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Subduing the Task List, Part I

So I took my new life as an independent businessman up for a maiden flight this past week. And as a kickoff, it’s been somewhat undistinguished, which leaves me trying not think about the fact that the only really statistically remarkable thing about flight (and maidens) is the risk of impalement.

The recurring theme of the independent contractor is operations, all those things used to be taken care of by HR or Accounting or Sales. And that means I’m probably going to repeat that theme a lot, and for that I apologize.

I’m sure I’ll discover more things to do as I go, but curiously my number one issue right now is the feeling that on the list of things currently standing in my way, item number one is Me.

Continued…

Posted in life, tips.

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Random Tip: Closing a Folding Knife

I’d like to apologize for neglecting this space. The piece that I was supposed to post last week ended up not feeling right, so I’m going to instead leap to a feature that I planned for this site, the random useful tip. Random useful tips will be little things that I’ve noticed help smooth the wrinkles of my day. Or in this case, preserve the integrity of my skin.


Here’s my tip for folding knives: When you close a folding knife, hold the blade and close the handle.

I know, it sound stupid and trivial, but it actually feels radically different, and a lot more controlled and safer as a result.

It’s an interface design trick.  The basic aspects of the design (affordances) are that the knife is small, and the body/handle is big. So the knife is the moving bit of the handle. It’s simple, natural logic. And as a result, the natural thing is to hold the body and close the blade.

Except think about this: What it means is that we have to grip the handle, usually a little oddly to both hit the blade release and also to allow the blade to close without passing through a finger. And we have to grip the blade, but that grip usually has to allow for the fact that the blade is pivoting around the joint of the knife.

Whereas… Continued…

Posted in life, me, Sunil, tips.

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Exposed without Company: The Question of Insurance

Posable Figure, FallingMy final days with my employer run out and my vacation is spent preparing for the full madness of my new career as an independent contractor.  And I’m suddenly very conscious of all the stuff that was invisible and taken care of for me by my former employer.

It’s a surprise, honestly.  All this time, I’ve never felt I was getting any value out of my benefits package; certainly not enough to justify the deductions they were taking.  I’m young(ish), and fortunate enough to be solidly healthy.  So the care and medication benefits aren’t something I take advantage of.  I can’t shake the feeling of vanity that comes if I consider straightening my teeth, so I just carry on with just maintenance dental care.  And the one benefit I’m keenly interested in doesn’t actually cover the cost of getting non-coke-bottle glasses.

On the *rare* occasions when I thought of it, I didn’t care very much for it.  And as a Canadian, I get a government funded plan that covers the necessities.  So here I am, an independent contractor, and I now can just keep my money. It’s great.  I’m free!  Free as a bird.

Except then my brain taps me on the shoulder and says to me in a very cultured British accent, “That’s all well and good, but what if you got hit by a car before tea?”

Continued…

Posted in work.

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The First Timesheet

So I was putting together a timesheet template and coming so soon after Christmas, there are still carols leaking out of my brain.

For the record, none of this is based on my current situation. Though ask me again after I start submitting these, and we’ll see how it’s going.


To the first timesheet, the client did say
“I don’t remember approving those hours on thursday”
So I went to my desk and put the timesheets away
till I could find my meeting notes and reclaim my pay.

Continued…

Posted in life, work.

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Exit Interview

I’ve been working in the computer business for a lot longer than most people realize.  I’m just a few months shy of 20 years since I started my first paid computer job, which my age would reveal was when I was in high school.   So of course my jobs were bounded by circumstance and school.   Which is how I could have gone this long and still be surprised by the experience of leaving my job.

The end was just a date, while I was a student, after which I wouldn’t show up there anymore.  No big deal, though usually I’d get treated to lunch which made it a nice way to say goodbye.
Continued…

Posted in work.

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Freelancing by Dummy

So after 10 long years, in the middle of the worst economy since the 1930s (or the 1690s, if you take the Bank of England’s interest rates as your indicator), I’ve just resigned from my position as a consultant to become a freelance something-or-other.

Continued…

Posted in life, me, Sunil.

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Fingertap Dance

When I started travelling as a consultant, I very quickly started to find a need for a portable “blogging” solution.  I had my laptop, sure, but 10 years ago, a laptop sucked that little battery dry almost before the drink service on the flight had come out.

After a few years, I had it down to a folding keyboard and my Palm PDA.  The keyboard was great, folding to something only slightly larger than the Palm, and the two together could be up and running a text editor within seconds of the seatbelt light going off, and I got four or five hours before the batteries died.

Continued…

Posted in rants.

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A whisper of change

I had thought I’d get the habit of writing here going, as a soft-launch, before I started talking about “More Serious Things(tm),” but I’m now a victim of soft-reality.

The nature of my world and work is that sometimes reality is malleable.  Think of me as a spy, without the cool.  I know things that everybody knows.  I know things that only some people know.  I know things that nobody knows.

Unlike most people, some of the “Things that only some people know” are covered by legally binding agreements of non-disclosure.  (Though in my experience, most of the time that just seems to translate into, “Well I’ll just tell you”)   But in any case, as a result, there are times where I’m in a very different place than I appear to be.

I’m mostly talking about the professional sense here, though it’s happened in my personal life too.  Multiple realities, overlapping and me having to pick which one I belong to, moment by moment.

Which is a big fancy way of saying that there’s news coming, but I can’t talk about it much yet, because there is an order to how the news has to be delivered.  The right people have to be told and until that point, the old reality has to appear to be in place.

So I’m excited about the new year.  I’m sad about the old year ending, because of the number and weight of the endings that it brought.  But next year is going to be so very different.

I’m hoping to make writing here a regular part of that, we’ll see how it plays out.   But the goal for the short term is not less than two posts and 500 words a week.  Feel free to call me on that.  (Assuming anybody ever notices I’m writing here).

It’s New Year’s Eve.  May your New Year be full of hope and joy and love and peace and good things.

Posted in life, me, Sunil.

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Finally getting the theme: Just Write!

I finally figured out what was wrong with the blog theme that I’ve been lazily puttering with for the last two years:  It wasn’t writing.

So that’s the new theme I’ve chosen for the New Year:  Just write.

Everything else is just decoration.

And this is the beginning.

Posted in life, me, Sunil.

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