077: Mid-Manager Blues

1 June, 2022

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Carol: And it was like, Hey, you're missing a time entry. And there's this standard little blurb, the guy added to every email because he's had so many issues with repeat people. And he was like, If this continues to be a problem, I will be notifying management. And I taught, I tell, I talked to my peer and I was like, you should've just been like, respond and been like, sorry, I am management.

[00:00:26] Intro

[00:00:26] Ben: Welcome everybody to the working code podcast, episode 77 today, we're going to be talking about mid manager blues, but as always, we're going to start with our triumphs and fails and we're kicking it off.

[00:00:58] Tim's Fail

[00:00:58] Tim: Yeah. So I had a good streak of triumphs guys, but all good things was come to an end. I, uh,I guess it was like around last fall. Late summer. I talked about how like, whenever school season starts beginning of school, I get this like kind of funk, like this stressful anxiety, because, just beginning of school is anxious and get bullied in middle school and stuff like that.

[00:01:24] Tim: We'll have the opposite now. Right? So that right now is the last week of school for my kids. And I have a complete case of senior-itis. I have totally been skipping work. I have been skipping work, acting like I'm the one who's like, this is my last, you know,the kids got out early. Cause they exempted all their exams.

[00:01:42] Tim: So it's like, they're not going to school. I'm just like, I'm just doing the bare minimum of at work. Please don't listen to this. Anyone at work? I mean, I'm answering my emails, but I'm not getting a whole lot of emails. I don't really have a lot of projects in the fire right now. other than like some middle management legal stuff that I've been dealing with, which we can talk about in our blues section, but it's yeah, it's like, I'm just avoiding work, like the plague and I feel guilty, but I know that, coming up Sunday, I'm leaving for Barcelona for two weeks.

[00:02:10] Tim: Part of it's work part of it's vacation. I know that when I get back, I'll be energized to get back to work. But right now I'm like, I just can't.

[00:02:17] Carol: Yeah.

[00:02:17] Tim: I can't even.

[00:02:19] Carol: Yeah. It hit me hard. When James graduated, I was like, oh man, this is. My last, last day of school with him. And this is probably my last summer break with him. And it's going to be a lot of lasts for us where there's going to be all these big first for him. He's going to have his first day of college and he's going to have all of his first going forward, but there is this big chunk that's ending now.

[00:02:41] Carol: And it was that summer break was really emotional. So I get it. I get it. It may not be, you may not be quite as energized when you get back. You may be realizing that your time is still counting down.

[00:02:54] Tim: Yeah. Well, my baby girl, she's dual enrolled, so she'll be doing some summer college and he'll be starting college, but yeah. So we'll see. I hopefully just, all the excellent tapas and Pinchas that I eat in, in Barcelona will energize me. So.

[00:03:09] Carol: I hope you come back sad and happy then.

[00:03:11] Tim: yeah, definitely. Definitely got to start fasting again. All right. That's me. How about you?

[00:03:17] Carol's Fail

[00:03:17] Carol: Oh man. All right. So. Sailed, I'm going to call it a failure. we made the side of the trial. You guys can let me know, but I'm going with a seller right now. I love coding. I love coding so much. I really forgot how much I love it until I can't do it. And I've had two different days this week where I have been deep into something.

[00:03:38] Carol: And at that 80% mark where it's working ish, but you're working through it. Last few like pieces where something's just not scrolling, right. Or something's not exactly where you want it. And you're doing those tweaks to something to make it look right or whatever it is. And I have to completely just stop, walk away for 10 minutes, take the dog for a walk, go outside because I have to switch my brain off of code and into management.

[00:04:06] Carol: And I. It has a little bit of resentment a couple of times. Cause I was like, man, if I wouldn't have done this route, I could just keep coding and coding and that no one makes me turn off my brain ever for it. They're just like, keep going. We'll reschedule around you. And that doesn't happen. Now. Now I have to sit a lot of meetings, which they're great meetings.

[00:04:25] Carol: I love what I'm doing, but I definitely, Ms coding a lot. And I had some moments this week where I had to refocus myself back in. And again, that's going to roll into our topic too, but I'm going to call it a failure because I got to get better on, on, on, and off switches for when I need to transition from what I'm doing and realize it's okay to just come back to it. So, yeah.

[00:04:49] Tim: I imagine that's tough though, for someone with ADHD, right?

[00:04:52] Carol: Oh yeah.

[00:04:53] Tim: switching context.

[00:04:55] Carol: if I didn't take my medicine that day. Oh yeah. Yep.

[00:05:00] Ben: recently learned that ADHD does not necessarily mean that you can't pay attention. there's been aa lot of people who host podcasts actually been talking about their ADHD and I'm telling you stuff you already know, but this is for other people's benefit that, it's not that you can't pay attention to.

[00:05:17] Ben: It's my understanding is that you're not great at regulating your attention. So sometimes it means you can't pay attention. And sometimes it means you're so deeply focused that you literally can't step away or think about anything else.

[00:05:30] Carol: Yeah,

[00:05:31] Ben: did not realize that.

[00:05:32] Carol: Monday, Steve called me at three o'clock and I had been avoiding all of his text and had been screening my phone most of the day, he called at three and was like, Hey, just want to check in on you. Cause I hadn't heard from you. I had sat down at my computer at eight, the dog hadn't cried to go out there had been nothing happening and it was three o'clock and I had.

[00:05:53] Carol: I hadn't stepped away. I hadn't peed. I hadn't taken a drink of anything. Cause I had one cup of coffee on my desk and that was it. And that's, what's gone. So like, Eight to three, there was no movement other than just fingers on the keyboard hyper-focused in and was completely unaware of the time and where my life was at that moment.

