Thoughts on Pregnancy - Part 1

So sorry, I haven't been updating my blog. March was a very busy month for me.

My last day of work was actually yesterday. I had to interview, hire and train my replacement, which takes time. During that process, I was frantically trying to get as much done at work (I was working evenings and weekends), and doing a mind-meld with a newbie is time consuming. Yesterday, things were blowing up left, right and centre, but my replacement seemed to handle it well. At least he took it in stride, so I was pretty confident that he could handle the job. I could only sit back and watch in amusement at all the drama everyone else was causing my staff. Ah, I will miss all the work drama.

That coupled with trying to finish off the baby room, it was pretty hectic. Hubby had to put together the crib, the dresser and hang the curtains. But the baby's room is finally ready! At least the baby finally has a place to sleep. I couldn't say that even just two weeks ago. It was nice though, we received a lot of gifts from friends, so that help a bit, especially the clothing.

For a while there, I was worried that the kid wouldn't have enough clothing. While many people have been promising to give us hand-me-downs, I hadn't seen anything come our way. I'm certain that those people will hold true to their promise, but the kid actually needs some clothing as soon as he's born, and not 2 months down the road. Up until the point where I bit the bullet and bought a few more items, I think the kid had a grand total of three outfits. Any parent will tell you that I would have probably gone through that many outfits in one day! I also bought a whole whack load of cloth diapers. Someone gave me a little stuffed animal as a gift, and I'll be using it to practice swaddling, diapering, putting the kid in the infant carrier and into the car seat. So much to get a handle of!

A part of me was a little loathe to be spending so much money in the last three months, and we've probably spent a little more than we should have on some baby stuff, but we're new at this, and I had to keep reminding myself that start up costs always tend to put a dent into any bank accounts financially, no matter how much you try to plan. The trick for me was to figure out what was a need and what was a want. Plus, a lot of experienced moms told me not to buy too much before the baby was born, because things like clothing sizes, colour, and whether or not the baby will like certain toys like swings, will depend on the baby's preferences/fussiness. So it's been really tough trying to figure these things out, but I think we've done okay and haven't overspent too much.

Around my birthday, which was last week, I discovered the one, and only, thing that I found cool about pregnancy: baby hiccups.

Now I knew about the baby's ability to hiccup while in the womb, and it doesn't hurt the baby. However, it didn't even occur to me that my baby was hiccupping until someone asked me last week. Then, that very night, at about 1.30 am, I realised that the rhythmic kicking was actually the baby hiccuping, and not just the baby actively kicking and doing it's darnedest to keeping me awake. I had felt it before, but never had put two and two together until someone pointed it out to me.

I knew where the head and the rest of the body was, and I could actually feel the body jump up and down inside, like most people do when they hiccup. It was actually a neat experience, and I had to wake Hubby up so he can feel too. I think this was the one time that Hubby didn't mind me waking him up.

I want to hire this guy

Mordac rules. Someone at work pointed out that our office managers should hire the cow, he's smarter. I agree.

I had a week from hell, and I knew it would be a week from hell, I just didn't anticipate it would turn out to be something that blew up on the server. The person at work who solved the problem can never leave our group or retire. Seriously. He's not supposed to be doing the low level technical stuff any longer, but quite honestly, he revels in it. I've spent many a late night with him in the past. The man is brilliant. He's been promoted to an Architect level, but doing the low level techie stuff is where his passions really is.

Boss and Employee Articles

As I stumble along the road called Middle Management, I am on the constant lookout for articles that will help me on my journey of being "The Best Boss in the Whole Wide World". While this is a very lofty goal, and realistically, I'd just as well be happy with the title of "A Good Boss", it never hurts to aim high, right? Right?

Anyways, here are a bunch of articles I found interesting, let me know what you think:

Speaking with Integrity - Do the right thing and speak truthfully

How to be a Good Boss - I suck at delegating, but am trying to get better

Common Sense Management

Personality Types - this is how to go about communicating to different personality types. I'd actually learned something similar in my Peer-to-Manager course, but the instructor used slightly different terminology. Fundamentally though, the ideas are the same. Through this exercise, I have sort of figured out how to better communicate with my boss. Now to make sure I can better communicate with the rest of the world. Sigh.

Hack your Boss - What your boss wants or doesn't want. Just as I am a boss, I too have a boss who has expectations of me.

How to Deal with Micromanagers - This is a kick in the butt reminder for me as well as good tips for everyone else. You can't believe the number of times I've caught myself going down the path of micromanaging my employees, and yet for every time I manage to catch myself and stop, I've probably just as many times have micromanaged people. I hate being micromanaged, and honestly, micromanaging others sucks up my time and energy.

Dissatisfaction in the Workplace - It's all about attitude baby!

Get a Great Annual Review - Also a handy way to keep your resume fresh

Truth in humour...

Click on the picture above to see the cartoon in full. This is what I face every day. I've been in every position except customer, so you can understand the frustration of trying to build software for people who can't explain what they want properly, even though they think they are doing an awesome job with explaining it to you. Coupled with the fact that a lot of times the customer doesn't really know what they need, but think they do, and you stay stuck in the first frame indefinitely.

Part of the problem is that the customer wants something built ASAP because that's what they understand. They don't understand that there is a lot of planning, designing, meetings, more meetings, re-designing, even more meetings to get to the last point. It requires a lot of up front work, a lot of documentation, a lot of communication, and very little actual product being coded. They just want something NOW, and usually for a lot less than they should be paying for.

But to be fair, it's not just the customer, it's also those other people in the process who make the same mistakes. Not enough up-front work, they jump into creating something before they really understand what the customer really needs. After all, that's what geeks love to do best. I'm certainly guilty of that.

So for you non-IT folks out there, this cartoon illustrates quite well some the frustrations that we IT folks face. Well sort of. There are also the IT-By-Accident types... (don't get me started!)

Getting a promotion

I found this article a little while ago. I'm wondering who out there is a supervisor/manager type could respond to this. Is what Frank says true?

How about those in the work force? Have you tried any of the suggestions before?

I know that the context is for an IT employee, but I feel that the general idea could be extended to most fields.

Any and all comments welcomed (just please be polite).