I'm a knowledge worker. For most of my life, I earned my keep by herding electrons into specific configurations to make something-or-another work a certain way. It's a little weird when I stop to think about it - the majority of what I've done isn't tangible, not directly. Yes, I've written device drivers that will translate physical movement to useful data. I've enabled people to shuffle electronic proxies of their wealth around. Almost everything I've done in my adult work life has been virtual.
So, when I recently discovered just how fun radio-controlled micro-helicopters can be, I dove into it with a passion. I am now the very proud owner of a red E-flite Blade MSR that I've named Anisoptera (dragonfly), or Ani for short. I'm having a hoot with it, although the kids are less enthusiastic as they quietly don their safety goggles and discreetly put away any high-value breakable toys of theirs whenever I throttle up Ani, usually with a giggle of delight.
This morning, a strong gust blew in through the screen doors as I was hovering Ani and blew her into a wall. It's the hardest crash she's had so far and I couldn't throttle down in time. When I picked her up, everything seemed fine other than a minor scratch to one of her main rotors. Unfortunately, when I tried taking off again, she banked uncontrollably to the left. Trimming didn't help. Nothing I did helped.
Even Googling didn't yield any answers. I had a horrible sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. Now I knew I was in deep trouble. :(
So, I decided to return to basic principles and started running tests on Ani. Upon inspection, I discovered that the rotor disc appeared off-axis under power. I knew from normal operation that she was supposed to have a slightly off-axis rotor disc. Unfortunately, I didn't remember which side it was supposed to cant towards. However, I'm pretty sure by now that it's a misalignment except that I had no idea how to fix it. Oh well, back to basic principles again - I started tracing the mechanism from the rotor blades down to the main gear and motor. I did notice an unnatural slant to the entire rotor assembly from the swashplate up, so that eliminated my original knee-jerk panic response of "OMG, WE HAVE TO REPLACE THE MAIN ROTORS!!!"
I checked the main drive shaft to ensure it was straight; it was. The rest of the mechanism was pretty solid - it wasn't really meant to move and everything was screwed together quite well. Not finding any culprits, I started working my way back up, from the main gear to the rotors. Still nothing. Tired now, I took off my magnifying visor and made a cup of coffee. Returning to the worktable, I took a sip of my coffee, glanced at Ani...and there it was - the swashplate had popped out of alignment in the back with one of its very tiny securing nubby prongs completely outside of its seating fork. Very carefully and gently, I popped it back into place and went through power-up and takeoff procedures.
Ani's flying again. And the kids are scattering in her wake. It's a good day. :)
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Paradigm shift
I'm turning some (large) multiple of 10 years of age this year. My birthday isn't for quite a few months yet but I like to plan ahead. :) Regardless, I'm doing my once-a-decade review of my life, which has the longest time-horizon of them all, a lookahead of 20 years in addition to a decade's worth of review.
Have I done as much as I had hoped to? Simply put, no. I lost sight of where I wanted my life to go when the kids entered my life and I've been merely existing since then. Of course, my life took a very strange sharp turn a few years back that was massively disruptive not only to myself but to my family. Thankfully, the paths we've taken has lead us to a stable and better place than where we were back then. It's been tough but we're there now.
Which leads me back to the central theme of my introspection: what now? Well, the most urgent need is for me to figure out what I want to do, career-wise. I have the following options:
Program management is what I'm currently doing. Getting my PMP is the first step towards getting my PgMP certification. The two are not directly related but having my PMP first establishes the foundation for the type of work that a program manager will run. A program manager ensures that projects directed at the same or similar strategic goal are managed as a program, where each project and its deliverables are coordinated efficiently to achieve the best possible program outcome. I *love* this role. It's a blend of operational and strategic needs that makes my heart sing with joy; it's air traffic control with projects and anyone who knows me knows how much I enjoy juggling things like that. I love managing complex systems and this is about as complex as it gets.
