Why I quit my job

I've been asked this so many times in the last few months. Nobody actually reads this blog, so I am sure I'll be asked a dozen more times, "Why did you quit ?"

Energy and focus. It's not something individuals can provide, the fuel for a team comes from elsewhere most of the time, and when things got wrong and that disappears, it's not going to go well.

 A corporate restructure when I was once working at a large IT firm had the same effect, and people just start leaving when that happens, well, that's a part of the reason. Because when energy and mission are not there, it normally means the product is not profitable and a even bigger restructure is in the wings. Not looking at cost-to-build the thing kinda grinds me at a "is this for real" level and gets worse the bigger the company. Energy doing the wrong things can also be bad, lots of wrong things were done, but for me, I was not getting the energy or optimistic vision I need.





There are 2 other contributing reasons for my leaving outside of morale and feeling driven; focus and competency.

Focus is something a development team have when they are all building the same thing and with the same goal in mind. An easy way to do this is to look at the constraints, what can we not do and what must we always do are product rules to live and die by. Stepping outside of a constraint, really is failure for the project. Typical constraints might be speed, size, market or just simply size of the device. Being focused on constraints sets up a common language around the cost of building things, engineers are really bad at looking at the cost. It also prevents the priority from shifting about randomly aka "Who moved my cheese"

Competency, this is me really. When I find I'm just not learning how to use the tools quickly enough, or getting enough of the job done, I feel unqualified. I think this is easy to do when you are trying to be all things to everyone, and not only be great at just one thing. If you are prone as I am to going down the rabbit hole, then exposing yourself to a really large system makes that rabbit hole problem so much more of a hurdle. If I'm on a learning track that is too high level or too low level and am not making visible progress, it's my prerogative to feel I am failing. Failing to play my part.
Well that's it, really, low motivation in a system where the energy is at a low already and the important thing keeps shifting around. I don't think I am able to learn as quickly as I used to do; that really knocks your confidence and miss-directs you.
Under it all, I am finding myself trying to define my place as an introvert in the workplace, for years I have made a lot of concious behaviour changes to break the introvert mould that forms around you. Ultimately this "concious behaviour" puts a stress on you in small ways you cannot imagine until you find the space to go and look at yourself properly. Next time I post, I'll be talking about a few other things I have gotten wrong over the years and more recently too. However, quitting this job was not a mistake, it was getting in the way of me being happy at all. If this is you, watch and learn from Susan Cains TED talk  : "The power of introverts" .

Last Day

Today is my last day at Citrix.
What shall I say after 7 years, lets compose ourselves, I have a severance package, and some clauses, which pretty much says, "be nice, and we will be nice".
For me , today says, "the wheel turns".
This last year has been more about people and process than about software engineering sadly, although one positive process thing was learning a lot of agile. I tried to learn some Java and Angular this year, but that's another story, and as evidenced today, was pointless.

It's been a good ride though, in the previous 6 years, I learned a new programming language, two actually if you count my rubbish Python, which really is more ropey than snake. I learned about virtualisation, that changing tools can happen many times in a year, and that testing, is not checking!

I learned to drink beer, and that more than a pint of beer does not like me the next day. I know I will meet some ex Citrites in the future, just like I have me many ex Symbianites since those doors closed 8 years ago, so do keep the connection open your end. I am really looking forward to working with software that is a bit closer to real hardware again, and more focused on delivering one thing. I suppose I never really got the hang of working in large companies, Symbian and Citrix for me feel so large and mechanical as places to work, where the daily email barrage is a relentless un-necessary distraction that communicates no true message in the end. I hope, email is a thing we fix in future. Even Slack , fixes nothing in reality. And while in that basket, nor did Skype fix anything. The lesson there, keep your head down, probably my greatest flaw.

Signing out
Z

(Starting a contract position at Displaylink in January, well chuffed.)

Sponsor please : I'm braving the cold 2 help Syrian Refugees

So here is the backstory first.
I live in a small village in Cambridgeshire, and since many of us felt the refugee crisis touch us we decided to mobilise in a big way. The usual committees formed and some people went off to set up cake sales and other events. We planned a different fundraiser for almost every month of the year, but I pooh pooh'ed the cake and coffee things and aligned with a plan to do something more radical. Something that would show that we cared for Syrians impacted by the war. By sleeping under the stars. Well, I did not realize that by the time we got organised mid-winter would be upon us.

