Lall of Text

I'm not really sure how I'm doing here. Unlike say, a developer position, where you can (sort of) objectively measure success by how many lines of code you've written, how many bugs you've fixed, etc., the program manager's role is a lot more nebulous. I'm working on planning and design right now, and much of that involves thinking and drawing. It's hard to just grind away on thinking; with coding I can make small milestones for myself (finish this for-loop, write this procedure call, implement this algorithm), but with thinking I'm not sure how to work harder.

So naturally I'm wrestling with wasting time. Here, they encourage interns to waste time -- we're supposed to spend time "networking" and doing intern events and shit -- but I still often feel guilty because of the aforementioned lack of deliverables. Many days I don't have much to show but a few ideas jotted down, even though I feel like I've been working (a lot of which involves reading specs, which doesn't often result in concrete output).

However, I do get more done later in the week. The amount of work I put in is inversely proportional to the amount of guilt I feel. So Mondays are pretty laid-back; you know, I'm sort of just gearing up, trying to plan out my week, schedule any meetings with people I need to talk to, figure out if I'm on track for my commitments, etc. Then when I come in Tuesday I realize I didn't do any work toward my project, so I work a little harder. This continues up until late in the work week, where I'm most productive because of my guilt.

Every Friday I have a one-on-one meeting with my manager. So here I am on Friday, feeling really guilty because I don't have much to show, worrying about seeming like a slacker and trying to have intelligent questions to show for the week's work. But my manager is amazing at making people feel amazing! Plus, he's British, so his accent makes everything he says roughly 20% more authoritative. He said I made a "profound" statement about our product's goal today, and he even drew a little diagram about it on a whiteboard and took a picture of it to remember it by. Then I walk out of his office feeling amazing, my guilt meter officially reset, and basically putt around until beer:30.

I also played soccer (if you could call my lack of ability "playing soccer") for the first time in YEARS on Friday after work. My friend Tamir convinced me to play ("Don't believe in yourself. Believe in me. Who believes in you") and even though I was playing with crazy European/African soccer players and was hopelessly outclassed, I had a great time. I have this weird sort of athletic streak going on, what with biking to/from work and indoor climbing and now soccer!

Friday was also host to a reasonably epic bar crawl in Belltown in Seattle. The last things I remember were: throwing a cone in the street, hammer throw style; knocking over a newspaper vending box; and throwing a fake cactus at my friend's neighbor's door. I felt like an ass remembering it the next morning, but goddamn it was hilarious at the time. +1 to belligerent frat boy skill.

Finally, my parents are in town this weekend, so we're doing all the usual touristy stuff. No pictures as of yet (I took them on my dad's camera), but hopefully sometime.