[00:06:12] Carol: So I was like, oh, I'm going to stand up right now and walk away. I did not want to, I was like in the middle of what I wanted to do. And I was kind of frustrated that I was walking away, but once I walked away, I was like, okay, this was right for my health and for my mental health, because I need to step away from it.

[00:06:29] Carol: So yeah. Yep. Absolutely happy.

[00:06:32] Ben: I don't believe that I have anything that approaches ADHD. I have a terrible sense of time, not time within a given day, but like over days and weeks and months, time doesn't have like a quantitative feel for me, like a week feels very similar to me than like three months. And, um, at the same time, very much an out of sight out of mind person.

[00:06:55] Ben: So if I don't see someone, it would never occur to me. Call them or even write them an email. And, and then if I don't see them for months or even years, I can meet them and just like pick up where we left off. Like, it doesn't feel awkward to me, but

[00:07:12] Tim: kind of the same way, much to my mother's chagrin. I'm like,

[00:07:14] Tim: why aren't you call me Mike?

[00:07:17] Ben: my mom. So it's like, my mom's always like, you don't have to be afraid to call me.

[00:07:23] Tim: I'm like mom, the phone works both ways. You were obviously thinking of me.

[00:07:30] Ben: Oh, there was, there was a movie Hercules with a Dwayne, the rock Johnson came out like maybe like six or seven years ago. And, I just remember it in the trailer, going back to Carol's stuff in the trailer. There's a guy who's talking to hurricanes and Hercules was like a half man, half. type of character.

[00:07:48] Ben: And he says something to him. Like if you continue to deny who you are, the gods will punish you for it. And, cause I think he kept wanting to be a man and didn't want to like own up to his godly responsibilities, but, it feels very apropos for the idea of coding and management.

[00:08:04] Carol: Oh, yeah.

[00:08:06] Tim: And I appreciate you getting the amount of time that passed, on point with what you said. Cause it was actually eight years since

[00:08:11] Ben: It was all nice. Nailed it.

[00:08:15] Carol: It was three months ago, then it was just like a couple of months ago. It's fine.

[00:08:20] Ben: This is, so this is like a really morbid example, but I was actually hanging out with my brothers a couple of weekends ago. And,we're talking about my dad. My dad passed a while back and, said something about like, oh, death, like doesn't, it doesn't weigh on me very much. Like I obviously I don't want to die, but like, I don't think about death very often.

[00:08:38] Ben: I said like, yeah, dad died. Eight years ago or something like that. And my brother was like, he died 16 years ago,

[00:08:45] Carol: Oh, my God.

[00:08:49] Ben: but like, like eight years, 16 years. Yeah.

[00:08:52] Carol: all the same. Yeah.

[00:08:53] Ben: thankfully my wife has very forgiving cause I think she's not a huge time person also. So I always refer to us as like, oh yeah, we've been together somewhere between, five and 12 years, somewhere in there.

[00:09:05] Carol: In range.

[00:09:07] Tim: I mean in my head, the nineties were only like 20 years ago. Like the early nineties. But knowing that it's 20, 22. I know mathematically that can't be true.

[00:09:20] Carol: So the time thing, I'm going to add one thing to it. we are writing our own vows for the wedding and I last night told Steve one of the lines from like one of my lines that I have in my vows, I've written to him and I cried my eyes out. So I'm going to try that cry. Cause you know, it's like, it's an emotional thing.

[00:09:39] Tim: Me too.

[00:09:40] Carol: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was like, one of my, one of mine is that for the first time in my life forever, does it feel like long enough? And it's for the first time I have a concept of what an end looks like and what a time limit looks like. And I don't like it. I don't like to think that at some point, this has to end that I don't get forever.

[00:10:02] Carol: I get forever, but it's not, it's never long enough when it's with someone you love. So yeah.

[00:10:09] Tim: girls growing up.

[00:10:10] Carol: I'm like tearing up

[00:10:11] Ben: sweet.

[00:10:12] Carol: Yeah. So it's I get time now more than I've ever gotten him, so, okay. Try on some failures, Ben, whether you have bring us out of our slump, please.

[00:10:26] Ben's Triumph

[00:10:26] Ben: to save us all here with a triumph.

[00:10:27] Carol: Thank

[00:10:28] Tim: Yeah.

[00:10:30] Ben: I feel like I've been continuing to try and crush it at my normal levels. as we've talked about many times, I'm sort of working as an island, unto myself at, at the company. And sometimes it's hard to find stuff to do or find the right things to do.

[00:10:44] Ben: Cause I don't have managers and I don't have a lot of contact with the customers, but I feel like I've been persevering and I've been finding things to, to build and ways to add value to the, to the application. And we have. Product TV, slack channel at work where people share all the things that they've recently released.

[00:11:02] Ben: And not that this is a real gauge of success at all, but over the last week or so I'm scrolling through it. And it's like my demo video and someone else's demo video and like my demo video again for something else. And then someone else was then like finally into my demo video again, like I feel like I've, I had a really nice cadence of releasing features or featurettes, depending on how big they are here.

[00:11:23] Ben: But, I don't know. I just, I was feeling really good about.

[00:11:25] Tim: That's good. I mean, I wasn't here for the last episode that was recorded, but you know, it was like Ben needed a minute was the

[00:11:32] Carol: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:33] Tim: And again, he was just needed some love. Right. And he wasn't feeling, it didn't feel like he was crushing it. So I guess, maybe you kind of going into your feelings there for a little bit and coming out and call, you know what I can crush it.

