The Business Part of This Business Trip
Toronto Travelog #5
Wednesday, 5 Oct 2016. 8pm.
It may seem odd that when I travel on business, like I'm doing this week, I don't write much about the actual business I'm doing. Instead it's planes-trains-and-automobiles, cultural differences, and various observations about the area I'm in and life in general.
This goes back to how I started the blog years ago. I've always focused it on the act of travel and the experience and insights gained. This is not a technical blog and it's also not a "bitch about my workday" blog. Though I occasionally do a bit of the latter. ;)
It's also a matter of "What's the story?" When I started this blog I'd been working at my then-current employer for several years. I knew the products inside and out. When I traveled to make things work, I had every confidence that if it was something our product could do, I could make it do it. I was a one-man surge. I did face technical challenges along the way but meeting them, and beating them, was expected. Where the unexpected came in- and thus the dramatic tension in the story- was in navigating unfamiliar lands, foreign cultures, and strange personalities. Those were the real challenges. I had to get past them just to get to the point where I could solve the technology problems I knew how to solve so well.
That description of challenges past is not so accurate here. On this trip I'm working with a product that's relatively new to me, and relatively new in general. And the product work is going terribly. Multiple things are broken at the same time. We've got at least half a dozen bugs filed with engineering already. I feel very frustrated about this situation and I don't find it enjoyable to write about.
Wednesday, 5 Oct 2016. 8pm.
It may seem odd that when I travel on business, like I'm doing this week, I don't write much about the actual business I'm doing. Instead it's planes-trains-and-automobiles, cultural differences, and various observations about the area I'm in and life in general.
This goes back to how I started the blog years ago. I've always focused it on the act of travel and the experience and insights gained. This is not a technical blog and it's also not a "bitch about my workday" blog. Though I occasionally do a bit of the latter. ;)
It's also a matter of "What's the story?" When I started this blog I'd been working at my then-current employer for several years. I knew the products inside and out. When I traveled to make things work, I had every confidence that if it was something our product could do, I could make it do it. I was a one-man surge. I did face technical challenges along the way but meeting them, and beating them, was expected. Where the unexpected came in- and thus the dramatic tension in the story- was in navigating unfamiliar lands, foreign cultures, and strange personalities. Those were the real challenges. I had to get past them just to get to the point where I could solve the technology problems I knew how to solve so well.
That description of challenges past is not so accurate here. On this trip I'm working with a product that's relatively new to me, and relatively new in general. And the product work is going terribly. Multiple things are broken at the same time. We've got at least half a dozen bugs filed with engineering already. I feel very frustrated about this situation and I don't find it enjoyable to write about.