Work

A New MacBook Pro

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My mother in law is fond of saying you don’t know if you don’t ask, or something to that effect.  i don’t always agree with that but most of the times I do.  Earlier this month I asked for a new laptop from work.  I have been without a work laptop since early summer (long story I wont go into).  I have used a desktop I had an my own Macbook Air.  My company allows personal Mac’s on a bring your own support type model.  I was wanting something more powerful than what my Air could provide and I really didn’t want to keep using my personal gear for work.  I researched my options and the Dell developer build laptop they offered was powerful but very big.  I liked the power but I didn’t’ really want to go back to a windows machine.  I looked and noticed i could get a Macbook Air bundle that wasn’t much more than the Dell and it was basically just as powerful.  Since I can do my entire job on a Mac i asked if i could just get one of the new Retina Display Pro’s instead of a Dell.  My boss got approval and said yes i could get it.  I was extremely pleased.

Today the computer arrived unexpectedly early at the office.  I was on vacation but got the tracking information.  I talked with MC and she agreed to let me go in to the office to pick up the computer and come home.  That would allow me to start migrating my stuff off the Air onto the new Pro before I got back to work after the new year.

The Pro is bigger than anything I have had since a 15″ Powerbook, but it was just as heavy as my 13″ Macbook Pro I used to have.  It is much heavier than the Air I had and that will take getting used, however that extra weight comes along with the more ram and much more powerful processor.  Not to mention the bigger screen.  I wont need the bigger screen most of the time but when i am not plugged into a monitor it will come in handy.

First Day Back in The Office

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Today was the first day back in the office since before Sandy.  I got up early since i was concerned about the commute as well as the fact that I had an early meeting.  The trip in to work was fine.  I even got a seat for part of the way.  The guys I work with in NJ didnt fare as well.  Some had 3 hour commutes.

Before I headed home I went to get a hair cut.  That delayed my leaving Manhattan till after 6pm.  I am not sure if that was the reason why the subways were packed, but I had to wait a while for the train and then it was super crowded.  The train also moved a lot slower than normal.  Due to the storm projected to happen tomorrow I am going to work from home tomorrow.  My mom is supposed to come over and watch the baby while MC has a doctor apt.  If she can’t get fuel I want to make sure MC can still go.  Add the storm to the mix and I think its the smart choice to work remote.

Surprisingly Keeping Time Can be Difficult Sometimes

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Recently there was some communication snafu of some kind at work.  No damage was done but it highlighed the point that people don’t always take into account that we work on a global team.  You can’t just say something happened today at 6.  What day? 6AM or PM?  What time zone are we talking about?  Those are all the questions that come to mind when you make a generic statement like that.  After that my boss suggested people set their computer clocks to UTC.  If you don’t know UTC is basically the renamed version of GMT.  Almost everyone dealing with global locations from the military to most major corporations keep time in UTC.  Otherwise scheduling is a nightmare.  Servers, and other devices are already keeping time in UTC, so my bosses suggestion was that we set our local computers time to UTC.  He offered a way you could setup outlook to display two time zones as well so you could see your calendar in local time as well as keep UTC time.  Both were good ideas.  When I used Outlook on Windows I actually did use the two time zone option but apparently that isn’t available on the Mac version of Outlook.

I thought setting your computer clock to UTC was a good idea but would cause other issues when trying to keep time out of work.  The idea did remind me that I had a clock app that i could run and keep in my menu bar that would list out multiple time zones.  Not quite the same thing but it is very useful.  What I ended up doing instead was set my watch to UTC.  I forgot that I had the option to have two time zones on my watch.  The dial hands can display normal local time and I can have the digital display show UTC time.  That minor realization has already paid off a lot when coordinating calls this week durring the big storm.

I have apps on my iPhone and iPad that also help me with world clock calculations.  I do use them often, but instead of having to do the time zone math, thinking in UTC is a big help.  I have written a bit in the past about keeping time in a global team.  I am writing again because of this minor adjustment to using UTC on my watch had a pretty big impact and I am always amazed at something so simple as keeping time actually can be very difficult sometimes.

 

UTC on my watch

Work using UTC for everything

Scheduling meeting and events accross time zones

Surviving Hurricane Sandy

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Like most people in NY & NJ this week has been a bit unreal.  I heard about a possible storm as early as last Wednesday.  It wasn’t until Thursday or Friday when I realized that this wasn’t just any old storm.  My mom was planning a trip to Europe and was going to depart Monday night.  On Friday she was concerned she wouldn’t be able to get out in time.  By Saturday she had canceled her plans.

Saturday afternoon I got brought into my first disaster planning call from work.  Saturday we got a walk in with Teagan and we also went and did some grocery shopping.  We typically order Fresh Direct but when we tried all slots were sold out.