[00:11:44] Tim: And now this week you're crushing it.

[00:11:46] Ben: crushing it. So,

[00:11:47] Tim: that's all.

[00:11:48] Carol: And we're proud of you. Yay.

[00:11:51] Ben: Well, thank you very much.

[00:11:52] Tim: You're crushing matters.

[00:11:55] Carol: Oh,

[00:11:57] Ben: Awesome. All right, so that's triumphs and failures. So let's, ease into our topic.

[00:12:02] Tim: w we should put out items not here.

[00:12:04] Carol: I was hoping no one would even know this (quack).

[00:12:08] Tim: Wow.

[00:12:09] Carol: No, we love you,

[00:12:10] Tim: he's uh,

[00:12:10] Tim: he's. On-site at Princeton. So

[00:12:13] Carol: name-dropping

[00:12:14] Ben: we miss you,

[00:12:15] Carol: No,

[00:12:15] Tim: Yeah, miss you Adam with that, but that's the only way you'd ever get the prem Princeton.

[00:12:21] Carol:

[00:12:21] Update On Carol's Role

[00:12:21] Carol: Yeah. So I think, for this week, a good topic is to just kind of talk about some of the management things going on. I know Ben's asked a couple of times just for an update on how the role is going and how running with two hats on all the time is working for me. I think it's a good time to kind of chat about that because this week I did hit some struggles with it and it's made me miss what I used to do a lot, but I don't still have no regrets.

[00:12:48] Carol: I'm so loving when I'm doing so

[00:12:51] Tim: And I definitely have feelings on this too.

[00:12:52] Carol: good. Good. Then we'll have a little show then about it.

[00:12:56] Tim: for sure.

[00:12:56] Carol: So. In my new role, I get to be an individual contributor to projects. and I also get to manage people and I spend what was supposed to kind of be 70, 30. So I was supposed to have about 70% of my time allocated.

[00:13:12] Carol: So getting to write code and 30% to the management side of things, cause it really shouldn't take up a ton of my time because we split the team in half. So instead of me having to manage everyone, we divided it between two people. So that. Two of us are going to do this role. And then, we each still get the right code because coding is something that we like.

[00:13:31] Carol: Well, starting out, it's been probably closer to 50 50, or maybe even 40% coding and 60% management just because there's so much training. And there's so many meetings there's so much to catch up on is so much back understanding that I just don't have. So I'm kind of getting to that point now where I am feeling like I'm getting more into the 70, 30% where I'm less management and more coding, but I.

[00:14:00] Carol: It had the points this week, where I had a tiny little bit of resentment that I had to stop writing code. I was in the spot that makes me so happy on the inside and it brings me joy and it makes my mind churn in a way that nothing else does. So when I. Was in the middle of what I thought was amazing code.

[00:14:23] Carol: And someone had actually said to me in quotes, if you can solve this, your incredible and I was 80. Exactly. I was like, well, now I'm going to Google the hell out of this and find the answer. Now I was like, this doesn't seem like it was a problem we couldn't solve, but it didn't seem crazy complex. So. Did a few things, tried some different stuff, realize why, what we thought would work, wouldn't work and then found a solution for it.

[00:14:54] Carol: So I was like, 80% done and it's going on noon. And I have to stop. I have to just tell my brain no more code, take a break because if I don't walk away for, 10 weeks. I go straight from coding, into a meeting where I need to be focusing and paying attention and contributing to, I start that meeting with a little bit of resentment that I had to stop what I'm doing for this.

[00:15:18] Carol: And someone's asking about the weather. Like I could have joined three minutes later and kept coding longer. Cause you want to know about the weather where everyone lives. Like it's silly little things and they don't really matter in the big picture, but that's just where my brain is. When you took a, when I feel like I took away something that I love, That's not fair.

[00:15:34] Carol: I don't want to know about the weather. I was going to write three more lines of code right now and hit test again and see what happened. So I have to like hard cut myself off and go no more. This is like an addiction. No more. Your bad stand up, walk away. It's okay. Take the dog out. Get a drink.

[00:15:51] Tim: is it bad though? I mean, from what I understand, correct me, if I'm wrong with ADHD, I hear that my understanding is that if you don't find something, it's not you, but a person with ADHD doesn't find something interesting. They can't focus on it. it's like I was working on something interesting.

[00:16:08] Tim: And now we're here talking about the weather. This is not interesting.

[00:16:11] Carol: brain can not handle it. I go into overload, but I've had this for years, so I've learned how to handle it and how to process with it. So I am better than most people are better than people who don't know how to manage it. Well,

[00:16:23] Tim: I say I can totally sympathize though. So it's like, whenever I am engrossed in something, so it's like, I get a lot of injects, right. So my pretty much for the past, almost 15 years, I've been a mixture of. Coder slash manager. Sometimes I've had 50 people that are,

[00:16:44] Carol: under you.

[00:16:45] Tim: And then, my team is pretty small now and now I like a smaller team.

[00:16:48] Tim: I prefer a smaller team. Cause it's just, you can be a lot more agile and quicker to change, but

[00:16:54] Carol: And you can give them your true attention. You can't give 50 people your attention and do a good

[00:16:58] Tim: Exactly. Yeah. I have to have people under me. It said. And then when I had 50 people, I had like people under me and it's like, I would find out stuff later that they were doing that. I was like, oh my God, she did

[00:17:08] Carol: yeah,

[00:17:10] Tim: she,

[00:17:10] Carol: she said, what do you, I wouldn't, I, wasn't me. You guys. That's not me.

