like a scared puppy.

“Just keep walking” sidles out the corner of her mouth. The Wile E Coyote theory of dealing with shit; If you don’t look down, you won’t fall.

Inside her head panic roars, but she must keep that stuffed in there. ‘Shhh quiet now my panicky mind’. Outside Dervlah’s head; she strides powerfully into a small alleyway just off to the left. She then starts running. Punice also starts running, they not having a fucking iota what is happening.

Into quiet looking pub called Shambo’s. Quickly two more drinks to keep the buzz. Dervlah looks at Punice’s creased and concerned face. Punice looks back. Giggles erupt from the pair of them like drunken kittens.

Some drinks later, “So you’re a messenger? Well, I was not expecting that.” Dervlah doesn’t look up at them. She has her notebook out and is writing. She is writing to think, to calm and centre (It is a doodle of a kitten drinking). Punice seems, for once, to notice she needs a moment, and just waits. Finally, her words creep out; “Well, I’m a messenger now, I suppose. That was my first job. So yes, that makes me…A messenger”

Punice’s drink drains down their throat, their eye’s soften; “Shit Dervlah, you, you’re like an angel, sent from God to deliver tidings”. Dervlah, now thoroughly hammered, leans back, head bent against the dark wood panel behind the bench seat. Eyes half closed. “Yea, I guess I fucking am.”

Punice musters “What’s next then Angel Dervalhalla?”

“Next emm…”, squints at phone, kinda closes one eye to stop it moving so much “next is we are making a delivery to someone called…” “Yes, oh holy one?” “Well, we are going to see someone called… Rodger Ruby Cock”

Continued in part 9: Coming of age, 2484 (9).

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (7)

If you want to read from the start -> Coming of age, 2484

Breath lost as they look up to the gigantic Olympus Mons looking chandelier hanging over the casino floor.

The place is buzzing. The life of the casino condensing out of the air into droplets of pure, nervous excitement. Punice decries “Now this, my young padawan is where we can get proper fucked up”. Dervlah elbowing Punice hard in the ribs, “seriously, stop calling me stupid names, I’ll beat you.” Punice looking down his nostrils at her. Dervlah sticks a finger up each of these nostrils, hard. “And we are proper fucked up already, now shtap your squealing, ya fuckin padawan yourself”.

The man walking directly towards them has a meaningful look in his step. Dervlah reaches out her left arm to grab a drink from a passing tray. Punice reaches their hand to the right. Both sip. Nonchalance personified.

“Yezers are late, boss man don’t like to be kept waiting”. Both, in beautiful, slightly alcoholic rainbows, spray their drinks all over this meaningful bouncer.

Brought to a dark office (detour to bar for meaningful bouncer to get some paper roll). Whispers of the crowd below leaking through the window. “Have you brought it?” Says the sweaty mess wearing a name-tag “Himon Garfield”.

Not to be outdone, Dervlah leans forwards, both hands on table “yes we fucking have, have you, ya cuntcha?”. Himon, rich fucker he is, taken slightly aback-“brought what?”.

Dervlah rotates to Punice, “I thought so, fu–cking amateur hour here.” To Himon: “You dumb cunt, there is nothing, you don’t even know what your asking, now what the fuck do you want?”.

Himon is so taken aback his face is about to exit the back of his head. Punice, already a few drinks in, pukes onto the still wet meaningful bouncer standing at his side. Dervlah snorts with laughter, pulling an envelope like a weapon from inside her jacket, and fucks it hard at Himon’s face. In fairness, it’s an envelope, so it just kinda flops onto the table, but Derblah is still rather please with herself.

Propping up the casino bar, some minutes later, a pale Punice is Silent. With a capital S. Dervlah sighs “There’s no way I could afford to get off the moon without taking a few, ahem, part time jobs. Just a few deliveries is all”. Punice’s look says it all; they thought they were going to be the hero of this story. But they are not. They may have been a prick to her in school, but Dervlah has changed. She looks like she is about to fuck this whole galaxy, right up the hole.

Continued in Coming of age, 2484 (8)

Categories
Poems

Darkless

Darkness. Like a Loch Ness monster sculling messy over lochs of mossy water.

Young girl walks home late, alone, rain at the side of the road. On a path on the side of a road. Talking happily to distant voices on earphones.

Rain pours down Rubik’s cubes trying to make sense of it all.

Click, clack.

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (6)

If you want to read from the beginning, part 1 is here: Coming of age, 2484

‘Ok, thanks for that, I was feeling a bit dry there for a moment’ Punice sneers.

Punice takes a drink themselves. Dervlah decides retribution is in order; ‘Fuck it why not, let’s do it together’. It’s Punice’s turn to snort juice out their nose, showering Dervlah in, now warm, fluids.

They stand, facing each-other, breathing hard, both slightly moist. A tension between them, magnetic. Eye contact maintained. Did Dervlah raise an eyebrow? Was there a tremble of Punic’s lips? The moment passes. ‘Right then, together!’

