How do you pronounce 'pwfh'?

Stupid post title, I know, but coming at the end of a tiring couple of weeks, it's kind of all my brain was capable of as a title... so I figured that I'd go with it!  You know that blow-out kind of knackeredness, well that's the feeling that goes with it.

It's 'good-tired' though.

Life on the new team is fab, there's still a lot I don't know, but I can feel some of my coding confidence slowly coming back.  It's very helpful pairing on most work, if we struggle jointly through something hard, then it's obvious that it wasn't just me.  Trying to take on the odd bit separately too, though, to embrace the challenge.

And I've even embraced a little bit of home-coding this weekend too, sometimes I just feel the need.

I'd like to progress past the point where I've got so far with my personal 'play project', but for today at least the brain-fog has settled in and I think I need to pick it up on a different day.  But, thanks to the stuff I've been picking up at work, I've had a bit more confidence writing tests for my code, so although it hasn't progressed in in functionality, I feel better about it as a whole.

Well, that was a bit of a ramble, really, as I had nowt much to say and just wanted to be typing something.

So I will 'sign off' for now - more later when my brain catches up!!

Moving On

So - once again things have moved on (at work).

There was a massive team re-shuffle, where the developers on the team got to make a choice which project they wanted to follow and why.  For me it was a no-brainer - there is one project up and running which is in a position to be properly working and making changes.  The rest of the work is in a state of flux, and I needed to make a decision that would get me coding again properly, and quickly!

Weirdly (for me at least), that's also the project I started my career with.  Feels a bit like coming full circle, but in a nice way.  I'm also now working with one of my colleagues from training - we get to keep each other from going too far down the 'rabbit hole' of code, and we have someone there whose job is primarily to support us.

We're in the very early days of restarting stuff - so we're in the midst of trying to understand the code and the business rules, while simultaneously updating and improving some of the current automated tests to support the work that's already there.  Some bits are proving easier than others, but that's good as it provides a challenge.

There will be some new stuff to come, and we're looking forward to getting into that as well, but for me it's just SO nice to be working on a supportive team with enough work to keep us going properly.

Sadly the girls on my 'mini-team' have gone forward with my old project, which is still in the very very early days of its redesign, so there's not really a proper structure of work for them yet.  I'll miss working with them, but this move has come at the right time and provided what I needed for this point in my journey, and I needed to make my choice based on what was right for me alone this time round.

I'm also going to be working alongside my mentor of old, who is a senior developer/manager on the team.  So there are plans afoot to provide a proper development plan and help rebuild my confidence with regards to my coding abilities.

OK - enough waffle for now - more later I think, once I settle into the team.

(no further news on 'new' blog yet, the changes have involved a fair bit of travel and brain-work, and I've not made decisions on how to proceed yet)..watch this space...

Out with the old... and in with the New

Happy New Year blogpeeps!

Yes, unbelievably, it's 2019 already.

Looking back over the year just gone, it was a big year from a working point of view - finally through that long-planned promotion, which made for a much more comfortable festive season, financially speaking.

I'll also freely admit that it hasn't been the easiest of times from the point of personal confidence, both in work and 'real' life.  Somehow life and work and changes just got on top of me quite a bit, and my confidence in my own abilities suffered as a result.

So... we have a new year, and a new start, physically, emotionally, and more confidently.

Things are moving on at work, albeit slowly.  Our 'mini-team' has completed a piece of work that we're in the process of finalising before it can go live.  And the 'main project' has been given a bit of a reboot, with a different approach.  It's quite early days in the new version of the project, so I'm not sure how much code will be needed for a while yet, but if the plans come off then it will be an interesting development and a chance to learn lots of new stuff.

I'm starting to get ideas for 'play projects' to work on and practice my skills, including some work with voice technology on Alexa.

And....I'm even contemplating a new blog, on a new set of subjects...so watch this space for links and such.  I need to get my own head around how to start afresh, and whether to use the same hosting platform to do so, or create something of my own along the way as a learning opportunity.

Ch..ch..ch..changes!

OK, well I got a bit behind in my posting again didn't I?  Last one was in July!!

So many things happening again.  So... let's start where we left off then.

When last I blogged, I was in the middle of negotiations for salary, and I was left as the sole developer in charge of my project.

