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A Bit About Bitcoin

August 22, 2022

To preface this piece, let me first admit to knowing nothing of substance about Bitcoin specifically nor cryptocurrency generally. I may or may not own some, which may or may not be worth anything. I genuinely don’t know about the latter and will not confirm or deny the former. But I do find the subject beguiling in no small part due to the wilful limits I’ve intentionally placed on my understanding of it. I know what I don’t know about Bitcoin, which is legion.

Still, I find it compelling that this digital hypothesis drives such extreme feelings among its detractors, supporters, and even those ambivalents such as myself. I don’t know why Bitcoin has any perceived value other than some people believe it does. To be fair, I don’t know why gold has any value either beyond its relative scarcity, its ability to be worked into objects of desire, and most importantly, because people believe it has intrinsic value.

We might even say the same thing about the Dollar, Yuan, Euro, or Shekel. We believe that it has value because we trust that it does. Governments and institutions run on this trust which creates belief. Bitcoin almost does the opposite. Its inherent structure is built on trust and verification. Not that it can’t be stolen and certainly not that it can’t be misused, but the architecture behind it seems logical and sound, unlike many of the preposterous economic voodoo powering the globally interlocked currency system. And from this intrinsic trust emerges value. That’s fascinating.

I’m as much of a spectator to the ebbs and flows of cryptocurrency as I am to the established fiat version. My instinctive reaction is that both are flawed. My speculative assumption is that they will somehow merge if and once old-world financial institutions fail to crush the newcomer in its infancy. The power associated with wealth, or perhaps more accurately greed, is an immense force, and even if the rules are changed to temporarily level the field, they will still bend under the weight of those who have more to lose than the rest of us have to gain.

Manager In The Middle

August 21, 2022

I never set out to be a middle manager. Like most people, I imagine how and where I started my career is not something I can really explain this far down the path. Of course, I can trace my employment history back through my resume and LinkedIn, but how all the pieces fit together and why I made certain decisions to stay or leave certain employers doesn’t even seem to make much sense to me now. I can tell a compelling story for sure, but like most stories, where the truth lies is in the eye of the reader.

I do enjoy my middle management job. Or at least parts of it. And I happen to be pretty good at it as well. I love helping people be successful. I love being the lynchpin for solving complex problems by empowering people. I love making employees and customers happy. If making people happy was all I had to do, I’d have one of the greatest jobs in the world.

Alas, there’s a lot more to it than that. And of course, everyone has to shovel shit sometimes, as my dad used to tell me. Fair enough. What I don’t subscribe to, however, is the tension between having limited control over my circumstances yet full responsibility for the outcomes. The biggest piece of fiction I ever heard was “people don’t quit their company; they quit their manager.” Utter and total bullshit. I certainly accept that there are terrible managers in the world that are all but impossible to work for, but to make a blanket statement like that is a dereliction of reality bordering on the irresponsible. I, for one, have never quit because of a manager. Even ones that I didn’t particularly like or respect. But that’s just me. What do I know? I’m only a middle manager.

Change Haters

August 19, 2022

"Unable to check for update" error message

I love me a good software update. I get genuinely excited whenever I see a “click to update” notification. What will they change? Is that bug I hate going away? Is there a new feature? Have they *spine tingle* updated their UI? Usually, it’s nothing more than some minor bug fixes and/or a critical security update (boring!) But when it’s something new—something I wasn’t expecting—that’s the stuff I crave.

But apparently, I’m alone. Because whenever a company updates its product, the haters come out of the proverbial woodwork to scream the app down. “I hate it!” “It’s ugly!” “I’m a terrible human who hates change and wants to be the singular cause of why we collectively can’t have nice things!” Seriously, what’s with the progress angst, fellow users? Especially when it’s a free product. Maybe beggars can’t be choosers, but they sure as hell can whine like little babies when someone changes the color tint of their precious UI element.

