Articles for category: Initiative

December 9, 2024

Greg Thomas

Losing Creative Flow

When things go wrong, sideways, and you feel lost – all creative flow goes out the window. It’s one thing if creativity is a heavy part of your job – your livelihood depends on that flow existing to some extent – so you’ll need to put in the time. But when you don’t have that dependency, it’s an ebb and flow and the hardest thing with any creative endeavor is to get started. Show me someone who does creative work (drawing, coding, writing, speaking, etc, etc) and has never lost their flow? It’s impossible. Yeah, sit down at the chair

December 5, 2024

Greg Thomas

Where all My Machines at?

I am convinced, there is a machine, at every gym, where there is only one.  This machine might as well be in the centre of the room. Everyone wants it, everyone needs it. If you look away for a second, someone has swooped in and taken your spot. Why aren’t there two? It can’t be costly. Have you looked around the room?  There are tons of machines with the same cords, weights, seats, etc. And it’s not space. So what is it?  Why is there only one and not more? I’m convinced that this machine is what keeps you in the

December 4, 2024

Greg Thomas

Finding Your Workspace

My first job, I can only describe as 12 people crammed into a 2-bedroom apartment.  If I moved my head to the left, I would make eye contact with a person 3 ft away, 2ft beside me was another developer and 2 ft behind me were the servers.  I once backed into the server and accidentally hit the keyboard triggering a copy. My second job was in a larger building, but they never had enough room so they kept moving us around.  In the few years I was there, I think I changed desks 4 – 5 times. Then I

December 3, 2024

Greg Thomas

Being the Alternate

You might not be the star. You might not be the top player. You might be the third person on the call-in rotation. You might get the emails but you don’t have to respond to them. That’s what you’re asked to do as the Alternate. Here’s what they don’t always tell you that you can do; Show up for everything. Bring the best attitude. Jump in and offer to do extra. Ask questions. Volunteer for the grunt work. Push yourself on your own time to learn and get better. Support. That’s what the best alternates do.

December 2, 2024

Greg Thomas

The Work You Don’t Want To Do

It sits there on the edge of your desk. You’ve pushed it off (physically) many times before. But then you pick it up and put it right back on the edge. It’s the code that works that no one knows how but now they need to change. You don’t touch that code, that code should never be modified, it should be left alone forever. But it can’t, you have to dive in, you have to figure out the why. It’s in any job, the work we don’t want to do, it’s beyond the grunt work – it lives on a

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