It’s taken a couple months but I feel like I have more than a foot in the door of my team. Of course my agenda has three primary goals..

#1 To have enough work to make a living. ✅

#2 To be productive and impress those I’m working with. (Half ✅ cuz this one is still a work i progress and kind of subjective).

#3 To Learn new stuff. ✅ Hopefully this will continue. It’s one of the things that will help keep me from being bored.

Yesterday I was looking forward to working on AWS Cloudwatch and dashboards and metrics. It’s super cool. I also had a meeting with my teammate responsible for building the AWS infrastructure and his goal (or so he’s been told) is to teach me enough to be his backup. To that I say.. “bring it!”.

He actually told me he thought I was full time and that my only role in the team was the AWS stuff. In my head I was like “uhhhh, that is not what they told me. And I was there when my contract was negotiated.” Still, job security.

Job security is the bomb. So I’ll have his back and that’s me stepping further into that space. At the same time I, apparently, have other people’s backs too. I’m sort of the tertiary backup as a planner/communicator (PM). I’ll also be responsible for assisting in testing and QA now too. This is all in addition to my original title of “Technical Writer”.

As I get into a good groove staying on top of all of that.. weekly status, release notes, production metrics, spec and run book updates.. I’ll be positioned perfectly to support operations in a technical capacity. At that point, I’ll be so deep in that I’ll have everyone’s back. Well.. everyone but the developers because that’s one job I’m not qualified to do. Not without some training anyway.

The only fine line I have to walk is balancing work and school and parenting (and my heath and other relationships). Talking with a friend yesterday, RH, who also happens to be a former co-worker from my last job I was kind of reminded how crazy it can be when you are so deep in it and responsible for multiple jobs and initiatives.

I’m the only one who is going to be able to balance things out; to push back when things become too much or unreasonable. Kinda like when I was asked what my availability for testing was over Easter weekend. Um.. no.

After the minimal work hours I put in last week, I definitely need to kick it up a notch today. And, thankfully I have a full set list to pull from.

Sadly, I am going to have to miss several really cool events going on this month (April is National Poetry Month). Today there is a reading at a university near by with 14 local poets and I’m not going to be able to go. It’s in the middle of the day and it just won’t be possible with Work. Who schedules that stuff in the middle of a Wednesday??!

Anyway, White Stripes probably said it best in their song ‘Little Cream Soda’, “Oh well, oh well, oh well, oh well”.

So Profound. 😉

Back to Work,

~Miss SugarCookie