[00:17:15] Tim: I never saw any of that.

[00:17:16] Tim: No, it wasn't her, it wasn't her. It, I, and I never saw any of this. Right. So as I felt removed from that, I just felt terrible people like, oh yeah. I'm so glad you finally fired her because she did this and this. I'm like, oh my God.

[00:17:27] Carol: Yeah.

[00:17:28] Tim: But it was a smaller team. So like, you can have constant interaction.

[00:17:32] Tim: Like for instance, because I deal with so many different departments of, the infrastructure team, the sales team, the people above, my management team above me and then like, marketing it's like marketing, particularly that, just, I don't know if this is a marketing trait, but they've.

[00:17:49] Tim: That kind of like, don't really work on a schedule that they have a schedule, but it's like, they want information from me and they want to, right now, like I'm building this asset, I have to do this whole presentation kind of thing. And I need to know this, and this. And they're like message you right in the middle of the

[00:18:01] Carol: Oh,

[00:18:02] Tim: I get so angry that they won't be messaged.

[00:18:05] Tim: They will call like the teams call I'll get, do, do, do, do, do, do do.

[00:18:10] Carol: No,

[00:18:11] Tim: And I'm like, I take it. I take the call sometimes I wouldn't and it's. And they asked, start asking me questions and I feel bad because I'm a little bit resentful. Like I was right in the middle of that. I'm still looking at my I'm still looking at my code

[00:18:24] Carol: Yep. No, I know.

[00:18:26] Tim: I was still looking at it, trying to figure it out, but I know it's not like I know it's not going to be an optimal solution if I'm doing this while I'm trying to answer their questions and I just get so resentful. It's like, you stopped me in the middle of the night. It's to answer these questions, even though I know marketing is extremely important, I used to be in sales and marketing, so I know how incredibly important it is to do it and to do it well, but it's like, you just interrupted me and that just kills me.

[00:18:51] Carol: Yep. Oh, I

[00:18:52] Carol: know.

[00:18:53] Marketing Deadlines

[00:18:53] Ben: side tangent for a second, but I. I'm blown away at how much development seems to be marketing driven development by which, I mean, the marketing team has decided that they want to do some sort of a marketing push on X date. And now everybody is racing to get their features in to meet that X date.

[00:19:10] Ben: So they're, they're up until the wire they're deploying stuff. That's, more or less untested because everyone's scrambling to get to. And then people either don't hit that deadline or things get released and they're buggy, and then people are freaking out about like, oh, you guys need to have better quality on your working.

[00:19:26] Ben: Like, no, what we need is to build a feature, have it live in production for six months, and then you market it. Once we realize that it's been battle tested, but it's just like everybody is driven by this idea of these marketing campaigns.

[00:19:39] Tim: I'm pretty fortunate in that regard. So, I mean, Marcus. I tell them what they need to feature.

[00:19:45] Carol: Oh, that's cool.

[00:19:46] Tim: like, yeah. I'm like, they're like, I thought this a certain feature would be ready at a certain date, but because of legal league, I have a whole section that we can talk about with dealing with legal department. all my bottlenecks are in the legal department. And so it's like, I'm sorry, this is kind of ready to go, but we can't release it because we're still negotiating contracts right now. So it's like, you're going to have to push that, up until July. Cause that is not happening. This is not happening in April.

[00:20:14] Tim: So and so, and fortunately they are pretty good about that. Okay. Well what can we feature? I'm like, all right, this is ready. Now this has been working for the past three months. let's focus on that. Let's dive into.

[00:20:26] Tim: Oh man. One time. I was so furious. I wake up very early, relatively speaking. I wake up at five and I,Oh, no, that's not relatively. That's early.

[00:20:34] Ben: early.

[00:20:35] Tim: I wake up at 8 45 and then Snoop to snooze for like three times.

[00:20:41] Ben: So one morning, this is a couple of years ago. I woke up at five, got to my desk at like maybe 5 25, after showering and everything. And one of the other engineers had been paged in the middle of this. At like 2:00 AM, because someone realized that there was a marketing campaign going out in the morning and someone had forgot to communicate to the team that some feature was part of that marketing campaign.

[00:21:05] Ben: So they paged him the night before. To build the feature overnights that it could be shipped in the morning. I was,

[00:21:12] Tim: How about you just pause the marketing

[00:21:14] Carol: Yeah.

[00:21:15] Ben: I was to this day, I will forever hate that manager. And I didn't even know him as a person. I only know him from this and like that has so tarnished him in my vision that I w like, I'll never be able to work with this person.

[00:21:28] Ben: It

[00:21:28] Carol: Your legacy is done, man. It's over. Yeah.

[00:21:32] Ben: Oh,

[00:21:33] Tim: I mean, but I mean, I get it organizationally that lockstep between, development and, product and marketing and sales. It's really, it's tough to get. I mean, there's, it's two different. two different goalposts, right?

[00:21:46] Ben: Yeah.

[00:21:47] Who Decides The Work?

[00:21:47] Ben: So, let me ask you this, Carol, who decides what you code? Cause you're the manager. So is it basically like people like Carol, why are you working on that? And you're like, it's okay. My manager signed off on it.

[00:22:00] Carol: no, well, first we don't question people and what they work on because we, we just have. Yeah, we have a pretty big backlog and we have several big projects going on at all times. So we just try making sure that there's work out there that is, capable to be worked by all the different skillsets that we have on the team.

