I am about to leave Portland without having seen much, but I’ve had an exceptionally productive workday. Several months ago, J (my peer from Scotland) and I submitted a talk proposal to the FOSSY conference in Portland. The proposal was not accepted, and I moved on with my life.
Then, about three weeks ago, I received a message from J: Could you come to Portland so that we could work on our project? The project meant our talk on the same topic, which was accepted to another conference, which I will be unable to attend. J will be presenting for both of us, but I wanted to participate in the PowerPoint preparation. In addition, our proposal for a community event at PG Conf EU was accepted, and we needed to create an event plan. I didn’t know he was coming, because I knew our talk had not been accepted. He told me that his other talk was, so he was coming. I regret not knowing about it earlier, as I had just recently made plans to visit my friend Lena in Ann Arbor, so I said “no.” But two weeks ago, Lena informed me about her home situation, and we agreed that it would be better for me not to visit now. I immediately thought that in that case, I could go to Portland. I made this trip very minimalistic because I couldn’t waste workdays, and I had things to do at home (and I wouldn’t have any free weekends until October).
If you want to see a crazy person who spends their own time and money to fly for one day to the other side of the country just to work with somebody on a project – that’s me! Fortunately, the conference hotel was very reasonably priced, and I also found that I had $300 credit with American Airlines from last summer when we had to cancel our flight to DC, which was more than half the price of that ticket.
On Friday, I departed from ORD at noon, arrived in Portland at 2:30 PM local time, and still had time to attend the last two sessions at the conference and listen to J’s talk. We agreed on our working sessions’ schedule, and spent most of Saturday working, with interruptions for meals and coffee, and then I left for the airport, where I am now sitting, waiting for my red-eye flight.
This week, instead of saying “Yes” to a million things you can do in Chicago in summer, especially if “you” are “me”, I did the opposite. I was saying “no” to many activities, because I needed to catch up with my professional responsibilities.
My talk at PG Conf EU in Riga was accepted, which means I need to prepare it, because it’s a new talk. That’ in addition to the community event I am hosting there. I have things I promised to do for the ACM Chicago Chapter, and couldn’t find time for weeks, but most importantly, my big tutorial is only half-done.
And I have no more free weekends until that conference! My only “free” day will be upcoming Sunday, and it will be a day after the red eye flight back from Portland.
Do not take me wrong – I love all these activities, and I am taking this all completely voluntarely, but still 🙂
My biggest disappointment of the last weekend was that I didn’t even start multiple projects, which I had planned to both start and finish over the weekend. I believe that my bad planning was the root cause of the problem, as the said plan was completely unrealistic. I was planning how “time-sensitive” events would fit into the schedule without giving a thought to all other activities that had to happen at some point, even if they didn’t have a pre-defined start and end time.
Not only did I leave a lot of conference-related action items incomplete, but I didn’t even start anything related to my conference talks prep, and I have four different talks to prepare, including my huge tutorial, which I barely started. I spent a significant portion of my time panicking about all of the above, along with a clear understanding that summer is short and I have only that many beach days left.
My worktime is extremely intense, and if I manage to carve some time to do something not-work-related, I have to do some work after work. The not-work-related include answering web designers questions two or three times per day, including providing new content, meeting with the whole org committee and individual members about their specific tasks.
I know that in a long run, this will save me time. For example, I talked to a person who volunteered to do our newsletter. I sent her a sample, sent a draft of the next newsletter, asked her to complete, reviewed her work, and met with her on zoom twice. She will be a huge help, but this week, it took over two hours of my time. Same goes to our social media accounts, people who will be handling catering, conference lodging, etc. Their help will be essential, but this week I am panicking because I am late with everything!
On top of that, during the first two days of this week I was asked 1) to vote up one Postgres patch (why me???) 2) to review a book proposal (I refused) 3) to write a new book (“because people like my writing”) – I said to reach out in six months 4) to give my opinion on the work of one of the Postgres “rising stars” company (I agreed and accepted a meeting invite).
… and I worked on my presentations for forty minutes only, when I need many hours!
Today was the first day I did it this season. I was unsure whether the lake is warm enough so that the water in the morning will be warm, and it was!
No picture can express the joy of immersing yourself into the lake facing the rising sun! All my tiredness of the past two weeks was washed away. You can tell that I was not the first person on the beach this morning, but pretty close to the first 🙂
It’s interesting that, apparently, the upcoming Thursday is International Self-Care Day. 🤷🏻♀️ My firm hosts multiple related events, but my best possible self-care was this morning! The only thing I need to figure out is how I can get this constantly missing extra half-hour of sleep.
