July 26th

It's been a while since I have written a blog post. Initially, I was working on an internal blog post, but I decided to withhold it for now because I felt it would have more value to a wider audience. Because of the nature of the blog's source material being deeply internal, it will take me some time to figure out a way to translate it to a wider audience. In the meantime, this blog post will serve as a nice refresher for me and scratch the itch that I've been feeling in terms of getting my thoughts down. It would've been more fitting to have written and published this on the 26th but I got lazy and busy so it's coming out now.

Embarrassment is the cost of entry

• Ed Latimore

Change

As I mentioned in my mid-year update and reflections, I'm in the process of transferring over to NYC. What was crazy and came up in conversation with a friend of mine is that a year to the date exactly I arrived in Melbourne on the 26th of July and I'm flying out of Melbourne on the 26th of July. I completely forgot and just picked that date to fly out because it was cheaper. In these past couple of weeks, I've kind of been haphazardly dashing between managing work (barely), selling stuff that I own and won’t take, sorting out my lease and all the associated bills and whatnot, and trying to catch up and see off friends in the Southern Hemisphere that I won't likely see for a while. I definitely know for next time that the moment I feel that I am going to start changing location, I will start to deal with things earlier. Facebook Marketplace is a godsend and hell at the same time. It’s so good that people can quickly dm and get items sorted. But you have to deal with lowballs, time wasters, and just annoying questions that offer nobody a benefit.

At the time of writing, I’m back in New Zealand seeing off family and friends. Coming back to Wellington has given me mixed emotions; it reminds me of home, and it also reminds me of the reasons why I left in the first place. It’s a weird feeling seeing people who you grew up with and, in a way, have kind of outgrown, be it through perspectives or just maturity. I think it’s more indicative of being in a small town/city like Wellington and feeling like that is the centre of the world. But as you explore and travel around, you realise the world and its entirety is way, way bigger.

Maturity and Morals

This leads to the next thing I wanted to talk about. This past year, I feel like I really locked in and diverted a lot of focus towards work (at times at personal cost to myself, becoming too invested), because I think I have grown immensely, not only from a technical standpoint but also from a maturity and way I perceive myself and how others perceive me.

I was in a conversation with my team, and the discussion of age came up. One of my teammates is a year below me in both age and experience. But a comment was made that I act in a completely different way than someone with a year more experience would act. In another conversation, someone else thought I was 32 (I’m 25 at the time of writing). I think this growth has happened at a great time because of the changing nature of my work; I’ve been exposed a lot more to the corporate politicking side of software development. That in itself is a skill that I need to work on, but compared to the person I was a year ago, I feel like I’m in a much better place to handle those challenges. I’m still working on formulating thoughts and opinions on this aspect of corporate politics but maybe stay tuned if I feel like I can convey this in writing.

Naveen