Product management was what I had been doing some time back. This is about taking a product and ensuring that it continues to delight its customers year over year, release after release. It deals with the needs of customer, understanding the market and staying one step ahead of the competition. When done well, it makes a product a household name, like 3M's Post-It notes, or Xerox machines or the iPhone. When done poorly...it can bring down a company. This tickles the part of me that wants to nurture and grow things. It gives me a nice comfy warm glowy feeling inside. It's still cerebral and detail-oriented but it also gives me warm fuzzy feelings.
New product development is what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment but due to several factors, it's not something I'm allowed to run with yet. NPD is about understanding the needs of the customer before the customer even knows they have a need. It's about bringing revolutionary products to market, things that will change our lives as we know it. The microwave oven is one example. Remote entry/locking systems for cars. Personal video recorders. All the little things that we now take for granted that we could not have conceived of 20 years ago. This position is one of the hardest to find employment for but with the right person in the right company, has the potential to change the world. This is the good bits of all three of the previous jobs rolled into one plus it allows me to let my imaginative and innovative self to roam free. If I found this position in the right company, I'd relocate to the ends of the world to do it.
So...what to do? Right now, I'm not sure but at least I have 4 options to choose from. I'm okay with where I am at the moment but this is not about the here and now, it's about where I want to be 20 years from now. I think I know but it'll be really tough to get there.
In the past, I've always separated what I love to do and what I did for work, thinking that if I worked on something I loved, I'd get bored with it eventually and that love would go away. Looking around, the truly great people, the ones who make a difference are the ones who work on what they love. I've now come to believe that I've been mistaken about this, that I should be working on what I love so I can bring all that passion and enthusiasm to bear and make a real difference. A significant paradigm shift, one which if I'm mistaken, might destroy part of what I love. I've decided to take the plunge though - I've always believed that if one is to burn, one might as well burn as brightly as possible even for just a short time rather than smouldering dimly for a longer time before extinguishing into darkness.
Stay tuned. I hope to make decent headway on my dreams over next few years.
Have I done as much as I had hoped to? Simply put, no. I lost sight of where I wanted my life to go when the kids entered my life and I've been merely existing since then. Of course, my life took a very strange sharp turn a few years back that was massively disruptive not only to myself but to my family. Thankfully, the paths we've taken has lead us to a stable and better place than where we were back then. It's been tough but we're there now.
Which leads me back to the central theme of my introspection: what now? Well, the most urgent need is for me to figure out what I want to do, career-wise. I have the following options:
- Project management
- Program management
- Product management
- Product development
Program management is what I'm currently doing. Getting my PMP is the first step towards getting my PgMP certification. The two are not directly related but having my PMP first establishes the foundation for the type of work that a program manager will run. A program manager ensures that projects directed at the same or similar strategic goal are managed as a program, where each project and its deliverables are coordinated efficiently to achieve the best possible program outcome. I *love* this role. It's a blend of operational and strategic needs that makes my heart sing with joy; it's air traffic control with projects and anyone who knows me knows how much I enjoy juggling things like that. I love managing complex systems and this is about as complex as it gets.
Product management was what I had been doing some time back. This is about taking a product and ensuring that it continues to delight its customers year over year, release after release. It deals with the needs of customer, understanding the market and staying one step ahead of the competition. When done well, it makes a product a household name, like 3M's Post-It notes, or Xerox machines or the iPhone. When done poorly...it can bring down a company. This tickles the part of me that wants to nurture and grow things. It gives me a nice comfy warm glowy feeling inside. It's still cerebral and detail-oriented but it also gives me warm fuzzy feelings.
New product development is what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment but due to several factors, it's not something I'm allowed to run with yet. NPD is about understanding the needs of the customer before the customer even knows they have a need. It's about bringing revolutionary products to market, things that will change our lives as we know it. The microwave oven is one example. Remote entry/locking systems for cars. Personal video recorders. All the little things that we now take for granted that we could not have conceived of 20 years ago. This position is one of the hardest to find employment for but with the right person in the right company, has the potential to change the world. This is the good bits of all three of the previous jobs rolled into one plus it allows me to let my imaginative and innovative self to roam free. If I found this position in the right company, I'd relocate to the ends of the world to do it.
