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A Familiar Feeling.

Posted 22:34 CET Thursday November 26th, 2009 (106 days ago). 100 views. No comments. Tagged with Personal, Work.

I’ve now been an NRK-employee for a little over three months. It’s been an interesting ride so far, although there has been a lot of scratching ones head, thinking that maybe, just maybe I’d been more use if I’d staid in bed that day.

Thankfully, that’s getting better and there is less head scratching these days. We’ve been working on a rather ambitious project for a while now and with a little bit of luck, we might nail the deadline. At times I’ve even felt that I’ve actually been contributing, which is good. If I’d been my boss, however, I would probably have expected that I’d been more productive by now, but the platform I’m working on is just very complicated and intricate. Some parts of the code are clear as day, while others are slapped together by consultants without much love for documenting their art. That’s my excuse, at least, maybe I’m just getting old and slow.

Last week I had my first week where I didn’t work normal days in terms of hours. I didn’t work more than 60 hours, still there are three important differences compared to my previous job: First of all, 60+ hours was a normal work week in the mobile TV rat race. Secondly, the overtime I work now is paid overtime since it’s extra hours as a result of a deadline imposed by the management. Sounds like a good deal to me. And last but not least, over the three months I’ve been working, I’ve also accumulated about 40 hours of overtime that I won’t get paid for – instead I can take the 40 hours off from work, and get paid my normal wage.

If this is a dream, please don’t wake me up yet, because it’s a good dream.

With the exception of two days I’ve biked to and from work. All in all that’s a lot of biking, and the bike ride itself has gone from OK to boring to a state where I don’t really notice that I’m biking. I guess it’s the same way commuters feel. The main difference is that the commuters are stuck in the long line of cars I’m biking past. I laugh at them because they’re stuck, they laugh at me because it’s raining outside.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way.

Posted 17:31 CET Sunday October 11th, 2009 (152 days ago). 129 views. No comments. Tagged with Technology, Work.

I spent Thursday and Friday last week on an internal introductory course covering the ins and outs of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Like all courses some of the lectures were interesting while some were… less interesting. I particularly enjoyed the tours of the TV and radio buildings and the main control room for all the TV channels. With its 3500 employees, NRK is a fairly large company on a Norwegian scale, but if you look at similar international companies it’s a drop in the media ocean: As an organization, NRK likes to compare itself to the BBC, which has so many people employed that the number is not even available anywhere on the internet.

One of the most interesting things I learned, however, was not about NRK per se, but about a project that’s currently in development. I’m not sure if the project details are publicly available information or not and I vaguely remember something about a non disclosure agreement in my contract, so to avoid getting whipped I’m not going to go into any details here. What you need to know that it’s a very complicated computer system handling huge amounts of data – and the data is not being backed up externally.

Say what!? Continue reading "Lessons Learned the Hard Way." →

First Week.

Posted 21:57 CET Monday August 24th, 2009 (200 days ago). 100 views. No comments. Tagged with Personal, Work.

I’ve had my first week in my new job at the NRK. It’s been interesting, but challenging – the platform I’m working on is huge and complicated. Even though the code might not be too intricate, I’ll probably use a lot of time figuring out how all the bits and pieces are connected.

I’m part of a team of five developers, with a raging 40 percent of the team members being female. Yet another developer will join November 1^st, it’s a “he”, so the female percentage will drop, but it’s still quite high for a Java developer team. The size of the system and the huge brains of my fellow Java developers – not just the ones on my team, but all of the NRK Java developers – was a little bit intimidating at first, but I’ll get past that. I’ve already moved a yellow note on the Scrum board! Yay!

I’ve also begun working out again after taking about a month off during my summer vacation. I thought I deserved it and I also had to get my left shoulder a little rest. Now I’m back at the gym, my shoulder is behaving like it should and I’m working out at the NRK gym. It’s not very well equipped, but I can use it for free and it has the equipment I need to do most of my exercises. If everything feels OK on Friday, I’ll cancel my subscription at the other gym. Since only NRK employees can use the gym, it’s almost like a private one.

I feel important. It really doesn’t take that much to boost my ego.

Shoulder Crunch.

Posted 17:51 CET Monday July 13th, 2009 (242 days ago). 111 views. No comments. Tagged with Exercise, Work.

When I start in my new job in August I have to travel considerably further to get to and from work. Today I’m biking 2.5 kilometer each way, the new distance will be 6.6 or 5.9 kilometers one way depending on the route. The shortest one will take me through downtown Oslo, while the other will take me around central Oslo on one of the three ring roads. The longest route will probably be the quickest one, though, depending a little on the number of red lights I hit.

That I’ll be biking at least 11.8 kilometers each day, five days a week, has made me decide to stop running on the thread mill. The weekly 59 kilometers should be more than enough stamina work out for me. I very much welcome this change, because running on a thread mill has turned out to be one of the most boring things I do, right up there with shaving.

While we’re on the subject on working out, here’s a quick update: My left shoulder is acting up a little, so I didn’t go to the gym today even though I planned to. I’m using my shoulder in virtually every exercise I’m doing, crunch being the only one where the shoulder is not involved.

I’m considering taking the entire week off to give the shoulder some rest. Kind of like a summer vacation from the gym. It probably wouldn’t hurt.

Old New Turf.

Posted 20:12 CET Tuesday June 30th, 2009 (255 days ago). 143 views. 2 comments. Tagged with Personal, Work.

It’s hot outside. It’s even hotter inside my apartment where the air is not moving at all, even if all the windows are open. During the day the sun heats up the brick walls of the apartment building I live in and the it doesn’t really cool down until some time in the middle of the night.

But I’m not here to talk to you about the heat, you all probably know what it feels like when it’s 30 degrees Celsius outside. I’m writing this to tell you all about an interesting change in my life: I’m heading back to the rat race for real.

For a few months now I’ve been working half time-ish for my previous employer. The hours and the money were both good, but we all knew it was only temporary. There was a reason why I quit in the first place, and to be honest that reason is just as valid today as it was half a year ago.

So on Monday August 17 I’m having my first day at the company where I started my computer science career back in 2003, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, or NRK as we like to call it in the land where polar bears are roaming the streets during winter. Continue reading "Old New Turf." →