weekly notes - wk 29 / 2024

Traveled to Melbourne, Australia for work for a week. It was my first time to Australia. It was a coincidence of events that led to it. Helping someone out of the blue in first days of 2024 that might have led to a trip to Australia at the time, but didn't. Some goodwill from that episode and others helped to lead to something else. I hope this further results in a positive outcome. 

A new country for me. While I had some notions about Australia, through documentary of their women's football team (Matildas), hearsay, perceptions about Australia cricket team and such, it all changes or clarifies to a different picture once I visit. Vast country, much bigger than India, but less people than Kerala, large Indian and Chinese contingent of immigrants, quick weather changes, closeness to Antartica, stories about dwarf Penguins coming back in the evening at an island beach, wild fires, short days in the end of winter, a city with its high rises quite same as any other metros, coffee culture, lots of restaurants and Australian Football which I found to be weird. It was mostly hotel and office for me as it happens in these work trips. It was cold too. 

Culture of even our own work changes from country to country, depending on what customers there expects. While we Indians stretch the boundaries of work ourselves, here it was friendly, easy going, people who enjoy life and respectful.  

I had been largely thinking and discussing with others on similar topics that are in my mind for few weeks or months - decline of project management competency, software delivery struggling everywhere to meet timelines and quality, reluctance to take ownership, ripple effects of great resignation still, slow change and bureaucracy in IT. Like old generation complaining about the new, we lamented about lack of responsibility from the new generation, rate of growth of people in earlier days, about 5 year of setback in career trajectory of people, bad bosses and culture in some places vs emulating role models in other places.  

weekly notes - wk 28 / 2024

 

1.

I had been in this situation before. Getting bored with a format of writing. It is not writer’s block. I used to write an email to my team every Monday, with whatever was on top of my mind the previous week. I did that over a year or so and then stopped - felt like I am repeating myself, have said everything I wanted to say, that whether anyone would get any more value out of that or that I am forcing myself to stick to that schedule and it should be more natural than that, not a chore. The same is happening to these weekly notes already. I couldn’t get out of the slump that I got into. I think one way out could be to change the format, so trying that from now. I know the cure is to keep going, one step at a time.   

2.

It is raining here, almost all the time. I think of these days as apocalyptic - dark all the time, rain falling with the noise of a train. It is also the perfect mood for a tea, feet up, something philosophical to read and wonder about something that seems a new insight in that moment. It is the kind of day and time I want to remember forever, if possible to bottle it and store away somewhere. Maybe these are the words that will help me remember such days and the feeling in the moment.  

3.

the saddest thing is when you watch a movie, read a book, or listen to a song, and you have no one to talk about it with.

— Sabrina (@neu_rot_ic) July 14, 2024

I guess it should be the ones that expand our understanding of the world bit by bit, so much so that over the years we change for the better. If those books, movies or songs and our interpretation of it can be clarified by talking it out loud with someone and we change together, all the better. Like a word I came across today in connection with the Spanish football team that won the Euro cup yesterday. “cuadrilla” - a Basque word for a group of mates who stay together for life. Similar to another word it reminded me of - Moai, a Japanese, about a group of lifelong friends, a social support group that forms in order to help us throughout life in many ways. 

4.

I guess this blog is one such forum for the quirky things that I come across. One such is the movie, Happy-Go-Lucky. It is around a bubbly, chirpy, good natured person who tries to brighten the moments of the people she encounters. It is diametrically opposite of how I am around people, unless it is someone on the same wavelength. But I admire such people in real life - the ones who can take disappointment in their stride, who won’t get riled up by angry people but rather think it is the result of something they suffered in their lives and hence should sympathise with. Like her reaction when she finds out her bicycle was stolen, remarking she couldn’t say goodbye to it or when her cheerful remarks were met with silence or indifference on the other side, waving it away with a joke. It must be difficult to be sunny all the time, without suffering for it in other ways. Something to try still. 

5. 

It is a Linkedin meme now, about sharing life lessons from any random event. Even the shooting at the Trump rally yesterday. But I can’t help but think about lessons from football. I had been watching the Euros for the last month or so. About nice guys, value of humility vs arrogance, whether one should have an outsized belief in one’s ability to be extraordinarily successful, about when a group of people fight for each other with everyone being equal, winning with stars vs winning with hardworking committed people who are having fun, value of preparation and systems, working with youngsters and finding the next stars, hard task of shutting out the deafening noise of criticism and complaints, going back to the basics, developing a system, having a unique philosophy or understanding of the world, visible cohesion or a group, developing a new theory for something that is hundreds of years old, stamping a unique imprint in a group of people who all believe in the same thing and more. In the end, it is 20 people running after a ball, but making it a model to think about life is interesting thought exercise. 

6. 

I need to write more, to lift some more brain fog. Problems I still grapple with. Interesting connections I see among things. To make sense out of it. Problems such as how to judge people more correctly the first time, trusting gut feel, but still creating checklists to avoid the mistakes made. How is it that despite decades of work, there is an inadequate supply of great people in certain positions and what should I do differently to develop them more. About the need to go back to the basics of software development to fix some mess. About needing to figure out if it is a new normal post covid that is creating stress. About running the rat race vs slow living - whether such thoughts are due to age. The whole meaning of life, purpose and what I really want out of it. It is a tall order to figure out.

weekly notes - wk 27 / 2024

It is going to be one month since some of my routines were broken. I hadn’t gone for a walk/run for a month, didn’t read much till this past weekend and didn’t feel like watching any movies. When I get into such a slump, I typically clean up everything. It gives a feeling of starting from a clean slate. It has been the way since childhood - when life is a mess, cleanup the surroundings. Fold clothes, vacuum clean the house, pay attention to personal hygiene, clean up the todo lists, emails, open tabs in the browser, make new resolutions. It gives the feeling of starting over. 

While passing over some things, I saw the name of someone who I said thank you to on social media for sharing good music. She had passed away during covid and it was a shock even though it was nearly a stranger to me. I have the last text sent to a friend asking how he is doing before he passed away. For a long period of time, people leaving with that kind of finality was not on my mind. People move away to other cities or countries for jobs and while farewells are painful, we know they are there somewhere. Being young (in my mind, I never aged after college, until recently), death was a faraway concept. There is a threshold that one crosses when one does the rituals for a family member. It is real now, not a distant concept. I guess it is still possible to think that they are there somewhere though.