The Spookiest Year

Posted on October 30, 2020 by way0utwest

Last Halloween I was in Chicago, in one of the biggest cities in the US visiting a customer. This was near the end of a very busy travel year, where I’d been to England 5 times, Australia twice, and was returning home for the weekend before heading back out on a trip to Seattle for the 2019 PASS Summit.

This year I expected more of the same, even into early February, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Since then, much of the world has changed, certainly travel, conferences, SQL Saturdays, and most other types of gatherings have changed. Not just work events, but work itself, with many of us, perhaps most, working from come. Concerts, comedy, sporting events, and more have been cancelled or changed to taking place without spectators. While some things are starting to come back, they’ve forever changed.

I have started coaching volleyball again, and while we’ve started competition, we do so without spectators, which is a very strange experience. As I sat between matches recently, my wife and I noticed how quiet it was and how calm. In a good way, but also a strange feeling for us.

Perhaps one of the strangest things is watching media more than in the past, and seeing people without masks, in crowds, living life in a way that I assumed would always exist a year ago. It’s certainly jarring, and I wonder to what extent we’ll return to that world in the future.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and while it’s not an event I’ll participate in, I’ll think about the spooky feeling of this entire year, where nothing seems to have gone in the way I’d have expected. I hope that does change in 2021, but for now, I’m assuming we have at least seven more months, through at least April of 2021, living in the same world. Hopefully, I’m wrong.

Steve Jones

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Goal Progress– October 2020

Posted on October 30, 2020 by way0utwest

This is my report, which continues on from the Aug report. After that report, I made an effort to work a little harder. This is where I am.

Reading Goals

Here were my goals for the year.

  • 3 technical books
  • 2 non-technical books

Books I’ve tackled:

I made an effort during some lunches and breaks to work on Making Work Visible and finished it. The middle of the book was hard, but the end got me thinking again. I’ll write a review soon.

No Power BI or White Fragility. I’ve been a little unfocused and struggling to cope for a couple months and trying to let my brain relax when I can.

I added the last book after hearing the author talk about poker and how it relates to life and decision making. So far, it’s a mix of poker, fear, and the challenges of imperfect information.

Project Goals

Here were my project goals, working with software

  • A Power BI report that updates from a database
  • A mobile app reading data from somewhere
  • A website that showcases changes and data from a database.

I started compiling some data, grabbing some stats from my life. I’m loading that into a db , as a part of life and some content work, so I’ll write about that. Once I get that loaded, I’m thinking to use that db as a way to kick start some of these items.

Work is not slowing this fall,but I did take a bit of time and start to build a PowerBI report that has some data in a database. Early days here, and I really think this is about 10% done, but it’s moving.

Nothing on the mobile app, nothing on the website for now.

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Daily Coping 30 Oct 2020

Posted on October 30, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today’s tip is to ask yourself, will this still matter a year from now?

A year is a long time. Next year, as we get ready for Halloween, will this matter? I certainly hope that much of the challenges of COVID will be a memory. While I wouldn’t be surprised if we still wore masks in gatherings and limited some of the heavily crowded areas, I do hope that we have learned some lessons and adjusted our world to cope.

The feelings I have today, and discontent, the stress and concerns, much if it won’t matter.

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Building Quality In

Posted on October 29, 2020 by way0utwest

I heard someone at the 2020 DevOps Enterprise Summit conference say that quality needs to be built in. That’s something that many, or hopefully most, of us believe. Everyone ought to do quality work and build it into their daily tasks. However, the person speaking went further and defined this in a way I like:

“Building quality in means we don’t pass quality issues along to others.”

That’s a much better definition for me. This implies that there are effects if I don’t do a good enough job. If I knowingly pass along an issue, that’s a problem. I haven’t done quality work. I’d likely say that if I don’t bother to test or evaluate my work in some way, I’m essentially doing the same thing.

We all write poor code, or do a job poorly at times. Often this comes because of ignorance, naivety, or just a lack of skill. That’s understandable, and we can forgive a person not being able or ready to do a job at the same level as a more experienced person.

However, that should be a learning and teaching moment. We don’t expect continuous quality issues, certainly not of the same type. A big part of the DevOps movement, and other modern software development methodologies is learning from our mistakes. Getting better. Improving the quality of our software.

Don’t just get work done. Don’t just close tickets or move a sticky note. Learn to do better each time you make a mistake. Learn to write better code or implement better processes. Learn to build in quality.

Steve Jones

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