Category: professional

New Job And Holiday Season

Today is one week since I started with EDB. People are still reacting to my LinkedIn posts and a job update, and the number of views of the job post is already over 4,000. I am shadowing another consultant working with a client. I see that my skills are needed, and at the same time, I am learning new tools and techniques.

And at the same time, I am still downloading and installing missing software, attending training, and learning how things are done.

The help desk is indeed helpful, but in many cases, it isn’t easy to find out what I should install, who can give me access, whether there is any documentation, etc. Most customer engagements are very short, and we need to work really intensely to deliver results in five business days.

Boris is teaching at night again:). I am putting the final touches on the house Christmas decorations – some decorations have found their places, and some will be donated or discarded. And I told Boris I wouldn’t have time to cook as I did last time, but I actually do :).
And also, it is bitterly cold outside but cozy at home.

Continue reading “New Job And Holiday Season” →

How It Feels

Life still seems not real. During the conference, the time felt thick with all of the events happening. I gave two talks, and I talked to people literally all the time. I could catch up with many people I knew before and make new connections. Also, I spent a lot of time with my new co-workers. Usually, you won’t spend time with your co-workers at the conference, but since at EDB, we are remote by definition, it was a rare opportunity to meet people in person.
“We – at EDB” – this still sounds and feels unreal. I could not imagine what an impact it would have on me. I was setting up my new email yesterday and typing my name followed by “enterprisedb.com” I felt like, “this can’t be true!”

And at the same time, it feels so right, so normal… all these emails coming to my new account, all meeting invites.

The comments on LinkedIn blow off my mind… and it’s funny how people congratulate EDB with almost the same frequency as they congratulate me:)

Oh, and I am still baking cookies, decorating the house, and thinking about presents…

At NYC, At The New Job, And My Life Just Took a Sharp Turn Again!

It does not feel real. Today is a week since I accepted the offer from EDB, just a week and Thanksgiving weekend in between, and two million things happening simultaneously. All the paperwork with the new company, cleaning the previous company laptop, getting ready for the conference, working on the program committee, with all the last-minute cancellations and talks substitutes, and – did you update your talk template?! – no, I didn’t, should I?!
Today is my first day, and that’s the day I flew to NYC – the first live conference since Jan 2020. I am in NYC for the conference, and I was at the EDB team dinner, and for the whole dinner, I was at one table with Robert Haas (not to mention Bruce). And the CTO walked to me and drank with me for the big day! It does not feel real – to be in the very heart of Postgres and to be there for real, not as an “honorary member.”
Yes, I know – a million things happened in the past week, and I didn’t blog about any of them, and my world had changed again – OMG, how did it change!!! It is more than happiness…

How Is My New Job

At work, there are so many things every day that I do not type fast enough :). It’s a very different environment, different ways of doing things. In the beginning, I felt like Chad is breaking his promises and does not let me do the right things. However, it was not the case, and yesterday, we had a conversation that I do not even know how to describe. In this conversation, we started with some very practical questions, but then we went into a very theoretical discussion about levels of database modeling. I can’t remember when was the last time I discussed such things, especially as a part of my job responsibilities :).
It’s breathtaking how many things are out there for me to improve and to create from scratch.

As usual, one me is not enough:)

Hello, New Job!

My multiple posts about “life in general” and “history” will have to wait.

Today was the day.

I just posted my updates on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is exploding. As for me – I am just happy. I didn’t even think I will be that happy. I already worked for BrokerX for a while, I already had fights with almost everybody, and I was sad to leave Braviant. I didn’t think today will make such a difference. But it did. 

Do you know what the best part of my day was? When I left work at 5-30, which was not early at all, I realized that I do not need to rush home to do work for my second job! I will have less money now, significantly less, both because my new position pays less and because I am losing consulting income, but I felt so happy! For the whole workday, I could 100% focus on the work I wanted to do for a long time! 

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an “I am so happy” picture on Instagram. I was referring to my new place, saying that I am so happy to live here.

Now, I want to post the same picture here, because it reflects my level of happiness 🙂

Goodbye, Previous Job!

Yesterday was my last day at Braviant Holdings, and I had a Farewell Party. It turned out it was close to impossible to reserve a space anywhere in the Loop without a substantial deposit. If it weren’t for Vlad, who still knows everybody in the hospitality business, I would be miserable. But because of his connections, we ended up having a corner in Miller’s pub and had a great time.
I am very thankful for the people who came out to see me off in person!

The Soft Start

Friday was my “soft start” in the new company. I needed to start before July 1 to be eligible for medical coverage starting from August 1. It will still be three weeks on no coverage, but at least I will be insured for the next stage of my dental work.