So...what to do? Right now, I'm not sure but at least I have 4 options to choose from. I'm okay with where I am at the moment but this is not about the here and now, it's about where I want to be 20 years from now. I think I know but it'll be really tough to get there.
In the past, I've always separated what I love to do and what I did for work, thinking that if I worked on something I loved, I'd get bored with it eventually and that love would go away. Looking around, the truly great people, the ones who make a difference are the ones who work on what they love. I've now come to believe that I've been mistaken about this, that I should be working on what I love so I can bring all that passion and enthusiasm to bear and make a real difference. A significant paradigm shift, one which if I'm mistaken, might destroy part of what I love. I've decided to take the plunge though - I've always believed that if one is to burn, one might as well burn as brightly as possible even for just a short time rather than smouldering dimly for a longer time before extinguishing into darkness.
Stay tuned. I hope to make decent headway on my dreams over next few years.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sneaking about
I've always enjoyed playing at stealth. When I was a child, my dad would take afternoon naps and, being the stereotypical Head of Household (tm), he decreed that Everyone Shall Be Quiet so he can have his forty winks. This decree was enforced by corporal punishment so I had a very strong incentive to comply.
Now, staying completely silent meant that all work and play stopped when my dad took his nap. Imagine me being a young, hyperactive sort - obviously, this didn't work for me. So, I learnt how to sneak about the house, tiptoeing quietly around, learning how to pluck specific toys out of whatever pile they were found in with nary a peep. I managed it quite well too and was only caught a handful of times, if that. Along the way, I learned how to be very nimble (good for sneaking around sleeping family members), how to muffle sound, how to open doors and drawers quietly and many other skills best suited for a career in cat burglary.
Fast forward a couple of decades and you'd find me an avid gamer as I fritted my precious private time away playing computer games while I was a university student. My favourite games have always been first-person sneakers and submarine simulations. I didn't really put it together back then but I really really REALLY derive a great deal of joy from sneaking about. Actually, as I'm typing this, I'm giggling softly to myself as I've just finished playing an old computer game that required a lot of tactical sneaking about to win.
Fast forward to the present day. I still play some computer games but not as much as before. I do sneak up on the kids quite a bit (all in fun) and more often than not, I'm successful in popping up behind them unnoticed. I try not to sneak up on them when they're carrying liquids though as it gets...messy. Of course, they try to sneak up on me too although they've mostly abandoned that in lieu of outflanking me instead. My ballet has allowed me to increase my level of stealthiness as I'm now almost back to where I was when I tiptoed around as a child trying not to wake my parents. However, where I derive the greatest amount of joy is in stealthily getting things done at work.
You see, I'm in an odd role that most folks in the company don't quite get. That's not entirely true, it's more like this:
Political stealthiness - it fills me with much squee! I'm not sure what all this says about me and how I tick but what the hey, my close friends already think I'm an odd duck so this probably won't shock them much.
Now, staying completely silent meant that all work and play stopped when my dad took his nap. Imagine me being a young, hyperactive sort - obviously, this didn't work for me. So, I learnt how to sneak about the house, tiptoeing quietly around, learning how to pluck specific toys out of whatever pile they were found in with nary a peep. I managed it quite well too and was only caught a handful of times, if that. Along the way, I learned how to be very nimble (good for sneaking around sleeping family members), how to muffle sound, how to open doors and drawers quietly and many other skills best suited for a career in cat burglary.
Fast forward a couple of decades and you'd find me an avid gamer as I fritted my precious private time away playing computer games while I was a university student. My favourite games have always been first-person sneakers and submarine simulations. I didn't really put it together back then but I really really REALLY derive a great deal of joy from sneaking about. Actually, as I'm typing this, I'm giggling softly to myself as I've just finished playing an old computer game that required a lot of tactical sneaking about to win.
Fast forward to the present day. I still play some computer games but not as much as before. I do sneak up on the kids quite a bit (all in fun) and more often than not, I'm successful in popping up behind them unnoticed. I try not to sneak up on them when they're carrying liquids though as it gets...messy. Of course, they try to sneak up on me too although they've mostly abandoned that in lieu of outflanking me instead. My ballet has allowed me to increase my level of stealthiness as I'm now almost back to where I was when I tiptoed around as a child trying not to wake my parents. However, where I derive the greatest amount of joy is in stealthily getting things done at work.