Due to the nature of the strong atomic force engines, and the absurd levels of acceleration, their ships can’t actually fly while connected together. The AIs would pilot both carts within millimeters of eachother all the way up to .99c, but even with the ability to be so aligned, they can’t be physically connected. Dervlah sighs at the thought, she certainly knows the feeling.

With Punice grabbing their stuff from the other cart (Dervlah’s ‘Cart named Kit’ was roomier), she had a moment to breath. ‘So here I am, trying to get away from my old life, and the one fucker who I would have stayed for, has decided to join me.’ She may have left the moon, but it appears, the moon has not left her.

‘OK cartmate (‘Don’t call me that’) why are we going to Mars?’. Dervlah was sure she could hear a touch of desperation in Punic’s voice. She takes a deep breath, turns to Punice; ‘Well, I was just gonna find the first bar I can find, and get, ya know, fucked up. I’ve never gotten properly wasted before, like in the movies. I just wanna get, well, proper fuckin pissed’… she awaits judgement. The new Dervlah is through with being a good girl, through lying her way through life to make sure people have the right reactions. Punice slowly turns away, looks out the front window, and deflates with a sigh; ‘Well thank fuck you brought me, first bar indeed. My girl (‘Don’t call me that’), to get properly fucked up, you must go somewhere properly fucking classy. I know this…. I saw it in a movie’.

Continued here… Coming of age, 2484 (7).

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (5)

(Part 1 is here -> Coming of age, 2484 )

‘Oh my God, I’m clenching again’. The power of the cart named Kit’s engine is extraordinary. Dervlah imagines the fabric of reality torn asunder not 15 meters behind her. Matter ripped apart just to move her, away from Punice.

Well worth it.

‘My first time on a flight deck, but I’ve spent hours studying at how to fly this thing on Uni-tubes. Not, a, bother. Now this is how someone makes a clean getaway’.

Radio beeps, ‘erm, it’s not Dervlah by any chance? Look, I heard you were heading off on an adventure, but, ah, I too have a cart with an engine, you can’t exactly outrun me’.

The lump in Dervlah’s throat takes some swallowin’; ‘Punice… what the fuck like?’.

‘Can we talk?’ They say. Dervlah is surprised. Politeness was a new one. While in Uni-T, generally it was just abusiveness and general assholyness.

Dervlah, clicking the transmit button; ‘OK?’

Not 30 seconds later there was a knock on the door. A knock. On the door. In space. What’s the appropriate response here? ‘Cooeeeeeee, come on in, I’ve got the kettle on’ doesn’t seem quite appropriate.

‘Punice, you fucking prick, what do you want?’. Yep, that feels better.

‘Oh hi Derbl.. I mean Dervlah’. Dervlah’s eyes roll enough to see out her own ears. They continue; ‘I heard you were heading out, leaving home behind?’ Stoney stare responds. ‘I think it’s really cool ya know’. Stoney stare continues but adds a square drink from the juice machine. Stoney stares are surprisingly thirsty work. Punice eyes the drink, waiting for the offer. Oh they can wait.

‘Oh fuck sake Derv, do I have to spell it out? Can I come with you or what?’

Juice erupts from mouth (and nose) and proceeds to spray over Punices’ face, torso, and wonderfully styled hair.

That, was not expected.

Continued here: Coming of age, 2484 (6)

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (4)

Part 1 of this series is -> Coming of age, 2484

Dervlah’s heart beats and beats. ‘Punice Milord, what the fuck are they doing here?’ Dervlah’s future, stretched like a rubber band out in front, starts to shrink. The universe seconds before, unimaginably vast, is now the distance between two ships. The universe shrinks.

But, she has already started this journey. She has momentum. This fucker can’t stop her.

Momentum = mass x speed. Finger tip pushes throttle forwards to the stops. An iron ion is fired into the ignition chamber. Superconducting coils dump terawatts of energy in the shielded tunnel. From the iron atoms’ perspective, the universe shrinks.

‘I am iron’.

Such extreme force pulls at the atom, the distances between the protons, neutrons, quarks and haydrons start to widen. The force applied so quickly that momentum prevents the iron ion’s movement, but the generated energy field has the local force of a magnetar.

For the iron atom, space has contracted, to the outside observer (the cart called Kit) the atom has stretched over a kilometer out the back. To the atom however, the universe had shrunk to the point where the strong nuclear force dominates all others. And this force does not want anything spread out over a kilometer.

A rubber band the length of the galaxy. To the engine, about to transfer this potential energy to kenetic. To Dervlah, an irresistible force dragging her away from her home, her life. Away from fucking Punice.

While the electromagnetic energy was the equivalent of pulling the trigger, at two orders of magnitude more, the strong nuclear force was the gunpowder blowing out the bullet. In this case the bullet was a former iron atom, and the recoil was the cart named Kit, accelerated to .33c, or a third the speed of light.

Dervlah hoped it was fast enough.

Continued in part 5 Coming of age, 2484 (5)