It does not seem to have stopped 12 of us who will sleep out (admittedly under canvas) with no facilities or support for 2 nights on the village green. It's not really sheltered and will probably be noisy. I don't count on getting much sleep nor being able to feel my toes in the morning. Most of us are not real campers, so it's going to be a cold one.

Click on this link to register your donation http://goo.gl/forms/5sHDLx7ak4
I'll be accepting preferrably cash; cheques made out to Cottenham Cares , or Paypal online payments

All moneys go to MSF and Save the Children Syria .
Please fill in this form with as much or little information as you like, which I'll keep secret. But would also make it easier to collect cash and importantly thank you for your sponsorship.

More Events

Cottenham Cares have a host of other events planned, a golf tournament, a Ceilidh (which is apparently a dance) and quizz nite are already in planning. During the summer, we plan to support other initiatives, to find out more please visit and like our Facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/CottenhamCares/

Fundraiser progress update

I only started raising on Wednesday and I'm standing at £175 thanks to pakshivaandytomcaroline . I'm targeting £400

ISIS are not terrorists

Think about it for a second. ISIS, IS, Taliban, Daesh are not your traditional terrorist organization. I'm against the bombing of Syria for this reason. I'll explain in a second, my rationale, so let me throw some background.

A terrorist is someone who uses fear, guerilla tactics and bombs directly to accomplish a goal in a situation that often includes civil war. Activities are normally limited to one country or a region, since the terrorist accomplishes little by travelling far from home. And there is the key, the ISIS goals are not to resolve civil war, but rather - to create it. Starting with the Arab spring as the source of civil unrest, the IS militants just drop in to further destabilize. A bit like mercenaries, who pop up wherever regular forces are not making progress at the time. It's a low cost operation with lots of bang for your buck (literally) and that's the other key - funding.

IS funding is a completely separate blog post I think, I'll continue instead. So when we rush in and bomb IS in order to stop them killing off more groups like the Yazidis, we just give them a platform. They are a lot more organised than we think and although we stop them from killing innocents through a bombing campaign, we don't really fix the problem. It's laudable to stop the killing of innicents, do not get me wrong. But terrorists are normally not lawfull. Two rights do not make a wrong in their books.

Bombings cut supply lines, sure, but they also cause people, civilians to leave the area. We call them refugees, IS cell members are able to secretly mingle with these refugees and travel more freely than normally as a result. Where do they go? Oh, I'm sure they know, and David Cameron knows where they want to go, or does he? Well there you have it, bombing just pisses people off, it might save lives, but it plays into their hands... something we keep on doing it seems.

Proniunciation on Govt spending cuts

Govt is not responsible for jobs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10426714.stm : WE ARE! I moved house, so did my grandad, over 8000 miles. WAKE UP!
Hey just because I am not entitled to benefits in the UK does not mean I have a reasonable opinion on this matter at all, so if you are faint of heart, please click here www.disney.com now.

Ok, the intro. and public safety anouncement over, let's take our seats, or should I say thrones for the onion awards once again. I just listened to some people who clearly are so lost that they are afraid to lose their homes if they move elsewhere to find work. I think admiral Nelson might call them lilly livers, but I have a less harsh pronunciation over the council housing estates... simply poor schools. I have traced back most of western society problems to a wave of miss-guided education policy from the 1970's and 1980s. Just look it up and you will see how true it is, I mean they must have scrapped classes in home economics, because nobody can ballance their credit cards, and we all blame the bankers for it... schools also failed to teach history properly over the same period, (In South Africa we wasted too much time on a guy called 'Jan', and then how thousands of people got slaughtered in one day in a battle which later got commemorated as a holy day, yes that was evil), but in europe, we totally screwed up history teaching. I mean they forgot to mention the industrial revolution in class somehow, maybe because it meant people of low education or skills suffered when machines took over. Maybe they forgot to teach about how man has constantly roamed the face of the planet for almost 5000 years, and it's the roaming, and not staying stuck in council houses that got shipbuilders mobilised, created a invincible navy, got coal extracted from the ground, and finally built a economy to be proud of in a land one can be proud of. I have one thing to say to number 10 : "David, do not give us jobs nor food, instead teach us how to feed ourselves."
I'm just a grumpy old man now, pride does not feature for me now : maybe I should just stay where I am and wait to die.

New year resolution

How many people have you given dignity this Christmas? It's a rhetorical, so I'm leaving it there.