Maybe it’s because, as someone who works in software, I know how hard and behind-the-scenes painful getting new releases to launch can be (spoiler alert: very painful). Still, I love any update I get, even if I hate it. What I mean is that I enjoy the surprise of a software update. It’s like opening a present at Christmas. Sure it’s most likely socks or underwear (even though old, current me loves to get socks and underwear), but sometimes it’s that thing you really, really want that you’ve been leaving hints about all year that you whispered into Santa’s ear when you sat on his lap at the mall even though you knew he wasn’t really Santa and he smelled faintly of liquor, but maybe he had an in with the big guy and was willing to help a deserving kid out. That’s the rush I chase with every click of the “Hell yes! Update my shit ASAP software developer people!” button.

Maybe I only speak for myself but keep bringing on those software updates techno-Clauses. Because if I don’t like what you give me this time, there’s always another Christmas around the corner.

The Only Thing Shorter Than My Attention Span Are My Meetings

August 17, 2022

"Frankly, I don't know why I called this meeting" cartoon

The best gift I can think of giving my co-workers is a meeting cancellation notification. The second best is time back in their busy day. Meetings are necessary, especially with remote colleagues and dispersed collaborative teams. You have to be able to meet and talk and discuss ideas. But you can do so efficiently. More efficiently than most of us do regularly, I think.

Meetings that could have been emails aren’t the issue for the most part. People have gotten pretty good at leveraging asynchronous communication tools to drive much of the underlying decision-making that needs to happen regularly. What we need to get better at is meeting efficiency. And I’m not talking about agendas and participant lists and note-taking. All of those are essential, no matter the length, size, or importance of your meeting. I’m talking about focused efficiency. Taking only as long as is required to make a decision and not a second longer. If you want to frustrate people, allow meetings to go off on tangents, or spend most of the time on small talk, or add in more topics to fill the scheduled time rather than stopping as soon as the meeting objective has been achieved.

I’m renowned for the brevity and conciseness of the meetings I schedule. I’ve actually been thanked many times for not wasting people’s time. I schedule a meeting only when absolutely necessary and keep people in the meeting only as long as is absolutely necessary. Get people together, state the problem for alignment, discuss until consensus has been reached, get the hell out. For the vast majority of meetings, you can achieve that in 15-20 minutes tops.

Want to shoot the breeze? Sure, I’m happy to. Let’s set up some time just for that instead of using the first 10 minutes of a meeting to catch up on how our kids are doing. Remember something else you wanted to discuss with me? No problem. Let’s let everyone else who doesn’t have to sit there and listen to a discussion that doesn’t concern them. Respecting people’s time is the single most empathetic way of showing your co-workers that you care about them and their success that I can think of.

When people are in back-to-back-to-back virtual meetings, it can be utterly exhausting. Giving them back a few minutes here and there to take a breath, check an email, respond to an IM is showing them respect. Refusing to waste someone’s time is more than just a good idea; it’s the law. Or at least it should be.

Have a Drink On Me

August 16, 2022

Futuristic bar scene from the movie Star Wars

I’ve been going to bars for years. I’m bragging, but I’m also establishing motive and credentials. You see, going to a bar these days is unlike it used to be for many reasons of course but mainly because of mobile phones. I’m certain the generation that preceded me said the same things about the introduction of TVs into drinking establishments. Still, in both cases, technology has fundamentally altered the bar going experience.

I mention this because I just read an article describing a new virtual bartending technology sure to get all saloon purists in a drunken twist. It seems that a bunch of Italians (it’s always the Italians, isn’t it?) got together and built themselves a bartending robot capable of not just mixing and serving drinks but even remembering you and your favorite orders. Poor bartenders, you are about to be disintermediated.

I like bartenders. Except when I don’t need them. Which seems to be increasing with greater frequency since I started spending more time on my phone. I travel a bit, and the airport bartender is the most thankless job on the planet, as far as I can tell. You have no (or at least exceedingly few) regulars, and just about everyone you serve is frustrated, distracted, unsocial, and quite likely, already drunk. That’s no fun. Plus, only the savviest business expense account wielders know how to properly tip on a corporate card.

Tavern futurism is neither new nor particularly necessary. Drinking is and should remain as much as is humanly possible old school. But tell that to these Italians and their fancy automated mixologists. Maybe it’s not possible to go back to the good old days of locals and regulars and crusty bartenders who know your name, but if they still get your drink order right, maybe that’s all we need.