First, Chad wanted me to “start” on June 30 and not bill eight hours of my work. But I told him that since we have “summer Fridays,” and I still have some unused PTO, I can just take half-Friday off and come to his office and make a full workday. It ended up being a great idea since it turned out their HR will be off the week before the holidays. So on Friday, I submitted all my paperwork and was onboarded. I had a badge to enter the building even earlier, so now it’s funny that I work at two places simultaneously. I joked with Boris that now there is no way back, “the marriage certificate is issued,” and Boris told me there was no way back a long time ago.

I am not saying it’s pure joy. I need to do a lot of convincing work with my new coworkers and my new boss, but I am ready for that. I know that I need to understand how exactly my work impacts the company’s financial prosperity. And I love that feeling when the SQL you deployed in production yesterday affects today’s bottom line 🙂

About People’s Interactions

I liked how my Wednesday’s meetup went. I only regret that I didn’t put enough time into advertising, and there were not many people attending. The talk was brilliant. It was new Bruce’s talk “Democratization of Databases,” where he talks about opensource products and how their development is different from commercial products. 

Our discussion ended up being rather political; that’s why I am not posting it on my professional blog.

But you know, I think it was very appropriate. There are times when you have to be political, times when you can’t enclose yourself in your professional world. And now is that kind of time. 

On another note, I started to assemble my team of volunteers. And now, when I started, I do not know how I lived without any help! I felt so good when people responded to my call. When they started to reach out telling me that they want to help, to give back. One of the people who reached out told me: I want to compensate for all these times when I would just come and sit in the corner, listen to the talks, eat pizza and go back home. 

I can see now how many things we didn’t do to give us more publicity. Interestingly, when I talk to other people about giving their enterprise more publicity, I name all these things I didn’t do myself :). I hope that by the time of the next meetup, things will start to look different.

This week was very intense. I had many things going on at work, and I also had to talk to many people for a very long time :). I can’t recall this level of interactions I was involved in since the pre-pandemic times. I am tired, but I also feel very good. I feel empowered by people’s responses. 

My New Thing

How should I put it? I didn’t start a new job, but I started a side job, which brings me immense pleasure.
That’s the job I am doing for my former co-worker and mentor, and doing something for him and together with him was something I’ve wanted for the past seven years.

I could tell that it was the right thing to do to start this project because I instantly felt ecstatic when I started to code. It had been a long time since I felt like this, and since I wanted to finish coding not because I had a deadline, but because I wanted :).

We talked about that project in the early fall, and I didn’t want (and could not) to start until I was done with the book. But the day I was done, I messaged him.

It is a very different environment in terms of how his team operates, how they approach tasks, and divide work. I am not saying it is bad; it’s just not what I am doing at my primary workplace. In some sense, it is good to get out of your comfort zone. Besides, he is a person from whom I can learn a lot, and I am eager to have this “ideas exchange.”

Usually, spring is my worst time of the year regarding what happens to me in all aspects of life. But it looks like this spring is an exception 🙂

Acting Like A Leader

I am listening to “Atomic Habits,” a well-knowing book, mostly building on the “Power of Habit,” which I read a long time ago and really liked. 

As it often happens, you notice the closest ideas to what you are thinking about at the moment. This time, it was the well-known idea of “if you want to become something, act as if you already are.” To be precise, in the book, the author rephrases it like “do not say: I want to run a marathon, say: I want to become a runner.”

The reason I paid attention to this statement is the conversation I had on Friday. Among other things, I was asked about “things that work” with the Chicago PUG. While answering that question, I started to list all the things I usually mention when people ask me, “How did I build it.” I talked about having specific dates, announcing meetups early, starting on time, engaging the audience, coaching the first-time zoom speakers. And I ended my answer with one simple statement: I am a community leader, people are looking up at me, and I felt the responsibility to act.

And that is the most important reason that Chicago PUG is running regular meetups, one of the very few PostgreSQL meetups regularly running during the pandemic. 

I vividly remember how I felt a year ago. I had to make difficult choices, and at that time, I was very unsure of what is the right thing to do, and I was questioning myself and my actions, and the situation was changing not by days but by hours. 

First, I announced the change of speaker. Then, I announced the rescheduling. And two weeks later, I announced going virtual. I opted to be a first zoom speaker because I knew it could be a very miserable experience (and it was). But the important thing was that we were able to continue our activities and the PUG members responded with great attendance. 

I am very proud of all of us, and I hope that later this year, we will be able to switch to the hybrid meetups:)