Blog clean-up

Having decided to work a bit on my networking skills, here is another of the series of auto-posts. Auto-posts are detected by looking at the post-time, the minutes are set to 00, and I type them up, and trigger them usually a day or two hence, to post when I'm nicely warm in bed sleeping.

I've also added more widgets to my blog - but have a question now about audience and focus.

Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house, not a creature was stirring. not even a mouse...

It is probably the most exciting time of year for children. this year was pretty good because it has been snowing up to Christmas, the snow has all melted now, but that does not change the white Christmas feel. In fact I'm not sure a frost feast-day is all that great a deal. before someone comes out in Grinch mode, we will just clarify, it's Scrooge mode this year, although the boys are not that hard done by in the end. This year there is just not a 'big-ticket' present under the tree for each of them.


I have gotten out quite cheaply too, all I have is a Mr Men coffee mug - appropriately it's the Mr grumpy character. I hope that's not a predestination.

Pray for Schools

Wouldn’t it be great if every local school was a prayed for school!

Pray for schools is an evening to encourage such a vision! So whether your a parent, student, or staff member. Church, children, or youth leader, please join Christian Resources Into Schools, Ely Diocese, Scripture Union, WCCYM and Cambridge & District YFC for a special night of inspiration.
http://www.cambridgeyfc.com/prayforschools
Pray for Schools - Friday 22nd January 2010

For those who are in the area:
St Bede’s School
Birdwood Road,
Cambridge
7.45-9.15pm (Coffee from 7.30pm)


3 web based resources to ignite and inspire:
Bible engagement - www.wordlive.org
School clubs and groups – www.schoolslive.org
Sunday groups – www.lightlive.org

What matters now

Free e-book, download it here off Seth's blog .
OK, so you are selling me another free book, I think without even asking the question I am asking more. So I'll share a bit about Dignity (this was my TFTD a week ago by some co-incidence), nothing spooky going on.
"Dignity is more important than wealth. It’s going
to be a long, long time before we can make
everyone on earth wealthy, but we can help people
find dignity this year (right now if we choose to)."

Go ahead, download it, I dare you to rush this.

Rest in Peace

Life is fragile, we get reminded of this all the time. Every few years, someone I knew passes on to the next life, it's not a light moment at all. Paul Geng was always energetic, the communicator, and the do'er. He will be missed by more than a few. At least he did not leave things over till tomorrow, that much I know. Go, in peace.

article: http://www.flyafrica.info/forums/showthread.php?p=181949

Hats and tipping

Today is a thing about hats, hats are a passion for some, but for me, a hat is a literary device.
My first hat device is almost 4 years old now, it's called "throwing your hat across". The bestway to cross a river with no bridge is to throw your hat across first. It guarantees you have a solid motive for crossing, and although appearing foolish it is a kind of contract too.

We could get all technical about the hat, but motive is the means, and motive is something we can trust in (our legal system appears to do so at times). Oh Tipping,... yes I got another tip today - I think I will spend it all on registering an internet domain, part of my next venture into the wild world of open-source.
If you think suddenly he's insane, please visit www.plcsimulator.org , and click on the donate button - either that or send me a new hat, mine is getting soggy.

Spam phone call

A female voice says "...you have won a trip to the Caribbean.
If you would like to hear more about your holiday, please press 1"

If you do, it just rings with no answer.

The number source is 0019515455076 - and we seem to get one every now and again (every few weeks) barring un-disclosed ID callers (I set this up recently) has definitely dropped the number of idiot calls we get. BTW, registering with the TPS is a waste of time.

[edit] The number to call is 1471, in order to hear who it was that called you up last [/edit]
Another junk call this (4-Dec) morning 02031891150, caller just hangs up immediately.

Sanity for sale

Maclaren are recalling childrens strollers in the US after more than a dozen children had their findertips removed. A mum over here in the UK is rightly angry, and I sympathize fully. But then again I can only wonder how many children have had function loss after getting a whole knuckle trapped in a door jamb - child-friendly and many public places now have hinge covers fitted for this reason.

The world is a dangerous place, but right now the greatest risk to my mental health stems from being jobless because of some ass-covering bankers and accountants.

Programming STDERR

It's frustrating when you want to get something to work, and nobody's solution fits. I had already gotten quite far on a problem and had it almost done when I found this neat solution to the problem of piping error messages sent to STDERR to a file on MSDN.

