Drinking from the firehose

October 22, 2006 at 4:36 pm | Posted in Microsoft, Personal | 2 Comments

I was reading a blog entry from another Microsoft blogger and I felt it totally resonated with me and I thought I would mention it here.

The entry is called Spectrum of Complacency.

It is basically talking about him feeling a little overwhelmed right now, which I feel a little too at the moment. I am working with new technologies and tools that I haven’t worked with before and a totally new field that I have not been exposed to (Kernel/Filesystem stuff). Also, it is a little intimidating because I know if I screw something up, it can affect millions of people worldwide. I’m also worried about introducing security flaws into my programs. To top this all off, I have the added stress of moving to a new country, getting to know the area, having to deal with a lot of administrative stuff (finding a house, buying a car, buying furniture, etc.)

At the same time though, I am also very excited, for the same reasons. It’s a new field that I will be learning and hopefully becoming more and more proficient in. The team is very understanding that I am new and have a lot to learn and I think they expect it will take a few months for a newcomer to come up to speed. At IBM Egypt, I also had the same problem as I was very worried the things that I would be doing there. But over time, I came a lot better, and then became one of the “goto” guys for several of the components that I owned there.

But just as Adam said over time, you begin to get a sense of complacency. Over time it becomes less exciting, less interesting, less education, and less motivating. I think at this point in time it becomes good to look for something else (or try do something to shake up your current project so you can learn something new). Sometimes you just got to throw yourself in the deep end of something new in order to make an impact for yourself.

The title of this post is also how I pretty much feel right now. I feel like I am trying to take a drink from a firehouse. It is quite difficult and overwhelming to do such a thing, but as you take a few sips it is quite refreshing 🙂