True, having to do extra work is a part of the job description to some extent, but I feel like I ended up doing it far too often. At the time I couldn’t point my finger on exactly why this irked me so much, but later I realized that I simply felt like my generosity was used. It’s one thing to help out and then be asked to own and continue working on it, but it is totally different to be forced into a commitment that you never committed to!
Some of this was my own fault. Part of stepping up and taking on responsibility is realizing what you are getting yourself into and what you can handle. Little did I know how much things are different at the end of a product cycle compared to the beginning. Fortunately I got my way through it, and I have to admit I think I did a pretty good job. Especially considering that I was learning what a product cycle was like at the same time I was trying to lead through one. But unfortunately, I personally came out of it for the worse. I was getting burned out, feeling too responsible, and trying to do too much.
But hey this is the real world, live and learn! I’m happy for all the good times and mostly happy for all the bad times too. Everyone could use/learn from a shakin’ of their idealistic point of view from time to time.
So now Connections has shipped I’m now off and running with my new team, which is being (fastidio… err wildly :) ) lead by Elias Torres. This has given me the chance relax and try to more objectively look back at my two years at Lotus. I still do think that many of my frustrations were valid, but I can’t fault IBM too much for that. Not only was I young and learning (the hard way), but enterprise software development is hard to do. And trying to do something innovative and enterprisy at the same time is even harder to do. There are just so many details to worry about — configuration, security, databases, ldaps, accessibility, localization, bidirectionality, integration, and most of all trying to appease the desires of waayy too many people — which ends up washing out what is supposed to be the important part. Building quality software that people want to use.
So that is what I’m off to try and do. I now know that enterprise product development is not where I want to be, at least right now. I’m surprised so many people are just fine with that sort of job, but I have no interest to ride that roller coaster.