I needed to either write a huge perl-script(and without a debugger that's a cramp) or reidirect the stderr and stdout from a static code analysis tool called splint so that I can gather statistics on any dodgy lines of 'C' code.
Why a beer? Well that's a celebration of a slight change in the wind. Where it will go is probably nowhere, but it's a change nonetheless.

/edit
Returning to the redirecting of standard error and pipes, the downside it the default pipe-buffer size, in fact although you can easily increase the pipe buffer size, we all know a huge buffer is in-efficient. You see, unlesss you can empty a smaller buffer in the background while the child-process is filling it, the child will get blocked if it tries to overflow the buffer. A very bad thing, normally solved by spawning a thread to process and empty things while you wait for the child to terminate. I hate and love threads, so forgoing a complex solution, I solved this by simply waiting 100ms for the child to terminate, and then emptying the stream buffer in between by polling using WaitForProcess(). It appears to solve the problem, but exactly how?.... because someone has to close the stream in order to detect the end and not get blocked yourself in the parent waiting for a read on a dead stream?
As it so happens, the parent can happily close it's copy of the redirected stream handle and then keep reading from the duplicate knowing all will unblock when the child terminates (because the handle closes in the child when it does so). Problem solved.

It often looks too far away to even work

It was said Goliath could throw his spear half the length of a football field, so that's probably how far David was from him. Furthermore, Goliath had body armour protecting him from head to toe, except for a small opening between his eyes and his forehead. That's what David aimed for.

It is possible to fall off

Solid proof that it is possible to fall off. To be sure that's not all I have fallen off recently.

In other unrelated news, I have fallen off the social ladder by staring at unemployment. This is the first time ever for me that things are not my own choice; so how do we take it? I suppose we could talk about hope, we could talk about prayer, we could talk about humility.
Maybe all it means is time to clear out the closets, air the loft and start anew. Bad thing happen to bad people, bad thing happen to good people, even to great people. God lets sh%t happen all the time, I mean He let stuff like life and intelligence and self-awareness happen. He let random subatomic particles happen too, I don't do that stuff at all tho.
Time to get the shovel out and find work because I expect I have only got a few more weeks of real motivating work still to do. I hope it's not so, but due to the lack of respect held by some people in suits, I now shall have a chance to get to the loft.

Hey if that was glum!
My mum is coming to stay with me next month. maybe I will let her hold the camera, which I so closely guard every time we go out so as not to monopolize every photographic composition. (grin)

999 and Facebook Apps

The sticker that means my house could blow up due to a gas leak on 10/10/10 and it would be my fault.

FaceBook Flood
Do you have millions of friends on facebook? I find I am staying in contact with a lot of people I would never have, and in so far it creates a way of publicly meeting with folk I know - but Facebook Apps (the advertising/Commercial side of FB) are invading my time, every day I have to brown-down at least one person by ignoring a request to install a virtual vaccum-cleaner or aquarium. Every home needs a vacuum cleaner, but it's like ice cream, fun - but not achieving anything more than a environment to chat a little longer.
So if I dont' respond to your Pokes, Bloody Marys or Bacarat, it's because I'm busy cleaning up a desert island oil-slick, not offense meant nor taken.

Just wondering

Hey, I was just wondering about what happened to all the kids who are turning 40 around now who came from a small southern african coastal town, and how many have been blown to the four winds of adventure or circumstance.
I mean, how many have stayed behind. Those who have not, why have we moved, and is our generation especially mobile today or not really.

NHS (My first run-in)

It all is a bit of apprehension to start with, the system is slow (under-resourced), but the staff at Addenbrooks and Ely were really great, comfortable/reassuring. The once thing that worked for me after having a general anesthetic, was not having a really bad tummy feeling like I want to bring-up afterwards. It's never nice having someone open you up, but in reality you can probably do lots of research on orthroscopy type jobs beforehand using this great 'internet' tool.

I think that the NHS funding is being wasted on procedures that are elective more than necesary, people with drugs/smoking and fertility should pay their own way- this sounds harsh, but the system is opened to more abuse as a result. A hospital stay for instance is a much less stuffy affair than it may have been in the past, and 'hypo' people probably like to use the system to get a pick-me-up. I am glad that the system is going more digital - something like to pitching up for a appointment for instance is another abuse which rightly should show that either the reminder never whent out, or you are a forgetful soul or worse still an abuser.
If I have one suggestion for the day-clinic it would be to give people an extra half-hour to get re-aquainted with reality post-op. - otherwise it was a perfect process for me.
I wrote this 2 hours after waking, so please excuse the grammar.