[00:22:17] Carol: So we try to have some easier things for the newer people and then some mid and some harder things just so that no matter who frees up, there's always something to pick up. So we just pick up whatever we want. And if I go through the, like, to do lists the ready, the like things we've pointed in story time, and there's nothing in there.

[00:22:35] Carol: I feel like I can work on, I just reach out to the product owner and go, yo, none of this is appealing to me. Can you give us some more work? And they'll just move things back and they're like, sure. What do you think about this? Or what do you want to look at on this? So nobody questions us on what we do, but yeah.

[00:22:51] Carol: So all of us just pick up whatever we want to work on it. That's what we work on. we'd had an email come out the other day. Cause we have this timekeeping system called harvest and it's literally just, some people take it to an extreme and it's totally fine. Everybody just uses it.

[00:23:05] Carol: However they want to use it. I use it the way I was taught to use it, which is you just log in once a week and you put eight hours on every day and you just say, I worked.

[00:23:17] Tim: Yeah, I like that.

[00:23:18] Carol: I'm like, okay. And I will put it on the correct projects because they just want to know how much it costs to build the effort. So they want to know the cost associated with building this project.

[00:23:27] Carol: Like what was the number to it? So maybe I'll put it like on vendor communication or on the auto responder. When I was doing that, otherwise it's. Internal support. That's where all the, my hours go. Some people put like 15 minutes in this meeting, 15 minutes here, like do whatever you want. But an email came out the other day because one of my co-managers, had forgot to put in a time entry for the week before.

[00:23:49] Carol: And it was like, Hey, you're missing a time entry. And there's this standard little blurb, the guy added to every email because he's had so many issues with repeat people. And he was like, If this continues to be a problem, I will be notifying management. And I taught, I tell, I talked to my peer and I was like, you should've just been like, respond and been like, sorry, I am management. Sorry. I snored it. So it was just our cute little like inside joke that day with the management.

[00:24:25] Tim: Yeah. I feel pretty fortunate because. I w I decide, I get to decide I drive the product roadmap. So, I mean, the entire division of this company that was created, came out of sort of a little rogue side experiment that I created that turned into the entire payments division of

[00:24:43] Carol: crazy, right?

[00:24:45] Tim: right. So it's like, I decide what we're working on.

[00:24:49] Tim: And it's like, I don't get, there's never any interference from the. Companies above me, what we're doing. Cause it's like, I try to stay abreast of what's going on in the payments industry. And so I'm like always, I'm actually a little, sometimes too far ahead like stuff that right. And then I don't get buy in sometimes.

[00:25:07] Tim: And then I just kind of lose interest. Some of the stuff I'm working on now, if I had really applied myself a bit more and fought harder, four years ago, it's like, We wouldn't be a million, we would be a company in the millions. We be a company approaching billions.

[00:25:21] Carol: Yeah.

[00:25:22] Tim: So yeah. So yeah, that's the nice thing about somewhat being a manager slash developers.

[00:25:29] Tim: Like I can drive what we're working on and what I think is important. And that excites me, that part excites me. But what, what depresses me is like, when I delegate stuff, I'm the kind of person I don't want to, I hate micromanagers, so I don't want to delegate something. And then. Constantly checking on houses, you know, I'll have a meeting once a day.

[00:25:49] Tim: What's your status? How's it going? Any roadblocks you think I can do to help? Nope. Nope. Okay. And it's like, all right, now I don't know what to do with the rest of my day, other than argue with finance and legal and, and have meetings with customers and stuff. Which, I mean, I don't mind those. It just doesn't fill me with joy.

[00:26:07] Tim: I know the necessity of it. I'd much rather have my hands on a keyboard and start coding something. But a lot of times it's like, because I've delegated stuff, there's nothing for me to do.

[00:26:17] Carol: I get

[00:26:17] Tim: I feel really worthless.

[00:26:19] Meetings

[00:26:19] Carol: I have like multiple loves, right? So I love growing people and I love writing code. I don't like all the other meetings that go along with it. So I do, when I'm having to sit in these meetings, I go, I can't have it all, just get through it. And then you can do those other things. He loves the rest of the time.

[00:26:35] Carol: You'll be fine. Like stop being selfish and trying to have the perfect day. Nobody else gets a perfect day. Why should you it's okay. Go to the meeting.

[00:26:43] Tim: The only thing is saves me in meetings. Like particularly, like customer is, I just try to be the funniest person in the.

[00:26:49] Carol: Nice.

[00:26:50] Tim: can just make people laugh during the meeting, I'm like, okay. I shared some joy and I know I'm a bad mood. And I'm like, don't even care about trying to be somewhat humorous during a meeting.

[00:26:58] Tim: It's like, yeah, I'm checked out on this and I'll do the Elon Mustang is like, I'll tell people like, particularly like sometimes with marketing, they'll just start telling me stuff that is completely tangential to what I care. With the meeting. It's like, okay, that's good for you, but I don't, I'll be like, unless you guys need me to, I'm leaving this meeting.

[00:27:17] Carol: Yeah, I've got some other things to take care

[00:27:19] Tim: I will just ghost.

[00:27:22] Ben: I always feel guilty if the meeting's coming up to the top of the hour or whenever it was scheduled to end and it's still going, and then I have another call I have to get to, and this is like so ridiculous. I feel guilty saying, sorry, I have to drop to get to another call.

[00:27:36] Tim: Yeah,

[00:27:36] Carol: Yeah, but that's, you should be respectful of everyone's time.

[00:27:40] Ben: No, no, no. I agree. I'm saying how ridiculous it is that I feel guilty. It shouldn't have to

[00:27:44] Carol: you, she should not feel guilty.

