It’s been awhile since I last wrote anything. I guess the best way to put it is that I have been burnt out on just about everything. Work has been hard and draining the last few weeks. I guess its all public news at this point. We had to lay off some very good people in order to get us into better financial shape. However, the necessity of the action doesn’t make it any easier. I know that as long as I stay in a management role, this will not be the last time I will make such decisions, but I sure wish it would. There are many who think that the decision of those to end someone’s employment is an easy one to make by the callous management of a company. However, if my stress and terror are any indication, this is simply not the case.
Now comes the chaos from such a shake up. My department is considerably smaller and a great deal of knowledge has been lost. It’s easy in my business to delude oneself that the production of code is the only value of a programmer, but what is hardest to replace is their knowledge of both technical and business processes. I have already spent an inordinate amount of time learning the processes and procedures that was in the heads of the departed. In my short time with the company we have made great strides to start documenting the systems we build but somehow this is not enough. There are always those little simple things that seem so obvious to those who know how to do something that they slip through the cracks. However, on the other side, if you document everything to the minutest detail then you have documentation so long and confusing that its impossible to sift through. My latest plan is to have process documentation be written by someone who is learning the system for the first time. We’ll see how it works.
Outside of the drain of work, life is pretty uneventful. I had a pleasant Thanksgiving with the family. However, its my upcoming two week vacation to Chicago that I’m really looking forward to. I’m taking the train both ways this time which is such a pleasant and relaxed way to travel that it should be just what the doctor ordered to get me out of these doldrums. Here’s to hope . . .