Challenge Presented and Accepted

I had a good Performance Review with my manager yesterday at work. It really feels like I'm working where I ought to be working. I have been able to demonstrate progress in my disaster recovery project and the key to the next year will be to continue that progress and use it as momentum to make measurable progress.

I'm Thankful For Every Breath

To recap, I was laid off Tuesday.

It sucks.

I don't like this.

I feel insecure about the future and I wish I knew what it has in store for me.

I know that I have to offer this up to God and that He doesn't give me more than I can bear. Daily Mass is now in my schedule - I went Wednesday, Thursday, and will go today (it's 8:13 AM, Mass is at 9 AM).

With that said, I can safely state that I have a few opportunities in motion. I don't want to jinx myself and write long dissertations on this blog about this opportunity and that opportunity and that third opportunity over there. I'd rather reserve those hopes for essays to be captured within my personal journal.

I did start another spiral notebook on Wednesday to capture the thoughts I have about this journey. Traditionally, I only purchase 200 page, college-ruled, spiral notebooks. The one I purchased at Wal-Mart is a 150 page, college-ruled, spiral notebook. I am writing each day what occurs to me, starting a new page each day regardless of whether I filled the previous page. I am doing that because I had a lyric in my head. It's from a band called P.O.D. and the song is "Alive."

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Editor's Note: Before being laid off, an email with the subject "Performance Review" was received. Like Sheldon's hatred for Will Wheaton, hatred for PRs has been verbalized!

Finally Friday

I had my performance review at work today and it went really well. My manager and I talked about a lot of different subjects; the conversation was free-flowing. I look forward to years upon years of working with her. I am happy.

Performance Review 2013

I had my performance review on Friday w/ my manager. It went really good. "Keep doing what you're doing." "Keep learning." I can handle that.

We talked a bit about how when we are in our team meetings that she can tell when I have something to say. She said that she can see me formulating my thoughts.

We also talked about all the big projects coming up. I think I've told you about how they are rewriting the main app I document. Every thing is going open source and we have been directed to find an open source tool for our doc. Matthew, the bassist in the band, has lots of experience with open source stuff so he's taking the lead on that. The existing system is going to be around for at least 5 years (so I'm planning on 7) and I'm taking the lead on that. That's the doc set where we write something once, then paste it into each document. I talked about wanting to get to a single source, where there's only one place where a procedure is written so that when there's a global change, it gets added once and, then during the publishing process of whatever tool we are using, the procedure gets updated for each applicable client. I said that I wanted to be out of the current process in a year. To do that, though, I said that we have to get the existing docs using a single template and, basically, converting from using Normal style with manual formatting, to a template where there is no manual formatting. Things like pressing Ctrl+B or pressing to get extra spacing - all that needs to be replaced with definitions of styles that are used across all documents. That way, if we have a style called "Button" and it's defined as Verdana, 12, Bold, and we have to change all instances of it to Courier New, 14, Bold/Italic, then we change it once, in the template, and it ripples through.

Three Hours Removed...

I am three hours removed from my yearly performance review at work. It was from 9-10 and it is now 1.

Without going into intense detail, the bottom-line is that I was told to keep doing what I'm doing. It's been a great year and 2013 is going to be at least equally if not more exciting as 2012. I felt really great about the last year and where our documentation has gone in the last year. I am very excited about the next year as there are a lot of high profile projects on our department's schedule.

Working here has turned into the best career move I've ever made. I'm thankful for where I am in so many ways. It'll be 602 days on Monday!