Baltimoremick.com

The last nine days have been quite busy on all fronts. I finally have some time to relax and cogitate over what has been happening over the last week or so.

Work

My place of employment has–happily–kept me busy over these last nine days. While keeping the same tasks I have had since taking my contract position with Constellation back in September, I have been moved to a different unit. The rationale behind this move is primarily the change of what brought me here. The project I was working on has gone into production. As a result, the need to operate in project mode has changed, and the focus is now on production support. As a result, I and some of my colleagues have moved to this new group, with a new direct manager and a new location.

Last Friday, my new manager was having face-to-face meetings with everyone, as he is also new to the position (but not the company). We had a good meeting, sharing some background information on one another, outlining my current tasks and responsibilities, and discussing my future career directions. In this meeting, he outlined how we would operate, under an organization structure that he has come devised. Additionally, at this meeting we discussed converting me from a contractor to an employee–something I have wanted to do when taking this position. He also mentioned–not quite public–that he wanted me to be one of the team/functional leads for the one of the groups he had in his new organizational chart. I agreed and admitted that it was the next logical step in my professional evolution. It’s a return to management for me, in a small way, but it’s also pretty exciting. I also have to admit that I like working with this group–both the managers and the staff are pretty good people–and I think I will fit in pretty well.
On top of all of this logistical and professional going-ons, I was tasked with some problem management as part of my new group. Specifically, I had to manage the resolution of a problem that arose following the DST change on 9 March. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, as I was essentially coralling disparate email threads, gathering more information on the problem, and organizing the solution to the problem. The solution was actually quite easy. The larger issue revolved around making sure the fix did not break anything else and getting everyone on the same page about it. Finally, when managing something like this, it became a task just to separate the actual reports coming in from different people–what was actually related to the problem and what was not related to the problem. We finally wrapped up the problem mid-day Wednesday, coordinated the formal announcement on Thursday afternoon, and addressed any straggling concerns on Friday morning.

After this was done, I received all sorts of praise with which I was uncomfortable. I have never taken compliments very well, and in this case I thought the praise was really undeserved. I was really acting as a traffic cop, and I just stayed on top of people until I got responses back as to what was going on. I was personally annoyed that it took as long as it did to resolve, as I hate problems that linger for no other reason than bureaucratic morass. In the end, though, I suppose praise such as this is good.

Personal

Socially speaking, last weekend was fun. My friends were in town from Michigan for the St. Pat’s Day weekend. Of course, with them coming to town, it was time to celebrate. It began Friday after I went to a Pigtown Festival fundraiser. We were at Capt. Larry’s until close, and I was able to see some folks who do not hang out with us regularly.

On Saturday, we decided to get back into the fray by starting with Bloody Mary’s over noon brunch at Mother’s, basketball and beers at Muggsy’s, more beers at Cross Street Market, and more beers as we traveled along on our own downtown Baltimore bar crawl that ended in Fells Point. After the end, we returned to Capt. Larry’s. Apparently, I did not have enough to drink and decided to join my friends for some drinks in Pigtown, ending with a night-cap at my house in the wee hours of Sunday morning. For the rest of Sunday, I was stuck in neutral. I was pretty tired after that binge, and I met up for a couple of beers in the afternoon and called it a day. On Monday, however, I was right back off the wagon. I started my traditional St. Patrick’s Day celebration at 8:30 AM, going around to a few different bars in the neighborhood. I finally called it an evening at 7:30 PM, going home to relax and get ready for work.

It is after this weekend that I learned that I just do not have the constitution I had when I was younger to have a weekend like this and be functional for the week. On Wednesday, I was a lot better. Nonetheless, I am in definite detox mode for a while. I had a great time with my friends, but I learned that I (and we) just cannot pull off benders quite the way we used to anymore.

So there you go: an update on the regularly normal and none-too-exciting life of JJT.