Sunday the weather wasn’t horrible yet but it wasn’t too great.  I only got out to get some formula since we weren’t sure how long the storm would be.  I got lucky at Walgreens and the guy who unlocked the case were the formula was locked up (yes formula in NYC is behind lock and key) pointed out that there was a check out person at the cosmetic counter.  i rushed over there and avoided the 20 or so people at the front check out.  Others quickly found out that trick and I dodged the line.  Most of Sunday was taken up with disaster prep calls.  I had calls every two or three hours all day from 9AM on.

I was going to take a day off Monday to watch Teagan while MC had an appointment.  By Saturday I realized that the appointment would probably be canceled and I would need to be working to make sure we had no issues with the storm.  I was right, the appointment was canceled and I ended up working from home all day.  It was my first day working from home with MC and the baby being home.

Monday night was interesting with the storm hitting.  It was odd that there was no cars on the road.  It was super windy but in this apartment we didn’t really hear it that much. We watched the news briefly but I got most of my news from Twitter feeds.  For real time information durring an incident like this it actually was helpful.  I was following the NYC Mayors office, FEMA, MTA, National Weather Service, Reuters and teh BBC.  I was pretty well informed and didn’t have to watch allot of the sensationalism, fluff or people standing in dangerous stormy areas for no reason.

We were extremely lucky and had no damage at all.  We never lost power and up and down my street I didn’t see any downed trees.  I know there was some damage south of Austin St but nothing near me we could see.  Very lucky is an understatement when my sister is without power, and a cousin’s apartment is totally destroyed.

Tuesday at work was part listing to updates on any affected systems from the storm to trying to find out what was happening with the rest of my team in the NY region.  On top of that I was trying to get normal work done.

Wednsday was a little bit more normal, but half my team in NY/NJ were not working.  No one else on my team had power, but 2 of them were able to get to an office in NJ.  My mom came over to help watch the baby, and MC and I went food shopping since my in laws were coming over.  They lost power Monday and we asked them to come over.  They finally took us up on the offer Wednesday when they still didn’t have power.  Her dad cooked dinner for us all, and they both got to play with the baby.

Thursday I was able to continue to work from home and I tried to get back into a normal routine.  Overall I was able to.  I had several calls in the morning, and then a one on one with my boss in the afternoon.  After that I took off the rest of the day since I wanted to help MC out with Teagan a bit since I had to work Sunday.  My dad called the night before to offer for all of us to come over Thursday night for dinner.  It’s his cooking night and he knew we were hosting MC’s parents.  We all headed over after Teagan’s 4ish feeding.  It was the first time we used the car seat without the base.  It worked generally well.  It was also the first time I used Siri for navigation.  I didn’t really need it since i know how to get to my parents place but I always like having the navigation running.  MC’s dad drove us all over.  We had fish for dinner.  It was a good meal.  Teagan didn’t sleep at all when over there.  I think it may be because of all the grandparents over stimulating her, but what do I know.

When we got home MC’s parents watched the baby as I made formula for the coming day, and MC tried to nap.   I then feed Teagan and just got her down for a nap.  I write this post Thursday night as everyone else sleeps.  I have Teagan up on the Dropcam on my Nexus 7 making sure she still is napping.  MC is in our room trying to nap and her parents are in the living room sleeping.  I am in my office area (aka what should be the dinning room) hoping that this light typing isn’t annoying to anyone.  Watching Teagan on the monitor all warm in her crib sitting in front of a computer with power it reminds me that not everyone was so lucky.  I have friends and colleges without power.  A cousin whose apartment is ruined and doesn’t know when she can move back in, and there are countless other horror stories to go around.  I am glad we came out of this ok, and hope for a speedy recovery or else I will be working from home for a while until they fix the train tunnels.

Moving Day (Again)

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Today is moving day at work. They are doing a very large reshuffle of all the desks on the floor I work on. The goal is to align all the teams to be sitting near each other. In theory this is great, and my wider team will be very close by. The problem for me if you consider the problem is the majority of my team is still not in that office. We thought we would get them moved during this shuffle but it doesn’t seem like that can happen. On the plus side I’m hoping my new desk is an upgrade to where I am now. It is definitely more space than I have now. I also get a window, but that may be a downside and not the positive I think. To put it in perspective I work in Times Square on seventh Avenue. The side of the building I am on looks out onto seventh Avenue, and all the flashing signs. The guy that currently sits there says it really is in a huge deal, but I will know Monday if I will be annoyed or happy by the move.

Since removing the entire floor got evicted at noon today so they can do the work. I’ll be working from home in the afternoon. This we the first time I’ve done that since the baby was born. I’m not sure how that will go over. MC did say she was going to be going to a mommy up with Teagan so they might not even be around.