It’s not a mistake – I know that today is Sunday, and pretty late on Sunday! It’s just that looking back to Friday, I am wondering yet again why I think that weekends are inflatable!
Friday was great in some sense, because I had zero meetings at work, and nobody distracted me with anything “urgent,” so I was able to make progress on several tasks that required concentration, and close a whole bunch of tickets! I left work in a rearest state of “I’ve done everything!” Also, a friend who invited me on an art tour canceled, and I decided not to go on my own. I was hoping that this would give me extra time to focus on my conference presentations, which are many, and some are due soon!
However, there were so many other urgent things that had to be completed/resolved/started before Monday, that I did exactly zero for my presentations. Looking back at the weekend, I see that everything I’ve done was necessary and overdue, and I am happy I was able to address some of these, but once again – I need more time!
Even when the work is insane, there are two things that bring me joy every summer day; two things that make Chicago the best place to be in the summer: biking early in the morning and going to the beach in the evening. Even half an hour by the lake helps me to recharge and gives me peace of mind like nothing else. Each time I walk into the water, I say: Thank you, Lake!
Trending yesterday on LinkedIn. I would agree with the commentators who said that at least these companies are honest; the necessity to work insane hours was always there.
After years of luring talent with promises of flexible schedules and a healthy work-life balance, more employers are now opting for a tough-love approach, The Wall Street Journal notes. Companies like Shopify, McKinsey, and healthcare startup Solace now often go out of their way to stress their long hours and rough pace in job listings. While some applicants appreciate the transparency, one recruiting expert notes that companies are “testing the limits of what they can ask of their employees” in a competitive job market.
Today, the bus routes to the Museum Campus have finally resumed, and everyone is much happier and full of energy. I hope that at least two-thirds of the camp will finally be the way Anna and I envisioned.
My work crisis is still in progress, though :), and all the other millions of things which need my attention still need it!
It is believed that the day before the long weekend is always quiet and uneventful, because nobody wants to start a new project, and half of the people are taking a day off, and the other half want to leave earlier. It could not be further from the truth for me!
First, I had my month-after post-op for the Lasik. It was scheduled for 10-30, and since it takes me no more than 30 minutes to get to the Rush Medical Center from my office, I agreed to do “something” for our UK team at 12-30. It took them a while to agree with this “something,” so I was happy we could wrap it up before the holidays, and I thought I would be back in time. Unfortunately, I was waiting and waiting, and nothing happened! I started to suspect that I might be late, but as it often happens in the medical building, my hotspot barely worked. I sent a WhatsApp message to my UK co-worker to tell the team what the situation was, and that very moment, I was called to the exam room. They took all the measurements, and then… dilated my eyes! I screamed that I needed to go to work, but they didn’t listen. That also meant it would be a while before the doctor saw me. My coworker asked whether we should postpone the “something” until 1 PM, and I said – yes, but I became doubtful. Finally, the surgeon dashed into the room, started talking to me, but then slapped his forehead: Sorry – I forgot something! One moment! And he disappeared from the room! When he finally appeared, and we discussed my concerns and next steps, I knew I had a very slim chance of being on time. I practically ran out of the building (as fast as I could, having patients in wheelchairs all over the place), and ran to the Polk station, only to see the train leaving! The next train would be in 11 minutes, so I went down and called Uber. It was the most expensive 10-minute ride of my life (which also ended up being 15 minutes because of the insane lunch hour traffic). In the car, I was able to slack the team that I was on my way, and was at my desk three minutes to 1PM, which also allowed me to grab lunch (they stop service on our floor at 1 PM, and I would have no time to go to another floor).
Anyway, everything was great until after “something” was completed, the team stated that they experienced some problems. It took another 2.5 hours to check that it was a false alarm, and I was tired beyond anything imaginable.
Then, I went to LensCrafters. Although I can go without glasses or contacts most of the time now, I still encounter situations where my eyes do not work well together, and I also do not see the stage in the theater with the precision I would like to. We discussed options, and I ordered new glasses. We then tried several combinations with contacts and agreed on the best one. By that time, it was a perfect pre-holiday traffic situation, so I walked to the Red Line, fearing that bus 147 might take forever. When I was at home, it was almost 7 pm. My CSA order had been sitting downstairs for over three hours, but everything except the strawberries had survived! Still, I needed a moment of tranquility, so I pulled on a new (just-delivered!) swimsuit and headed to the beach. It was one of those days when I was especially thankful for living by the beach, just a ten-minute walk away from the sand, and the sounds of the waves, along with a mild, descending sun.
I can’t say that “that was it,” because earlier in the morning, I promised one of our Singapore team members to get online at 9 PM, which I did!
Hettie's Reflections 