You see, I'm in an odd role that most folks in the company don't quite get. That's not entirely true, it's more like this:
- They understand that there are problems
- They understand that I'm there to fix said problems
- They know they can't fix their problems
- They know I can fix them because I've already fixed many long-standing issues
- They're not really comfortable with someone else (me) fixing their problems
Political stealthiness - it fills me with much squee! I'm not sure what all this says about me and how I tick but what the hey, my close friends already think I'm an odd duck so this probably won't shock them much.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Subcultures
I used to be an amateur astronomer. We're an odd bunch of people, nervously glancing at the sky as the evening approaches, muttering imprecations at clouds and obsessively checking the meteorological sites to see if there will be clear skies for the night. We'd rush home, pack our beloved telescopes and kit into our cars and brave the last bit of rush hour traffic for remote sites far away from the annoying city lights and its photonic pollution. When we arrived on the site, we'd set up our equipment, dig out our dinners and dined on food even as the mosquitoes dined on us. Those of us who are early birds will chit-chat about our recent observations or equipment, still glancing up every now and then to pray that the clouds stay away. Then, someone will quietly comment, "Yep, there's Sirius up there" and we'd all slowly scatter to our own stations to calibrate our now-cooled scopes. We're a solitary bunch, we brothers and sisters of sky science. As night falls, conversations stop or at least tone down to a near-inaudible mutter. There is the sky and there is you; we are all intimately aware and in awe of the fact that photons that have traveled billions of years over unimaginable distances will end their journey upon our retinas that night. We, all of us, are mesmerized by the terrible beauty that is our universe. Slowly, ever so slowly, one by one will quietly pack up and leave the area, making sure that no white light leaks anywhere to spoil the night vision of those remaining behind. Eventually, the last one packs up too and the night's session is over.
Our lives are intersections of the many subcultures that we belong to. Our workplace has a culture. Our families have our own cultural norms. Our hobbies have their own subculture. Each with its own rules, with its own rituals (whether we are conscious of them as ritual or not) and its own challenges and rewards. How many subcultures do you belong to? I suspect you may be somewhat surprised if you started counting...
Our lives are intersections of the many subcultures that we belong to. Our workplace has a culture. Our families have our own cultural norms. Our hobbies have their own subculture. Each with its own rules, with its own rituals (whether we are conscious of them as ritual or not) and its own challenges and rewards. How many subcultures do you belong to? I suspect you may be somewhat surprised if you started counting...
Friday, July 1, 2011
Hospitals
I had my surgery a little over a week ago. I spent the night in the hospital and I'm now back at home to recover.
I've been in hospitals a lot. I'd really rather that I didn't. This time though, it was an elective surgical procedure so I chose to be there.
Being in a hospital causes me to have mixed feelings about it. Generally, being in a hospital is a bad thing and for the most part, it is. On the other hand, being in the hospital has also given my life back and in one case, gave me a whole new life. They're not places where I want to spend my summer holidays at but at the same time, I'm glad that when I needed to be there, it was there for me to be at.
There is always a chance that my life will end in a hospital, as it does for so many others. I guess that if I had to choose a way to go, passing on peacefully in my sleep would be at the top of my list but failing that, dying in the hospital isn't a bad way to go either - at least there's someone around who has pain management solutions available.
I've been in hospitals a lot. I'd really rather that I didn't. This time though, it was an elective surgical procedure so I chose to be there.
Being in a hospital causes me to have mixed feelings about it. Generally, being in a hospital is a bad thing and for the most part, it is. On the other hand, being in the hospital has also given my life back and in one case, gave me a whole new life. They're not places where I want to spend my summer holidays at but at the same time, I'm glad that when I needed to be there, it was there for me to be at.
There is always a chance that my life will end in a hospital, as it does for so many others. I guess that if I had to choose a way to go, passing on peacefully in my sleep would be at the top of my list but failing that, dying in the hospital isn't a bad way to go either - at least there's someone around who has pain management solutions available.
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