It sort of just came out of the blue.
One moment you’re worrying about whether they’re gonna renew you. They say it’s in progress. You’re struggling with the contract but you’ve reached a comfortable spot where you’ve given up fighting and could just do with another 6 months to slip in a holiday without having to ask awkward questions in the first few weeks somewhere new.
But then a curious meeting pops up. There’s a new mandatory “way of working” being forced on everyone by a new manager. It’s not a bad way of working for developers but is horrifically incompatible with how devops engineers operate.
He wants to do away with all agile rituals. Wants everyone to either come into the office every day - or log into a meeting the entire day and everyone in the team take turns pair programming. And here I am in a team with a person who won’t collaborate with his peers - and a security guy. How are all 3 going to pair program? On what?
I tried gently noting all that - pushing back a bit. But was instantly threatened with not being renewed unless I agreed to work that way.
What choice did I have? I said, “sure, I’ll try it”.
Instantly got my CV updated and changed my LinkedIn settings to open-to-work. The private mode. If I don’t see this new contract in a week - I’ll switch it to fully visible open-to-work.
Lighter News
- Kiera’s away in Lanzarote with her company. In a lush looking hotel with a great view of the beach.
- Ashley’s gone up to Scotland to sample wedding food.
- I moved over The Druid Network from our long self-hosted site to Wordpress hosted goodness.
- We’re slow cooking a roast for something like 20 hours.