[00:27:45] Tim: at the beginning of each meeting, if I do have another call back, I'm like, I will say at the beginning, just to let you guys know, I have a hard stop at. Right. And so then when,when it's getting close to them, like, Hey, I've got a heart. As I said, I have a hard stop at two bounce and I don't feel guilty at all.

[00:28:01] Tim: I told them upfront. And a lot of times the end of the meeting is just minutiae. Right.

[00:28:06] Ben: yeah.

[00:28:06] Tim: figured it out by then, you're not gonna figure it out in the last two minutes.

[00:28:09] Carol: we have a lady who's been putting me in some meetings with her and I've noticed every time she does a meeting, like nothing ends on the 30 minute or the hour, everything, if it's a 30 minute call, then it ends five minutes before that. So it's just a 25 minute office hour, like, meaning it'll end at the 50 minute mark.

[00:28:27] Carol: And she's made it clear. She's like, I hate that. I sit here all day and I can't even get up and go pee. Like. And the call that went long and I feel bad for these other people who are waiting on me. So I won't go. Then she goes, so everything I schedule, I give you a five or 10 minute break because you deserve that you need to stand up and walk around.

[00:28:46] Carol: Everybody does. So I've tried doing that with things I schedule too. So that if, like when we hit that point, I'm like, if this needs to keep going, we're rescheduling something like, we're not going to just keep going past it because I need to stand up. You need to stand up. I need to jot down some notes. I need to think about the next. It's not fair to anyone involved. So I'm going to try getting that more common with the stuff I do with the people I work with to give me a pee break between meetings, please

[00:29:13] Tim: I ended a meeting like 10 minutes early, a couple weeks ago. I was like, because mostly because I wasn't interested anymore. It was it, there really wasn't anything interesting left. It was not it's stuff. Not related to what I was doing. Like, Hey guys, I gotta bounce. I gotta go to the bathroom. Has.

[00:29:29] Carol: later.

[00:29:30] Tim: That's a great thing about working from home.

[00:29:31] Tim: It's like, it's not like you're in an office or at a table and you have to stand up and leave and it's like, Nope, I got to go in a meeting. Bye.

[00:29:40] Carol: I got to go,go.

[00:29:41] Tim: Leave me alone. I'm pooping.

[00:29:45] Scheduling

[00:29:45] Ben: I was just gonna say, as someone who's an individual contributor full-time I have relatively few meetings and then every now and then I'll have to try and schedule time with not just a manager, but maybe like a manager and another engineer. And I'm the one responsible for scheduling the meeting. And so the way that I do this, I go into a Google calendar.

[00:30:05] Ben: And I just turn on those other people's calendars so that I can find a, a free time. And yo, when I turn on a manager's calendar, it's just like a solid color of meetings across the entire week. I, as an individual contributor, I have trouble imagining that all of those beauties are actually necessary.

[00:30:24] Ben: It just

[00:30:24] Carol: You'd be surprised.

[00:30:25] Ben: eight hours of meetings that day it's nuts.

[00:30:28] Carol: You'd be surprised. they all come from a good spot. Like I have a Monday stand up with my boss and my peer, and it's basically just a sync up is to say, Hey, we need to take 30 minutes an hour every week just to kind of go over where we're at with everything and any challenges that we're having and to make sure that we're communicating and that we're.

[00:30:50] Carol: On the same page and those are valuable to me. Like I get more out of that than I do the big giant, all the managers together meetings. Cause I actually can learn and I can express like what's going on. And I have a better understanding of the other half of the team. So

[00:31:07] Tim: One thing I do Ben is kind of do some block schedule. So I will go on my calendar and put like a block of actually what I'll do. So people don't know that it's a block schedule as I'll put three to four hours on certain days of the week that are, and I'll do an hour each to make it look like I have meetings.

[00:31:27] Tim: So when people try, cause they can see your schedule, right. They don't see what it is.

[00:31:31] Ben: Right, right.

[00:31:31] Tim: Right. Yeah. That I'm busy and they don't schedule it there. So I do that in order to just get some contiguous hours together. Cause I do hate that. I've said this before is like, if you have a meeting it's a half hour meeting and then, it goes from two to two 30 and then you have a three o'clock meeting that half hour.

[00:31:47] Tim: What are you gonna do? You're not going to get any productive coding done at that point. So I'll just kind of do some block scheduling to block out some time that I know that I have that. And then the other rule is if someone cancels a meeting, which happens a lot,they canceled last minute or they, they canceled the day before.

[00:32:03] Tim: I don't take that off my calendar that stays there. That that'sthat's bonus time, baby, as bone as time.

[00:32:11] Ben: And I'll tell you as. It causes some, I don't want to say conflict. maybe like we use the term at work sometimes of residue of resentment, or it's like, it's just feelings, just like minor feelings. So as an individual contributor, my schedule is a lot more relaxed. I can pivot if I have to pivot. If I, if there's interrupt, driven work that comes up, I can be interrupted and I can work on that.

[00:32:34] Ben: And it's not catastrophic to my overall schedule and. Managers, it feels like there next week and a half has already been mapped out on their calendar. So I feel like their ability to pivot and change is not nearly my ability. And I don't think about that because I don't look at their calendars, but then stuff will come up at work.

[00:32:52] Ben: Like I was just talking to my wife over dinner about this, that we have a. Customers. Who's like our second largest customer, I think. And they're pretty significant customer came to us and were complaining about a point of friction in the application. And I was like, well, I need to understand a little bit more about what is frictional for them.

