Change is hard

Somehow I feel I am pretty much always in a state of dilemma about my job. On one side I think my job sucks, my salary sucks, my company sucks. On the other hand I feel, doing a job switch now would suck too. Change is hard no doubt on that. A new company means new people, new culture probably, new rules, new things that suck (may be less than current company). And of course the fact that you need to prove yourself all over again.
If you are currently thinking of switching jobs, there are certain points which we need to remember. I am absolutely sure that you, the reader would be perfectly aware of these things, but just to get it out of my system I am throwing them on the table,

- You will never be satisfied with your job. You will always feel at some point that your job sucks, and your friend has a better job .
- You will always feel you are being paid less than others.
- Life is way to short to complain about your job.
- Doing frequent job jumps does hurt your loyalty level to some extent, but at least in my industry (Software), my company is my project. If the project sucks, company sucks. Well, there are cases where you can change projects, but I somehow always take the big exit than the small exit.

So... ok. When are you sending that email :).

Happy Programming!

Abhang Rane


Agile or Fr"agile"

Do you follow Agile at your project? Whenever someone asks me this question, I do not have an immediate "YES" or "NO" answer. It goes like ummm... ya we do. Probably I am not fortunate enought (yet) to be under a strict Agilist manager who lays out certain "rules" that the team follows under any and all circumstances. One such rule is the scrum meeting a team has every morning.

Whatever happens a day before, the scrum meeting should be conducted at the same time each day. No exceptions. There are cases where people work late, very late (cough.. Banks cough). If the member is unable to make to office early next day, then he/she should make sure to send their update via mail atleast. But just for that member to attend the meeting, the scrum time should not be altered. It just disturbs the way a agile team member works. Once you get to office, may be check mails, then have the scrum, then get into the zone (or try to get into the zone). Delaying the scrum time causes a ripple effect on stuff that each team member tries to achieve in the day. Just my 2 cents.
So if you are in a team where you are doing something like this, and you can say "NO" to your manager, then please try to make this point.

Happy Programming!

Abhang Rane