SashiroDev

The first month pt. 2

2020-05-03T20:25:00+00:00

Well, here I am, for another post, now with the second part of my experience in the world of grown-ups. I will be talking about the new people I met, what I thought about them, and the actual work itself.

The team

I was assigned to a team of around twenty people. As I read the list of names, I couldn’t help but wonder how they were gonna be. Are they funny? Helpful? Uptight? All these questions were answered as I attended the daily meetings, and I could definitely tell the different personalities in the team. Some people were more reserved, only talked when absolutely necessary and spoke very quietly, almost whispering. Others were comfortable, very comfortable, actually. Open mic, webcam on, still in pyjamas… absolutely fearless. I could hear their kids screaming, the dogs barking, one of them had a Minecraft image in the webcam background, another was using a Snapchat filter, like… ???

What is going on? I thought this was supposed to be a professional setting!

Overall, I got a good first-impression of the team, and I’m looking forward to meet them personally. Every time I asked for help, people showed themselves to be available. Hopefully soon I’ll get to a level where I can help back.

The work

After the first days of meetings and online courses, I was finally assigned my first task. It’s a relatively simple thing, has no due date, so I still don’t have the deadline pressure, and I can get used to the team’s modus operandi. I read some documentation to understand the program I was gonna work on, and once I had my working environment set up, I grabbed the latest version of the application from the version control system and dug right into it…

* Ring, ring… *

“Hello, who is this? Oh, mrs. Imposter Syndrome? Ah, yes, what an excellent time for you to show up, really convenient… No, no, I am not bothered by your presence at all, what an idea…”

As I started reading the application source code, I became mortified and sinking deeper into my chair. I was on the verge of apologizing to every developer that ever existed for having the nerve to choose this profession. The feeling of dread increased as I read the compiler errors.

However, alongside this sinking feeling of overwhelm, another feeling was rising. It was the excitement of a new challenge. A wall to be climbed. A problem to be tackled. An opportunity for growth. The more I tried to chip away at the task, the more intrigued I was by it. “Oh, strlen() is not defined? I only need to #include then". These easy little fixes might not have made a significant impact, but I got *momentum*, and I got my composure back. I kept changing more and more things to make the code better. At a certain point, it finally started to feel like **my** code, and I wanted to make it as best as I could.

To this date, I have not yet finished my task, not even close to it, but I’m no longer scared by it. I’m confident I will get it done properly, sooner or later.

I’m not a volleyball player, but… “Isn’t ‘defeat’ more like a trial to overcome? Of whether you can stand up and walk again?

The first month pt. 1

2020-05-03T12:50:00+00:00

It’s been about a month since I started working (and yes, I cheated on the previous post’s date, fucking sue me), and I’d like to share my thoughts on different aspects of my experience so far, ranging from routine, work itself and the new people I met. I’ll separate them by sections so I don’t end up with a 5000 word essay where people fall asleep after 3 lines, this isn’t the English criminal law book.

The routine

I have to say that I definitely did not expect my routine to actually improve with my new work. Before I would wake up at 1PM, struggle harder than Guts to get anything productive done for more than 15 minutes, reach 5PM mentally exhausted even though I didn’t do anything, and waddle around the internet till 4AM, because I wasn’t physically tired enough to actually fall asleep.

With my new job though? I wake up way earlier, shower, breakfast, coffee… Hell, I was even able to re-incorporate exercise and reading back into my day-to-day life. And none of that came at the cost of time for my hobbies, personal projects and things I enjoy, which is the best part of it all. I also realized that, not only I really need structure, I also need an external entity to somewhat enforce it and hold me accountable. I don’t naturally default to being productive, so if I were left to myself, I’d be so much of a leech that I’d be cast for the Parasite movie, surely.

There are still some things that I need to figure out. I haven’t found a definite time box to fit daily work on my thesis, and if I don’t, it will derail the planned delivery time. That’s something I’d like to avoid.

The meetings

I didn’t expect so many meetings. Daily meetings, every two weeks meetings, meetings to discuss meetings… Any more meetings and this would be the work version of Tinder or OkCupid.

There is also the particularity that we are in quarantine times, consequently every meeting is via web. What struck me the hardest was how deprived of information we become when we only interact digitally. The access to information like body language, small movements, posture, eye contact and micro sounds is null, and makes it harder to read or access the other person. Things voice tone, pitch, pace and melody become much more important in the conversation (and of course, the words actually being said). Nonetheless, the information that I needed was transmitted to me without issues. And oh dear Lord was there a ton of it.

Labels, dates, naming conventions, coding practices, sprints, backlogs, user stories, story points… So many little details to learn, so overwhelming, it was almost like an avalanche rolling down the Everest mountain. This was the time I really valued having previous work experience, so this scenario was not news to me. I knew there was no need for me to memorize every little thing, all I needed to know was that those things exist, so I could gravitate towards them when I actually need to use them.

On the other hand, I can definitely see someone fresh out of university crumble under this mountain of details. If someone out there reading this is going through a similar process, relax, you really don’t need to memorize that version numbers are separated with dots and not underscores. Just remember that when the time comes that you need to name a version, read the appropriate documentation before doing it.

I still have some more things to share, but if I kept them here it would make the post way too big. I’ve decided to make a new post as a part 2 for this one.

Hello, world

2020-04-25T22:51:00+00:00

So, this is it. After the dozens of ads researched, the CVs sent, the “Yeah we don’t need you right now, we’ll call you if we do though, xoxo” and the Skype interviews, someone was willing to give me an opportunity. And I’d be damned if I didn’t grasp it with all I had. The contract conditions were good, the environment seemed awesome, and the work seemed exactly what I was looking for, so fate arranged my first day of work. Look up. Straighten your back. Seem confident. Long strides to show I’m not afraid of what’s to come. No sounds other than the rain pelting on my umbrella. I walk up the stairs, and reach for the door - this is it. The moment I waited for.

What the…?

Crap, the door is locked. There’s no doorbell in sight either. It’s exactly 4PM, so I’m definitely on time. I went back, and looked for a security guard. As I spotted one, I walked towards him to ask if he knew if there was someone in the office building. Oh, did I say “ask”? I meant “shout”.

There’s an important detail I haven’t mentioned yet: it’s 2020, and Corona-chan decided to grace us with her presence. Social distancing is a thing, it is illegal to stand in a 2m radius of another human being.

The security guard confirmed there was indeed someone inside, so I went back to the locked door. Luckily, a woman spotted me at the entrance and signaled for me to go around the back. After some back and forth walking I finally found the back of the office and the woman held the door for me to enter.

The office was desert. Corona-chan was too beautiful for mortal hearts, so humans dared not to leave their homes and gaze upon her. Everyone, with the exception of a few brave ones, was working from their houses.

What ensued lasted about 2 minutes. I was handed a laptop, told that everything was set up, to attend a meeting at 10AM, and go back home. Contract would be signed virtually as well. This was definitely not what I expected of my first day as a software engineer. I imagined an awkward walk up to my new teammates, getting introduced to them, grabbing some coffee, some presentation about what I’d be doing concretely, and a ton of documentation to read. Not someone giving me a laptop and kick in the ass. Regardless, I was happy to finally begin working in a field I’m passionate about, and ready to give it my all.

As my favorite samurai once said: “Sometimes, no matter what we do, we are victims of the circumstances. We should just have to pull ourselves out”.