[00:33:13] Ben: So I can start to think about maybe a potential solution. And, and this customer support person's response to that was okay. Well, we have a call scheduled with them next Wednesday, and we can probably bring this up. Or can we just not jump on a call with them tomorrow? Like why,why are we waiting until next Wednesday, if this is our second largest customer and they're having problems, like, is it, but you know, the reality is, there probably is no time for these people until next Wednesday, because that's when it's been blocked off.

[00:33:43] Ben: But for me, it's like, whatever, I'm loosey goosey, I'll meet whenever you want, but it's coming from two different worlds. It's a it's frictional sometimes.

[00:33:52] Tim: Yeah.

[00:33:52] Carol: So with that, I will say my most important meetings that are on my calendar, that I don't move and I will cancel other people on our, my one-on-ones with the people who report to me.

[00:34:02] Carol: Those are the things that I don't let anything else take over. If someone important puts a,puts a calendar invite or tries taking over that slot, like that suit gets rejected and I'm like, this is more important that I show them that they're the value here rather than me trying to get on a call with you about something that can be discussed in an ad.

[00:34:21] Carol: So I think that keeping your people who report to you the top priority will go a lot longer than bending in a conversation that can wait, even until tomorrow, like, don't do it. They'll move your people. Yeah.

[00:34:32] Tim: for sure.

[00:34:34] Disconnecting From Code

[00:34:34] Carol: So, earlier Tim had mentioned to you that he feels a little bit of resentment. When you know, he's sitting there looking at his code and wants to be doing it, and they're like chatting about other things. I have found a little fix for that for myself, and you might be able to use it. So I disconnect my laptop from my monitor.

[00:34:55] Carol: And I'll go sit at the table or I will go sit at the bar or I'll go sit outside the patio, like on the couch outside, because if I'm not sitting here, like with my keyboard, my mouse and my multiple monitors, it doesn't feel quite the same as just sitting outside or sitting in the kitchen. And I don't have all the windows open, so I can't see the code as easy.

[00:35:15] Carol: I can't have my debugger open, so I'm going. I don't want to code on just my laptop screen. So then I do kind of disconnect a little bit because it doesn't feel like the right environment for me to be writing code. So it does, let me feel a little less resentment to what's going on because I've taken that the way that I do it, easy away from myself.

[00:35:35] Carol: And I go, okay. I can't have it in the view while I'm also watching this meeting, because they're going to see that my eyes are going back and forth or they're going to, know that I'm not looking. Cause they're going to see my fingers tap like typing on the laptop screen. So I do, I will unplug my laptop and go sit at the bar or move away so that.

[00:35:54] Carol: I have the urge to look at code because I will disconnect and I'll be like, oh, they aren't talking to me. Let me go back over there. Right. If you were lines and see if I could sneak it in and then like what happened today will happen where they're like Carol and Alex, when you guys think about that. And I was like, oh shoot.

[00:36:12] Carol: I really hope Alex was listening.

[00:36:17] Carol: I'm like, it didn't sound the same.

[00:36:20] Tim: Yeah. I refuse to code on the truck bed. So

[00:36:23] Carol: Yeah.

[00:36:24] Tim: that, that, that might work.

[00:36:25] Carol: Yeah, give me a way to disconnect. It works for me. So

[00:36:29] Ben: I was listening to another podcast. I can't remember which one it was. And one of the guys was talking about, I don't know if it's his whole phone or just a particular app, but he puts, I think he was saying like his Instagram app into black and white mode or his whole phone to black and white mode. And then he finds that if he opens his phone to scroll through his like Facebook or Instagram in black and white, it's like, it's just.

[00:36:52] Ben: And so he'll put it away as a way from, he doesn't have to remove the app, but it sort of takes away the sugary

[00:36:58] Carol: urge to do it. Oh, I should do. I wonder if you could schedule your phone to be that way?

[00:37:03] Ben: I didn't even know that there was a thing that could be done.

[00:37:05] Carol: Yeah. It's in the accessibilities I believe, I don't remember. I'll have to go look again, but yeah, that's kind of cool.

[00:37:11] Ben:

[00:37:11] Management Blues

[00:37:11] Carol: so yeah. My management blues are happening a little. I don't have any resentment though. I am. I mean like overall for taking a job, I'm loving what I get to do as far as growing people and getting to be a positive force for the team outside of writing code. But there are times when I'm realizing I miss writing code.

[00:37:30] Carol: You guys,

[00:37:31] Tim: Yeah, no, I get

[00:37:32] Carol: long didn't read version.

[00:37:35] Tim: I mean, I try to look at. So when you are helping manage people to build software, you're I think, Adam, layman's had this, when I interviewed him, you as a product manager, you're a force multiplier,

[00:37:48] Carol: are. Yeah.

[00:37:50] Tim: You're F you're a force multiplier. So you may not be directly doing, the bulk of it, but you are steering the ship.

[00:37:57] Tim: And so, when you land it, you can feel a bit of pride there that not only did it. Some of it's your code, but most of it's your direction. Right. Okay. So I just try to keep reminding myself that, but

[00:38:08] Appreciation

[00:38:08] Ben: it's so hard. And going back to the lab, last episode of the episode before we were talking a little bit about love languages. And now I was saying about how my primary love language is compliments. I feel like as a manager, you're much less likely to be complimented. I don't know. maybe that's not true, but it feels like it's true.

[00:38:25] Ben: Yeah. You're the, you're the magician behind the curtain, right? you're setting everyone else up to succeed. It's not necessarily people. Aren't looking at Tim being like, oh, Tim, your team did a great job. Or maybe they are, maybe I don't know what I'm

[00:38:37] Tim: They do.

