Just FYI, LinqPad is a really neat tool for messing around with EFCore. I use it all the time for testing ideas or doing quick tasks that I don’t want to spin up a new project for.
My wife and I play Fortnite every once in a great while. You get to thinking you’re hot shit and then some 12 year old sneaks up on you and shoots you in the face. There’s always a bigger fish I guess.
Aww man. I remember that. I was in sixth grade. Rolling a TV into the classroom and turning on the news was an unfortunate choice. The teacher didn’t know that of course. The only time I can remember being sad about getting out of school early. We all just sat in the living room for the rest of the day with only the voice of Tom Brokaw to fill the void.
Went up to a conference room on the third floor for some peace and quiet. I’m just sitting there typing away when KABOOOOOOOOMMMMMM an explosion rang out that shook the whole building. I ran over to the window to see big plumes of black smoke billowing from what used to be a dumpster full of scrap metal.
Some guy at the junk yard next door was trying to compress the contents of the dumpster with an excavator and somehow managed to ignite the contents of a [not empty] propane tank. Poor guy in the excavator just sat there for a minute looking like he was still absorbing what had just happened. He was fine other than probably needing a change of underwear. Fire department showed up a few minutes later and put it out.
It doesn’t necessarily matter that you make poor decisions. That’s all of us. At some point. It matters that you take ownership of it and don’t pawn it off on somebody else. And, that you make things right when necessary. Competence is important but integrity is way more important.
It’s an incredible paradox isn’t it? Someone up the ladder sees you getting results and they decide they want more of that. Then, when you try to show them what it takes to get more of “that”, they look at you like you have two heads. In my case I got sick of being told I needed to constantly micro-manage my people. I told my boss something to the effect of, “we pay grown-ass adults to do their job like adults. If you think I can’t walk away for two seconds and trust that they’re still going to be doing their job when I’m gone, then you need to fire them and hire someone who will.”
He turned white as a ghost. He knew damn well I was right, he just didn’t want to have to tell his boss (the Chief Micromanagement Officer) that. Good leadership isn’t that complicated. Empower people to do their job and feel like they own it and they will do it a hell of a lot better than if you’re standing over their shoulder all the time.
I was in management before I moved to engineering full time. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my team and watching them grow and develop their skills. I also learned a lot about things that I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise.
The key role of a good leader is to remove “log jams” and then get out of the way. But I was log-jammed out. An incredibly toxic workplace has a way of doing that. I fought hard for my employees. They deserved that. They had my respect and they earned it. If I had to go back and fight for them again, I would. But man, it’s been nice to get away from all that for the past few years.
So this is me a couple weeks ago when my boss tells me he wants me to take over as one of the team leads and on the outside I’m like, “Thanks for the opportunity! I appreciate the vote of confidence.” And on the inside I’m like, “…please no.”
Unless you’re always overdrafting your account in which case your bank is going to like it a whole lot. Oh, they’re going to pretend they don’t, as required by law. But they do. They really do. Can’t resist that sweet, sweet fee income from loaning you money at 900% interest.
Curtains. Even if you have blinds, curtains really helps dress up the place. They don’t have to be super expensive. Just something that looks nice from your local home goods store.
Hanging pictures is super easy. As long as they’re not huge, you can nail the picture hangers right into the drywall/plaster and it will hold up just fine.
If you want to spend a little more money, you can have large prints made of pictures and have them framed. The framing is the expensive part. I have a handful of pictures I’ve taken over the years, mostly of nature, that turned out really, really good. I had some of them framed and they are hanging throughout our house. I like them because I feel like it adds a personal touch.