bryanshort.com

Every great once in a while; we get signs that “all is not lost” and the “the future will go on”. These signs are pretty rare; because we usually get bombarded with evidence of the contrary. The news is always negative, so much to the point where I don’t even pay attention to it anymore.

Anyhow…back to the story at hand. A few days ago, I noticed that a piece of paper had appeared under the passenger windshield of my car. Unfortunately, I was always driving when I noticed it…and couldn’t be bothered to stop my car, and inspect the paper. For whatever reason, I’d tend to not think about it when I’d get to where I was driving…soooo, this kinda continued for a couple of days. Until finally the rain in Seattle started to pour; and I began to use my windshield wipers.

It just so happened that the paper got plastered onto my window; facing me…so I could read it. (had I been less fortunate, it would have been lost for ever).

It said:

“Sorry” followed by a name and a couple of telephone numbers.

Well, at least it wasn’t a ticket.

This time when I parked my car, and was done driving…I did a walk around; and quickly discovered that it seemed my back right bumper had been scraped and was slightly out of place. I put my fingers on it, and after a second…it popped right back into place. That was encouraging, at least.

After some phone tag; I got an email from the guy. He was a high school apprentice at Microsoft. He let me know that he was an insured driver; and was able to describe the damage to my bumper that I had already discovered. Suddenly, I began to feel quite different about things. I have to believe that the number of high school kids that would leave a note when something like this happens is relatively low (big ups to his parents). I also started thinking about how when I was this age; and something bad happened…I would always take responsibility for it; yet secretly hope that I’d catch some sort of break and have it all go away.

So I contemplated my options:

1) Do nothing…very easy…the only person who really loses in this situation is me; not a big fan of losing…or looking at a scrape on my car after a nice car wash.

2) Go to a body shop and get an estimate; if it looks reasonable…offer to split it with him. It’s not like its going to be a ton of money…and I feel that this would avoid him dealing with his insurance (which for a boy his age, would suck anyway).

3) Make him pay for the whole thing, however he wants to deal with it.

After some deliberation and careful though, I wrote him back offering to go with choice #2. Probably dumb on my part, but I happen to be fortunate enough to be in a position where I can afford such things. Given that most people would have just driven off, and not been on the hook for anything; the fact that he’s offering to take responsibility is something that I feel should be somewhat rewarded.

Given the not so good experience with the body shop near my place last time (- sounds like another good post for some point in the future -)…I looked around on yelp and found what looked to be a body shop with a better reputation. I’m a little concerned, that its a chain…but its always the people who work there; that make / break the experience.

Last Monday was my first day, on a new exciting team at work.

It’s kinda interesting how my “first day mentality” has progressed over the years. Too be fair, this is only my third team since joining Microsoft many years ago.

Typically the goals of the first day, are to wrap up all loose ends from your old team (this was really easy, when I was a fresh out of college new hire); than in no particular order:

• Get access request in! The sooner you get access, the sooner you can start doing real work. Of course, knowing what access requests that you should be making is key here. Most people on the team, are fully authenticated…but just kinda went through the initial startup process and then forgot about such things; much like you will, as soon as you get fully permissioned.
• Start collecting as much hardware as you possibly can. At Microsoft, there are weird transfer rules. Most teams only let you take one computer; and it tends to not be your best one. Big monitors are also kinda taboo….which is fine, but as soon as you get to your new team…you need to start collecting hardware. For me, this tends to be two machines…the lesser of which I use for email purposes…the greater of which I use for my hardcore software development endeavors.
• Meet people! I find it easier to work with people (especially during stressful time crunch type situations), that I can get along with on personal levels. So I try and make friends…luckily, I tend to be somewhat personable…so getting along with people comes naturally to me.
• Start learning…every team is different, and familiarizing oneself with the ways that your team works; is something that needs to be done
• Get to work! You’re hear to do a job! All of the hardware collecting / socializing won’t work to your advantage if your team believes that you’re lazy. You only get to make a first impression once! You want to be thought of as a hard working, productive, self-motivated leader.