Besides all of the move excitement today has been a typical day, with no major surprises. Knock on wood, since it’s Friday. Calm Fridays are always a plus.

First Day Back at Work

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Knowing that I can only take a week or so off we wanted to make sure that MC had helped when I went back to work. Her parents were eager to come and spend time with us and the baby. We scheduled it so they would come Tuesday and settle in so I can go back to work on Wednesday. I was very grateful to know that they were both here to help out.

Because I stopped writing for a while after the baby came most of these posts are backdated. I don’t like doing that because I end up forgetting specifics of what I want talk about. My first day back at work is a perfect example of that. I want to write about it, but I really don’t remember much about it other than to say I don’t remember much about it. I know I was tired, I know everyone asked about the baby, and I know I shut off lots of pictures. I did have a lot of email to catch up on. It took me probably two or three days to get up to speed on where everything was with my ongoing projects.

4 Year Anniversary

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Today is my 4 year anniversary working at Thomson Reuters. I almost forgot about it.  Usually Colin reminds me but since I am no longer working with him I don’t recall how I remembered but I know it was here.

Time flies because until today it didn’t really dawn on me that I have been at this job for longer than any job with the exception of Partsearch.

My 4 years broken down in numbers goes as follows.  In 4 years I have managed 3 groups, & 6 products or capabilities.  I have had 3 managers, one for over 3 years and then two changes this year.  I have been in 3 offices, and have moved offices 4 times.  After 4 years I still get energized  a little when walking to the office from the subway, so hopefully there will be more years to come.

Friday September 7th

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Not a huge amount to report that I want to write about publicly on the Internet, so I wrote a private blog post. I work from home today because I needed to have some scheduling flexibility. Thankfully in the end I didn’t need it, but it’s good to know it’s available when needed.

I ordered takeout sushi for lunch today. I was also able to play a little bit with Cisco and jabber. One of the guys at work and I tested to make sure that it functions and I can receive chat messages when the app is closed on my iPhone and iPad. It will be pretty cool when we all start using it.

We do not have any specific plans yet for this weekend. We are hoping to be pretty low key, since the baby is due Tuesday. Depending on how MC feels we might get a dinner out one night. Other than that it’s vegging and making sure we get anything we need to do around the apartment done.

Desk Reconfiguration

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At work I have had 5 monitors on my desk.  Let’s not argue the necessity of five monitors. It is a bit excessive. That is why I’ve been thinking about downsizing for a while.  At the time the setup made sense, and I had the equipment on hand so I figured why not.  Recently however my desk is been slightly cramped, and I found myself using my third computer significantly less.  This set up started when I got a new 27 inch display for my laptop.  It was a great needed addition since the extra real-estate is used and I blow text up a lot.  With that addition I had the two 19″ monitors I was using for my Macbook Air free to move to my Mac Mini that I use.  I have that machine mainly to sit on the guest wifi network to do Skype video chats with far flung staff.  I can use Skype on the internal network but it never seems the same.  The 15″ monitors (2 of them) I was using for the Min went towards a Dell desktop I have that I run a specific work app on.  I can run it in a VM but on my older Macbook Air the VM was starved for memory.  Now i may revisit the need for that machine but i like having a dedicated Windows machine around even if I dont use it often.

Since I wasn’t using the windows machine a lot I gave away the 15″ monitors and just have the Dell desktop plugged into one of the Mini’s 19″ monitors.  They take DVI & VGI so I created  poor mans switcher for the monitor.  Longer term i will probably just RDP to that machine.  Surprisingly 3 monitors is not uncommon at work.  Some people even have 4 but i was a bit out there with the 5.

Now I have space on my desk that you can actually see my wedding & engagement photos.  Now isn’t that whats important?

Maybe Out From Under The Blockers

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This week it work has been stressful because I am under a deadline that is coming due next month to deliver some software and we had several items that have been blocking us from progressing most of our tasks. This is not uncommon but it’s a big deadline and things just have been progressing slowly so I have gotten concerned. Thankfully early this morning to the major issues seem to of been resolved and the third was clearing up. That means a lot of other items that have been kind of in limbo are now able to proceed.

We’re not out of the woods but I just feel better that we pushed some items aside that of been haunting me all week. I think I’ve mentioned that this deadline has been more stressful than most just because I’m going to most likely be away when MC has the baby right when it’s coming due. That means I need to make sure that everybody else’s up to speed and doing what’s needed and I have to be able to just walk away at a moments notice. My boss and I have a plan for my absence, but it still doesn’t make me any less uneasy with all that’s going on.

I’m glad I’m able to start wrapping up the week before holiday weekend on a positive note. Now just one more day until the weekend!