Well, the negotiations concluded, and salary finally started to be paid at the end of August...and by Christmas they might have got round to paying the correct amount...grr.  (Maybe a big growl for another ranty post..)

I've also started working a 4-day week, as my new wages are making it worthwhile to do so.  Not sure how well that's currently sitting with my body, though.  But I'll get there, hopefully before they sort out all the salary workings...

I've also now got 'people' to work with, and have had a couple of new projects come my way.  More about such stuff in the next couple of posts though, otherwise this one will be ridiculously long.

Going to try and get back to more regular blogging, and make an effort to update things here, might help keep it straight in my own head at least!

Missing the OU stuff lately, I think the structured study is my best focus.  Even found myself trawling the website yesterday looking at courses.....nah too expensive, without the transitional protection.  But I think I need to make a structured plan, and it might help me what I want to learn and in what order...

The down and dirty

The past few weeks and months have been dominated by one major thought... the job applications/regrading or whatever they want to call our recruitment campaign.  Not just for me but for a large percentage of my colleagues and fellow trainees too.

So (a couple of weeks ago now) we were faced with the next hurdle on the way to it all being 'real' - salary negotiations!  Eek!

Now I'm not going to go into details of the how much we all got, cos that's not for public consumption.  Suffice to say that a colleague was offered more than me and I negotiated to get the same figure, as did another colleague.

But the whole process feels just 'weird' - sordid somehow.  I know it shouldn't, it's normal practice in outside industry, but in a civil service setting then it feels wrong to be negotiating at all. (dyed in the wool civil servant here, it'll be 29 years this year!)

But I can't complain, as the resultant figure is close to the maximum payable for staff of that grade out in the 'real world'.

Still don't know when it will take effect from, though.  The reality of this process is taking soooo long though, I guess it will only really feel real once I see the numbers on my payslip!

One step at a time....even baby steps are still steps.

Leaving me a Basket Case

Argh - sometimes you get those days/weeks/months where the whole rollercoaster is just too much.

Last week was one of those.  (this post even sat in a draft half-done state during the whole rollercoaster ride as I was too rattled even to finish off my post)

For a couple of weeks now, I've been left as the sole developer in charge of my project.  Ongoing for a period of 4 months while the senior is off on shared parental leave.

Now - some or maybe even many of the expectations I've got on me are my own, I have a list of things that I should be able to put work into fixing.  But, faced with the responsibility for it all on my own, all of a sudden the knowledge began to leak from my brains.  And, the more I worried about it, the more panic set in and the less I could think straight.  When asking colleagues to help, I didn't even understand the questions they were asking to help me, let alone their potential solutions. Argh!!

So - eventually - I opened up - not directly to the people I should have approached in the first place, but to helpful colleagues, one of which has been with me throughout the whole of this journey, from my early OU days, he was my 'Man that Can' for coding queries.  They agreed to provide some assistance, albeit from a distance, and encouraged me to meet properly with my own team managers and iron out what's actually expected of me rather than worrying over a self-imposed list of stuff to do that would 'prove myself' somehow.

Met with the managers at the start of this week, and I have the beginnings of a plan, some of which does still include working through my 'list', alongside a little additional work to help out another team.  In addition I've been working on some issues that happened in the 'live' system and doing a bit of preventative work to stop them happening again.  Ironically the stuff I'm working on is in an area of code which I previously saw as my weakest area, and my confidence there has grown massively.

I'm still double and triple-checking cos, you know, I'm still me at the end of the day... but I'm sure that confidence in my own code will come with time.

A reserved update

Well - the job application has finally updated to 'Application Reserved' - i.e. you have met the required standard and will be on a reserve list for 6 months.

So eventually (with hopefully more speed than the process so far...) I will be a (substantive - yippeeeeeeee!!) HEO, having successfully jumped over EO in the middle.

My favourite part was the interviewer's comments though which were very positive:

"She gained all the development experience she has got now by sheer determination and finding opportunities herself. She did lot of self-learning and very keen learner. She will definitely make a good junior software engineer."

I'm not usually much of a one for blowing my own trumpet, but having fought so many fights to get this far, and having to continually keep up that learning and add to it to stay afloat, I will admit to a teeny touch of pride there.

I'll keep you all posted about postings as soon as I know more - although we're all hoping to just be posted into our current jobs so there may really be no posting to post about teeheee...