WEEKEND!

I like the symbolism of this picture: a plant growing out of a hole in a concrete wall. I think this fits a lot of things about the way that I like to think about my job. For instance, the free software that I write comes out of solving problems on my job a little like that. And I find all sorts of fun things to do even in things I don't enjoy that much, which become like that plant.

I'm doing the last bit of work that I have to do for the week right now, and then I'm done and have a nice, long weekend.

I had a completely kick-ass week. Despite having ten hours of meetings, I got nine hours of project time in, which is remarkable. Overhead came in at about fifteen hours on the week, which given that we're going through reorg discussions is excellent.

The reorg is actually going to make my job considerably more fun, although I'm feeling guilty because I feel like it has the net effect of taking a bunch of boring work away from me and giving it to other people. Hopefully they won't find it boring! But any reorg, no matter how good, consumes just amazing amounts of time. It seriously hurts productivity usually for at least a month if not more. I don't think managers usually realize that a reorg costs something like $300,000 or more in lost productivity and work that didn't happen if you value time spent dealing with the reorg according to the salaries of the people involved. It may be more than that. Do they really think that the changes will recoup that much money in the long run? For nearly all reorganizations, I'm dubious.

But I can still focus my own reaction on what's productive, and I did that last week.

I haven't done much except work, though, partly because I've been putting in that extra effort. I even largely took Wednesday off and still hit 41 hours for the week (and I played video games on Wednesday, rather than doing something requiring brain). I'm not letting myself focus on using this weekend to do work-like things, but I may do some catching up if it feels fun.

I didn't do my regular weekly review today, so I'll do that tomorrow, and take stock against my goals for the year.