Today was a bit of an odd day for me, but I keep reminding myself this job is so different than any other I've had that most things would still feel odd after only 7 days.
I was reassured of this during lunch with my new friend Sandra, who had actually been on my interview panel. She asked me last week if I'd like to have a "lunch-time visit," so we met over Teams for the first 30 minutes of the 12-o'clock hour and just chit-chatted. The number one thing I missed about working in an office (and that I was apprehensive about losing by working from home) was the interpersonal relationships built by being co-located. Having this lunch-time visit was a balm for that. She's been a mob programmer at Hunter for years now, so she's been helpful in normalizing this experience I'm having.
I keep forgetting that I really do get to work from home from now on. I don't have to worry about a theoretical office re-opening being scheduled and re-scheduled, the questionable inevitability of returning to a shared office. I'm working from home. My house is my workplace. I get to make that work for me.
Today it was announced that a friend of mine from a networking group - actually, the one who put together the lightning talks on resilience in tech yesterday! - will be visiting Hunter tomorrow. I'm really excited to see another person get to learn what mobbing can be like. I think she'll be joining my mob for the visit, too!
We had the second session of our AWS training today, which I appreciated but struggled to follow. I always find working with AWS to be confusing, because there are so many things! Have you seen that AWS Services drop-down at the top of the page? Today I learned about EventBridge, CloudWatch, Kinesis Firehose, S3 buckets, AWS Step Functions, something called SAM with a chipmunk logo - and don't forget all the associated lingo, like events, messages, event buses, rules, SNS, and who knows what else I forgot. Actually, I realize that I do know about S3 buckets, but there was so much going on in the session I forgot that I did!
I couldn't focus much during the class and could not complete the exercises during the time allotted.
With a few meetings tomorrow, then the conference on Thursday and Friday, I already feel like I won't have very many more hours of programming with the mob this week. That's okay. I'm really eager for Friday afternoon, and the opportunity to try to level up my Angular and rjxs knowledge. Like yesterday, I continue to feel more comfortable wielding the computer keyboard when I am driving. While its maybe not quite like a bicycled, the knack for assembling logic is coming back to me.
We talk about why it takes courage to program in a mob, or give feedback of any sort, but I'm not sure if we talk enough about why it does - the mutual vulnerability between driver/navigator or evaluator/evaluated that is required for either to evolve. Ideally, in settings like this, giving feedback can be as transformative as receiving feedback. There is always room for growth, but every tiny step of growth is hard-fought and well-deserved, no matter how small a step it seems. Every tiny shred of insight I offer to my mob is so satisfying.
While this experience at Hunter is different than any other job I've had, I see the contrast is most stark when compared to my prior job. I'm on camera less. I'm using my brain more. I'm out on a limb more. I'm learning more technical things in the last week than I've needed to in the last year. I have less responsibility than my last job, yet somehow also more responsibility. I have core working hours to observe, but no responsibility for the calendar. I get to be a member of a team instead of outside of it. Even with all the positives of this change, change is still change - and change is difficult for mere mortals such as ourselves.
I'll admit it, I was in a low mood today. Instead of panicking about it, I took a break to let the mood pass - then, when it did, I did more work on the AWS training like I had planned. That's a success.