Writing and Appreciation
I've been out from work ill this week with an irritating virus. Considering that I've emerged victorious from 3 surgeries in the last year I believe I deserve a break from all airborne illness, but I digress. Stay away from others who I could infect gives me the perfect opportunity to take this entire weekend and get my technical paper on reducing test case bloat to a reviewable state so I can goof off next weekend instead of working furiously towards the deadline and falling asleep on my laptop risking getting drool into the keyboard like last year (ick), now that I've said that I want to sanitize my poor laptop.
I just attended a tech talk on virtualization (cloud computing in particular) and it energized me so much. Then I got my detailed assignments for next week and after a moment's panic realized, YES, I CAN do this now. While I'm so happy I wanted to write it out. Here is it.
Reasons I'm Thankful
1. The opportunity to learn has never been more apparent than at this time in my career and the work of mentors has made it possible.
2. My boss and Ajay J all working so hard so my team has a good build to go. They listen, they act, they make it happen.
3. My co-worker Chris for giving a Java class and being so patient. I'm learning and having some moments now where I don't HATE coding. Having a good teacher helps so much, and being able to work on building skills over weeks rather than in 2 days works much better for how I learn.
4. My team for being able to take over so that our team goals don't ever fall apart if I'm not there. I'm so proud of them and I believe there is nothing they can't do or learn. They amaze me and I am proud of how resilient and professional they are under pressure (which everyone IN test has been this year, in fact everyone in the country has been). How someone acts when things are rough shows their true character more than just how they behave during a good economy when budgets are plush.
5. My Action Script is improving! This is going to sound so silly, but for the first time ever, I'm assigned Action Script code to write next week and I'm excited about it! After doing just 3 lessons of Java I'm feeling less intimidated by having some scripting on my plate that I get to do, and if I run into trouble I can scale down, but if it goes well (and when I'm happy things tend to), I'll add some really cool visuals which will be so fun!
6. I have joined our Wiffle Ball Team, and while it's likely I'll be mostly a backup player until I get more experience, just the fact that I'm in good enough health finally to join any sport for fun? That is amazing.
7. Virtualization continues to make testing more fun and is a huge advantage for collaborative testing!
8. Having my abstract selected for PNSQC makes me so happy and I appreciate the chance to have my paper reviewed and possibly published. Just the chance to improve my writing skills means so much to me.
9. Craig got hired internally at his company rather than laid off and I'm so thankful he has a job he loves that he started this week.
10. Despite concerns at the low value some people place on the work that I do, above all I'm thankful that I'm passionate about it and feel great about how it is going right now. Taking what we did in the past and adding 2 other layers to it that compliment the goal of the first one I think give us more flexibility. I still love the first method the most, because of the collaboration aspect.
The last reason is my final thought I guess. There is only one thing worth being an "expert" in, and that is learning. What is important in the technology industry changes fast, but those who are experts in learning aren't too invested in one thing. Broad knowledge combined with fast learning means more job flexibility.
I just attended a tech talk on virtualization (cloud computing in particular) and it energized me so much. Then I got my detailed assignments for next week and after a moment's panic realized, YES, I CAN do this now. While I'm so happy I wanted to write it out. Here is it.
Reasons I'm Thankful
1. The opportunity to learn has never been more apparent than at this time in my career and the work of mentors has made it possible.
2. My boss and Ajay J all working so hard so my team has a good build to go. They listen, they act, they make it happen.
3. My co-worker Chris for giving a Java class and being so patient. I'm learning and having some moments now where I don't HATE coding. Having a good teacher helps so much, and being able to work on building skills over weeks rather than in 2 days works much better for how I learn.
4. My team for being able to take over so that our team goals don't ever fall apart if I'm not there. I'm so proud of them and I believe there is nothing they can't do or learn. They amaze me and I am proud of how resilient and professional they are under pressure (which everyone IN test has been this year, in fact everyone in the country has been). How someone acts when things are rough shows their true character more than just how they behave during a good economy when budgets are plush.
5. My Action Script is improving! This is going to sound so silly, but for the first time ever, I'm assigned Action Script code to write next week and I'm excited about it! After doing just 3 lessons of Java I'm feeling less intimidated by having some scripting on my plate that I get to do, and if I run into trouble I can scale down, but if it goes well (and when I'm happy things tend to), I'll add some really cool visuals which will be so fun!
6. I have joined our Wiffle Ball Team, and while it's likely I'll be mostly a backup player until I get more experience, just the fact that I'm in good enough health finally to join any sport for fun? That is amazing.
7. Virtualization continues to make testing more fun and is a huge advantage for collaborative testing!
8. Having my abstract selected for PNSQC makes me so happy and I appreciate the chance to have my paper reviewed and possibly published. Just the chance to improve my writing skills means so much to me.
9. Craig got hired internally at his company rather than laid off and I'm so thankful he has a job he loves that he started this week.
10. Despite concerns at the low value some people place on the work that I do, above all I'm thankful that I'm passionate about it and feel great about how it is going right now. Taking what we did in the past and adding 2 other layers to it that compliment the goal of the first one I think give us more flexibility. I still love the first method the most, because of the collaboration aspect.
The last reason is my final thought I guess. There is only one thing worth being an "expert" in, and that is learning. What is important in the technology industry changes fast, but those who are experts in learning aren't too invested in one thing. Broad knowledge combined with fast learning means more job flexibility.
Comments