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Busy Weeks at Work. But No Travel.
Jun. 14th, 2022 08:47 pmI've been busy at work the past few weeks. I'm hip deep in a pilot project with a prospective customer. "Pilot" means we implement our software in their environment and get a small slice of their process running to prove our value. Once we prove it, they buy a lot of software from us.
I haven't written much about this involved project at work because it... seems boring. Boring to write about, I mean. Yet it occurred to me this week that it was precisely this kind of project that got me writing this blog in the first place! Over on LiveJournal I use the subtitle Tales of a Traveling Wiseguy. Umpteen years ago this blog was about all the travel around the world I did to run pilots with customers.
With this pilot, though, there's a difference: I'm not traveling. 😨 The work days are still long. The IT problems are still the same. The customers I work with are still the same mix of brilliant people, clowns, and assholes— sometimes all in the same team! But the lack of travel makes it seem so much less fascinating.
While the lack of travel makes the job less fascinating, it's also a relief. I'm not spending lots of time just getting there & back. I'm closer to my company's support systems. I work from home instead of in a cavernous office building in an industrial park outside some city. And at the end of the day, even if it's been a 10-11 hour day, I can unplug and be home. I don't have to fake it eating food in a chain restaurant, drinking cocktails in the hotel bar, and Skyping with my spouse 6,000 miles away before going to bed.
Part of me does miss globe-trotting for work. That's the part of me that takes strange pleasure in being squeezed in an airline seat with my knees up to my chin, hurtling through the air in an aluminum tube at 500+ miles per hour with 200 complete strangers. The other part of me is happier knowing that once I close my computer for the day, that's it; I'm home.
I haven't written much about this involved project at work because it... seems boring. Boring to write about, I mean. Yet it occurred to me this week that it was precisely this kind of project that got me writing this blog in the first place! Over on LiveJournal I use the subtitle Tales of a Traveling Wiseguy. Umpteen years ago this blog was about all the travel around the world I did to run pilots with customers.
With this pilot, though, there's a difference: I'm not traveling. 😨 The work days are still long. The IT problems are still the same. The customers I work with are still the same mix of brilliant people, clowns, and assholes— sometimes all in the same team! But the lack of travel makes it seem so much less fascinating.
While the lack of travel makes the job less fascinating, it's also a relief. I'm not spending lots of time just getting there & back. I'm closer to my company's support systems. I work from home instead of in a cavernous office building in an industrial park outside some city. And at the end of the day, even if it's been a 10-11 hour day, I can unplug and be home. I don't have to fake it eating food in a chain restaurant, drinking cocktails in the hotel bar, and Skyping with my spouse 6,000 miles away before going to bed.
Part of me does miss globe-trotting for work. That's the part of me that takes strange pleasure in being squeezed in an airline seat with my knees up to my chin, hurtling through the air in an aluminum tube at 500+ miles per hour with 200 complete strangers. The other part of me is happier knowing that once I close my computer for the day, that's it; I'm home.
