Inspired by this article I made myself a «user manual»!
This manual is made for the sole purpose of providing insight to my colleagues on how it will be like working with me.
What do I value in my work? What’s important to me?
- I want to solve real problems, both technical and organizational. If i don’t understand how my work affects the broader picture, I start asking questions to ensure my efforts are worthwhile. This might go a bit beyond myself; If I pickup that my peers are working on something that does not make sense to me, I also start to ask questions. It’s important to me that we all run in the somewhat same direction.
- This leads me to why I highly value transparency. It builds trust and it makes us more productive because you can expect people to ask questions (with positive intent) when they see something that does not make sense. Transparency unites us as a team, allow us to run in the same direction, with the same destination and strategy in mind. So if you tell me to jump, i say «why?». If you tell me there is a pitfall ahead, I’ll most probably jump (or I might even suggest we build an improvised bridge with the foldable ladder I always carry in my backpack, see?).
- I heavily value people’s motivations. People are motivated by different things, but there is a lot of positive energy in real motivation. From a company’s perspective, it is smart to leverage that. Albeit everybody, including myself, might not fully agree on the direction, as long as it pushes the company forward – and not backwards – I’ll support you. All you need to do is being open about what you are trying to do.
- There is no time for pleasing everybody. Openly state you intentions. Collect feedback. That is the best we can do. If you’re still somewhat confident. Just do it. 9 out of 10 times you’ll move the company forward. 1 out 10 times I’ll support and share the blame!
- Simplicity! I’m willing to offer a lot for a clean, simple, elegant solution. Simple solutions are not easy. But they are sustainable. Complexity (or worse; accidental complexity) will not only make your employees leave, it kills small cute kittens too.
- Oh, and yeah, help me kill legacy systems before it kills us.
What are my key strengths and weaknesses?
- Key strengths (work-related): I’m a pragmatic generalist. I’m really good at doing a lot with a little and without allowing for unnecessary complexity. I’m the infrastructure engineer version of MacGyver.
- Key strengths (personally): I try to lead with example. And I’ll be the first to admit I’m wrong about something, feel free to challenge me!
- Key weaknesses (work-related): When things get hard, I procrastinate. I’m also very unorganized. Sorry if I forget something. I forget a lot. I’m also a slow learner.
- Key weaknesses (personally): Small-talk stresses me out, shit, I really don’t know what to say half of the time. I’d much rather go deep and interesting right away.
How do I like to work? Alone or together?
- I’m definitively a person who enjoy deep and concentrated focus work. If there is some sense of urgency, that is even better. But I do need breaks.
- Meetings are not my jam. I prefer working asynchronously and in writing. It helps me think. It also benefits everybody that is not in the room.
- I think the modern office is for mainly for deep work or socializing. Socializing it is the lube that makes you comfortable asking questions and share your thoughts. 1-on-1s are not meetings. They more often than not a necessity.
What are some of my personality traits you should know about?
- I got strong opinions, but they are loosely held.
- I like being the devil’s advocate. It ties into the fact that I always try to see things from both sides to be sure we hit the best possible compromise.
How do I prefer to be communicated with?
- If it is work related; through open Slack channels. I might not response within a business day. I don’t expect you do do either. Someone else might, though!
- Sure, feel free to send me a DM if you’re unsure, but I might redirect you to an open Slack channel before I reply. It is very very likely that someone else also wonder about the same thing, or that there are smarter people than me that can answer the question or add to it.
- If I sit at my desk with my headset on, I’m busy. 😇
When am I most productive?
- I’m very easily distracted. And I’m not a morning person. So it’s either night time, or an occasional Sunday.
- Whatever work done outside business hours I compensate with shorter days during normal week days. I’m super strict about my hours. I don’t work for free. Life is too short. I’m pragmatic, but then I absolutely expect some pragmatism back.
What does an ideal workday look like for me? What about an ideal week?
- I don’t have an alarm clock, and I’m in the office around 9-10.
- I love a good incident in the morning.
- Lunch is my breakfast.
- I juggle a lot of balls, async and sync discussions and support tickets, add context where I can, gather context where I can, socialize, bugfix and do code reviews until 4PM when people start to leave the office.
- The last two hours when the office is almost empty I find my best office focus time. Code, build, write. Solve problems.
- I usually work until I get hungry, if there is no snacks at the office, I go home grumpy … I mean early.
What am I good at that isn’t obvious at first glance? How can I add value beyond my specific role?
- Agriculture machinery.
What are some of my unhealthier tendencies that you should be aware of? How can you help me get back to a healthy state of mind?
- I might somewhat harshly, or directly, ask «why, why and why». I’m sure I sometimes come around as nosy or like I’m picking a fight – but I’m really not – I just want to understand that we are both working under the same assumptions. It happens so often, that when people have a problem, they are biased to ask about a given solution, instead of asking about the actual problem of which there exists lots of possibilities.
- Sometimes I’ll probably come of as a no-sayer - just tell me - and I’ll try give you even more context. Examples can be,
- I believe that doing nothing with a problem, is better than fixing it with a rather complex solution.
- the only way to focus on something, is to say no to good ideas
- I believe you are optimizing too much on the expense of others
- you have wrangled yourself into too much complexity, and you need to take a step back, and I want to help you step out of the sunken cost fallacy.
How do I tend to make decisions? By intuition or analysis? Alone or collaboratively? Well in advance or at the last moment?
- I define a problem statement. Add as much context to it as possible.
- I add my proposed solution to it, preferably one that does not close any other doors.
- Then I ask openly, and in any relevant channels, for peers to comment on it.
- Most often I get valuable input that makes me adjust my proposal somewhat.
- Within reasonable time
- If there is no push-back; I just do it
- If there is some push-back, but i still feel confident; I just do it
- If there is lots of push-back, I try to understand why and start looking for common ground, a solution that everybody involved can live with.
What makes me weird?
- I don’t like lobster or the fine things in life. Give me decent slice of bread and a good cup of coffee.
- I still got one of my milk tooth.
- I don’t like to travel. Happy to talk about it, the list of whys is long.
The best place I’ve ever worked was X. It was great for me because…
- Home, at the farm. I did not realize it at the time. But having seen everything I’ve seen (it makes me sound like an old man, I’m 32??) I know for certain that I want to go back to be a farmer at one point.
- I like using my hands, it make my primitive brain flush with dopamine.
- Also, every minute, every calorie, every thought you put into it – directly affects your yield. No more standing in the shower before thinking about office politics. What an awful way to ruin a good shower.
The worst place I’ve ever worked was Y. It was a bad fit for me because…
- Also at the farm, but before we got ourselves a milking robot. Before that, we needed to wake up at 6AM. After that, more like 8-9AM. Remember, I’m not a morning person.
What else do I wish you knew about me?
- I’m very emotionally stable. Very few high, very few lows.