Change in the wind?
May. 26th, 2005 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiSo... after a nice night of more dancy-dancy with the soon-to-be Indian ladies, I come in today to work and within an hour of getting in my 2nd level boss calls me in. This boss, called Deputy Project Manager or Engineering (DPME), is in charge of lovely things like staffing, budgets, schedules, and that big meta level stuff.
So.. with her typically inscrutable phone voice she calls me into her office. The woman has the same voice that says "can you come into my office?" for:
- we love you, we're giving you a raise/bonus/promotion
- you are in deep doo-doo, we caught you looking at porn and sexually harassing your coworkers
- are you feeling better, you said you had a migraine yesterday?
- want to change projects? Here's an opportunity.
And that last is what she offered me. A long time ago - in fact the last time a big pile of no-contracts-coming was afoot, my name was put on a proposal as a Sr. Engineer to do some researchy work on a project. It's all in the "how would we do this?" and "what if?" level of work - trade studies, prototypes, test systems. The funding got signed off last week.
Now... those of you who have been in earshot in the past few months have heard me ranting about how unhappy my project is making me. I honestly like the guys on my team, but the situation is making me crazy. The customer is pissy, the requirements are loosely defined, the process has gone to hell in a handbasket, and there's personal problems between a team member and management. As the peacekeeping perfectionist, this is a nervous break-down waiting to happen.
So.. the question: to leap or not to leap.
The tradeoffs:
- this project is development, the new project is research. I'm a better developer than I am researcher.
- this project has some situational issues, the new project is unknown
- I know the personalities here - we have good people, guys I honestly trust, personally, although the process is so screwed up, I can't always trust them technically. The new project, I hear the leader is someone I should be careful around - that I should make sure I cover my ass, and document everything well...
- the current project is not my forte, the new project is much closer to work I've done before and enjoyed and been good at.
So... a mixed bag. I said I was interested. Having been saying "I'm leaving if things stay like this" I think I ought to take the risk and leap... but I'm very nervous about this. I did ask to try to work it out so that it messed up the current project as little as possible.
So... that's one question - new project, old (frustrating) project. Depending on schedules, I might even not be traveling.
So... Indian dance Part 1, trial 2. Eleanor and Padma came to my place for another practice. Padma saw it already, but wants practice. Eleanor is seeing all of this for the first time.
It was neat. I think all three of them learn differently, so it's a neat chance to hone my presentation for different learning styles. Eleanor, being a teacher, had some good constructive comments about that, and now my butt is in gear to write up handouts. Even stayed up late last night working on them. She also offered to bring her spiffy digital camera over to video me doing it, so she (and others) can have a copy to follow along with. How cool is that?? Lakshmi on Film!! A real "correspondence Lakshmi course". I'm pretty psyched. She's also gonna find a way to burn it on DVD, so I can send it to the people playing along at home - a dancer in CT, and a dancer in OH.
An interesting challenge, and one I shall face more of - how to run a class where some people have seen the dance form and through practice are chugging right along with getting better, and other people are doing hour #1, and need to take it nice and slow. I think I'll see this in class, too, in no small part, because I'm currently developing my "ringers" who will be advanced beginners by the time Pennsic rolls through, and so will be onto new and more anal horizons of perfection, while everyone else is struggling with hour #1 stuff. I'll also (I hope) have some repeat offenders - I have the joy of having a stable core of class attendees that have stuck with me all these years, and so who know some of what's coming... a fun challenge, but a definite challenge.
Got teaching down to an hour. Want to hone it, now, so it's the best hour it can be. Things to remember:
- doing several rounds of calling out moves, not doing Indian sylla-babble is useful
- demoing is necessary, find way to demo w/out screwing up call outs.
- as dancers learn, will need to make sure I watch closely to get all on same page,
Another challenge - the foot work to the real adavus is tricky, I forget how tricky, I've done this too long.
So.. with her typically inscrutable phone voice she calls me into her office. The woman has the same voice that says "can you come into my office?" for:
- we love you, we're giving you a raise/bonus/promotion
- you are in deep doo-doo, we caught you looking at porn and sexually harassing your coworkers
- are you feeling better, you said you had a migraine yesterday?
- want to change projects? Here's an opportunity.
And that last is what she offered me. A long time ago - in fact the last time a big pile of no-contracts-coming was afoot, my name was put on a proposal as a Sr. Engineer to do some researchy work on a project. It's all in the "how would we do this?" and "what if?" level of work - trade studies, prototypes, test systems. The funding got signed off last week.
Now... those of you who have been in earshot in the past few months have heard me ranting about how unhappy my project is making me. I honestly like the guys on my team, but the situation is making me crazy. The customer is pissy, the requirements are loosely defined, the process has gone to hell in a handbasket, and there's personal problems between a team member and management. As the peacekeeping perfectionist, this is a nervous break-down waiting to happen.
So.. the question: to leap or not to leap.
The tradeoffs:
- this project is development, the new project is research. I'm a better developer than I am researcher.
- this project has some situational issues, the new project is unknown
- I know the personalities here - we have good people, guys I honestly trust, personally, although the process is so screwed up, I can't always trust them technically. The new project, I hear the leader is someone I should be careful around - that I should make sure I cover my ass, and document everything well...
- the current project is not my forte, the new project is much closer to work I've done before and enjoyed and been good at.
So... a mixed bag. I said I was interested. Having been saying "I'm leaving if things stay like this" I think I ought to take the risk and leap... but I'm very nervous about this. I did ask to try to work it out so that it messed up the current project as little as possible.
So... that's one question - new project, old (frustrating) project. Depending on schedules, I might even not be traveling.
So... Indian dance Part 1, trial 2. Eleanor and Padma came to my place for another practice. Padma saw it already, but wants practice. Eleanor is seeing all of this for the first time.
It was neat. I think all three of them learn differently, so it's a neat chance to hone my presentation for different learning styles. Eleanor, being a teacher, had some good constructive comments about that, and now my butt is in gear to write up handouts. Even stayed up late last night working on them. She also offered to bring her spiffy digital camera over to video me doing it, so she (and others) can have a copy to follow along with. How cool is that?? Lakshmi on Film!! A real "correspondence Lakshmi course". I'm pretty psyched. She's also gonna find a way to burn it on DVD, so I can send it to the people playing along at home - a dancer in CT, and a dancer in OH.
An interesting challenge, and one I shall face more of - how to run a class where some people have seen the dance form and through practice are chugging right along with getting better, and other people are doing hour #1, and need to take it nice and slow. I think I'll see this in class, too, in no small part, because I'm currently developing my "ringers" who will be advanced beginners by the time Pennsic rolls through, and so will be onto new and more anal horizons of perfection, while everyone else is struggling with hour #1 stuff. I'll also (I hope) have some repeat offenders - I have the joy of having a stable core of class attendees that have stuck with me all these years, and so who know some of what's coming... a fun challenge, but a definite challenge.
Got teaching down to an hour. Want to hone it, now, so it's the best hour it can be. Things to remember:
- doing several rounds of calling out moves, not doing Indian sylla-babble is useful
- demoing is necessary, find way to demo w/out screwing up call outs.
- as dancers learn, will need to make sure I watch closely to get all on same page,
Another challenge - the foot work to the real adavus is tricky, I forget how tricky, I've done this too long.