[00:38:38] Ben: but they do. If they know what's good for.

[00:38:42] Tim: I mean, I mean, when the revenue numbers are good, you take that when.

[00:38:47] Ben: I guess so. it just seems like such a height or feedback cycle when you're an individual contributor, like you have an idea, you barf it out onto the keyboard and then people have to go, oh, that's great. Or it's not great. But as a manager, it's, it feels so much more strategic.

[00:39:01] Carol: I can see that. I will say one thing we do is we are structured to, manage by doing servant leadership. So with that, Celebrate our victories as a team, but when there's a failure, it's my responsibility. So my team gets to praise a lot with our joys, but when something goes wrong, that's on my shoulders and it's mine to bear.

[00:39:27] Carol: So I do see what you're saying, because I feel like a lot of problems that are going to come. I'm going to carry alone, or I'm going to carry with my other manager, peers and people who I am in this role with, but my team's going to see more of the success. So I think it's great if your individual contributors get to celebrate that and get to celebrate a lot and don't feel the failures.

[00:39:48] Carol: I feel like I'm doing a good job. If they feel like basically what you just said, that I get to put my code out there. I get to go on and be happy and not really look at the bad of what could be. So.

[00:40:00] Tim: Yeah. I mean, and I, as someone agree with you, Ben, I don't know how often that happens, but you know, the, some of the best compliments that I've got is. Purposely taken people that were disgruntled on other teams that I felt we were going to lose, that I thought were an asset. I thought they were underutilized or just mismanaged and brought them onto my team and to, w our annual company dinner party to have them say, cause there were a few drinks in him, but like, man, thank you.

[00:40:27] Tim: you changed my life, man. You is, everything is so much better. And when you hear that, you're like, okay, that's worth it. But yeah, I mean, Because the managers, they're the ones giving compliments and also doing your reviews. So it's kind of rarer for someone to say, Hey,

[00:40:41] Tim: Mr. Man, mid-manager,

[00:40:42] Tim: you're doing an awesome job, but whereas my case, I try to say that as much as possible, right?

[00:40:47] Tim: When there's something that a

[00:40:49] Carol: You celebrate it. Yep. And you celebrate it a

[00:40:51] Tim: Positive reinforcement.

[00:40:53] Carol: And for your management skills, Tim, I am where I am and I appreciate everything you've done for me. And all the hard work you put into me along the way.

[00:41:01] Tim:

[00:41:01] Carol: Cause you,

[00:41:02] Tim: it

[00:41:02] Tim: dusty in

[00:41:03] Carol: you ha you're one of those people. I mean, you're a good manager. You're good at what you do.

[00:41:07] Carol: And you're good at building people. And I'm proof of that. I mean, you put a lot of hard work in me and I appreciate that truly

[00:41:13] Tim: that. I just, I just don't understand managers who have this ego to try to prove themselves. I don't. I think you prove yourself by the work that the people that work with you do. That's how you prove yourself. It's not about.

[00:41:27] Tim: It's not about you

[00:41:28] Carol: My approving myself is just to show my team that I'm there to support them and that I've got their back and that I will fight until the end to make them the best version of themselves that they can be. And I want to see them grow and that's all I care about. However we get there. That's how we get there.

[00:41:44] Carol: And that's all I've got approved to use that you can trust me. And that I'll do the best I can.

[00:41:49] Tim: Yep. I mean, that's, as soon as they're low Fest, but to see you come out, hired you out of college and to

[00:41:53] Tim: see all the amazing things you've done. So yeah, you're an intern. Yeah. It's Saturday. Just to see how amazing you become just makes me proud. I totally a hundred percent credit to you, but I'm glad I was a part of it.

[00:42:04] Carol: huge part of it. Yep. We'll wrap it up there, guys. Calling it a night. I need to go get some Kleenex for Tim real quick.

[00:42:15] Tim: I bring his own Ben.

[00:42:17] Thanks For Listening!

[00:42:17] Ben: All right, I guess, let's wrap it up there. This episode of Working Code was brought to you by not Adam and listeners. Like you. If you're enjoying the show, please consider sharing the show with your friends

[00:42:28] Patreon

[00:42:28] Ben: and also consider supporting us on Patreon so we can keep the dulcet sounds of our voice coming at you with such high quality.

[00:42:35] Ben: special shout out to our top supporter. Monte. You are amazing. We are humbled by your large. Yes. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:42:48] Carol: I heard it too,

[00:42:51] Tim: We don't know you like that. Monte.

[00:42:54] Carol: but we love you.

[00:42:55] Ben: all patrons get early access to an ad free version of new episodes and the after show. And, anyone can join us on our slash discord. and,

[00:43:08] Ben: I guess until then,

[00:43:09] Tim: Remember guys, your heart matters, even if you're a Dilbert, mid manager.

[00:43:16] Carol: Good night guys.

[00:43:17] Bloopers

[00:43:17] Carol: wait now, how do you do the joke thing, but then though? No,

[00:43:41] Ben: won't wall

[00:43:43] Carol: no, like the.

[00:43:45] Ben: but

[00:43:47] Tim: I don't know.

[00:43:47] Carol: I don't know whenever you

[00:43:48] Ben: feel like, yeah, just Cut

[00:43:50] Carol: a joke, right? Someone put in the road, jokes out anyways.

[00:43:55]

[00:43:55] Tim: So ever after show, what will we talk about? You don't know because you ain't paying.

[00:44:01] Carol: you might be,

[00:44:03] Tim: Okay. Th those are paying well.

[00:44:05] Carol: oh yeah

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