#tech spec

Resplendent and righteous, the MISTRESS OF FLAME is here to spread freedom!

TECH SPECS:

Strength - 6

Intelligence - 8

Speed - 8

Endurance - 7

Teamwork - 8

Courage - 8

Fireblast - 6

The number of completion.  Well, I felt a little less complete this week.

It started with a talk with my mentor.  He was pressing me, for an 8th time it felt, to do my tech spec over again.  It had been 6 weeks going on 7 and I had yet to do ANY coding on the project that will be used to determine if I stay at Lyft or go.  It was this and the fact that I had spent three weeks on it and sacrificed the three day weekend before this week to work on it, with minimal direction.  It was like I was trying to hit a moving target I couldn’t see and equipped with improper ammo.  This was what caught me up in previous roles: not having a defined set of expectations from my manager left me vulnerable, as my manager consistently moved the target every time I checked in.  If it is not written down or explicit, we’re all left guessing, only the manager has the upper hand and does not experience any adverse effects when they cannot remember or did not know the target they wanted when you first embarked on the assignment.  Work is NOT only about your skill, it’s about your strategy, even with the people on your team and the people who are supposed to be your supporters and advocates.

Anyway, I kind of shook the table and wanted to ensure I got the coding experience.  I said, “I just want to make sure we’re not letting perfect be the enemy of good here.  I haven’t coded for this project in more than 6 weeks.”  I was feeling insecure about my job because every time I would get questions from my manager on how confident I felt with writing code, I did not have an answer, because I damn sure was not going to say, “I don’t feel confident at all.”  I didn’t want to blow my mentor’s spot either by saying that I had been instructed not to code until the tech spec was done.  My mentor’s advice: spec it out completely, then, once the spec is complete, there’s minimal need to go back to the drawing board because you hit a place in your code where you need to rewrite things because you didn’t forsee a pothole.  I agree, but damn, all through my internship, I was instructed by my Apprenticeship manager who had more than double my mentor’s experience and has actually managed engineers, to spec a bit, then code, spec some more, then code again.  Basically, have a good balance, because tech specing when you’re a NOOB and don’t know what you don’t know or what the heck your mentor’s looking for, is difficult.  Also, he hadn’t read my tech spec until week 3, despite me asking him to and tagging him in it.  It felt like he was prioritizing his work and overcompensating with suggesting frivolous style changes in the spec.  

I also felt the pressure from all my engineering colleagues not on my team who would respond, “Damn, still!” when I told them I hadn’t done any coding for my project yet.

His response in our chat: don’t worry, I’ll do it.  It felt hella passive aggressive.  I said, “No it’s fine I can do it, I just want to make sure we don’t get caught up in specing.”  

I did not want to look like I was downright disagreeing with him, but I am glad I spoke up.  I also did not want it to get around that he had to step in and do the teching!  They wouldn’t ask why and expose his shortcomings in direction, they would just look to me and be like, “She couldn’t even spec it out solo?”  My mentor catches an attitude quickly though with me for the most frivolous things and seems to be more emotional and sensitive than me, so every time I notice, I immediately stop and check in to clear the air.  I pulled him aside and into a room and explained more of where I was coming from.  This was risky, but the reward was him admitting that he’s let tech specing go on too long and that he did not timebox this project as well as he should.  He said that he believed I got what I was supposed to get out of the project and that I could start coding tomorrow.  That was all I wanted.  I just wanted to hear him be accountable instead of throwing it all on me.  He insisted again to wrap it up, but I insisted that I really wanted to “deliver” on this (stupid overused tech term).

Here are some more tech buzz words that grind my gears: 

backchannel: to assess a candidate’s team-working abilities, skills, but actually turns into asking friends who have worked with a candidate if they like them or not and fit in to their stupid hangout group

sync: to have a meeting that often times could have just been an email

diversity/minority: everyone non-Black and non-male, despite them being the majority

deep dive: analysis

Anyway, getting back to the week, I was not looking forward to our sprint planning meeting that day where we go over what was completed in the previous week, because I thought I didn’t do much.  However, I had a ton of tickets completed that I just forgot about.  I thought my mentor would bring up in our sprint the conversation we had or that the tech spec was spilling over into a week it wasn’t, but he didn’t.  That felt good that he was not exposing me.  I now realize that it probably would have looked not so great on him either, but previous teams and managers I have worked with would not give a flying f about me.  He wants me to get this and he’s vocalized that he will do everything he can in his power to make that happen.

The next day, I had a pairing with an engineer who interviewed me, mentored my mentor, and influenced me to pick my mentor.  This did not make my mentor happy when he saw him at my desk ready to help me code, but it was like damn, I’m not getting the support from you, so I’m going to get it somewhere.  Mentors are supposed to spend 20% of their time with us.  That’s a bit over 3 hours a day.  3! I have been getting significantly less than that.

Anyway, the pairing was great, as I expected.  I had so much trepidation around coding because no one walked me through the code base.  With as messy as some code bases are at my job, you need someone more senior or at least someone who has a general understanding of what the heck is going on or why code is structured in a way it is so that it is plain to someone who doesn’t know up from down.  He prefaced our session with, “has anyone broke this down to you yet?”  Answer: “No”.  I wanted my real answer to be, “HECK NO!,” but my mentor was in my peripheral.  We got a working endpoint in the service and I started throwing requests at it and receiving responses.

I was so exhausted by it all, all the other useless meetings, and to be honest, did not feel totally confident on what my next step was.  I got nothing else completed that day, but I did work out.  I also got caught in conversation with my work crush.  I spotted him and acted like I didn’t see him across the room as I tried to get my mind right before he shut it off by just being absolutely attractive.  I wonder if he knows I’m crushing on him hard.  His first words, “Why are you so late!?  We don’t hang out anymore!  Are we even still friends. [To the guy I was speaking to] Sorry to interrupt, I just haven’t seen her in a while.”  I like him so much and have been let down by so many dudes I thought were down, that I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or only saying this because he KNOWS how much I like him...We had our usual convo topics: autonomous vehicle ops, our former colleague who is now starting his own business with friends and only hiring people of diverse ethnicities, the Black ERGs, house-buying aspirations.  This time however, he said he would invite me if he was out and about in the neighborhood.  

There was more of the same the next day, minus the giddy run-ins with my work crush.  

Finally, on Friday, right at the end of the day, I get some dick picks to my celly from a dude I reached out to to have sex with to try to forget about the pain of being kicked to the curb by my colleague who was the first person I had ever had intercourse with, and subsequently his best friend who I slept with out of revenge.  I was so exhausted and now distracted as someone has sent me a reminder of my urge for connection with a male I’m attracted to, totally disregarding whatever work I had going on.  Before my mentor caught his train, I asked him for help and direction before the weekend because he had not checked back in since Monday, but all the while he was talking, I kept think about this dude’s perfectly shaved, long Black penis.  My mentor’s lips were just moving.  He was getting frustrated.  I was losing hope.  

I ended the night with a colleague who likes me and has told me for years but knows nothing about being gentle to a woman and is a huge nerd.  I was desperate and trying to avenge the dick pic I received from LA, so I skipped my planned workout to eat HIS choice place: pizza...AGAIN.  Of course we ended the night arguing over text for some backwards ass male point of view of his and disrespect towards me.  This time: he pushed me playfully after I criticizing him for not knowing how to hug me properly, but so he was so nervous and it was so hard it took the wind out of me. That night he screenshotted a pic where my hair was curly, and despite me telling him that I had a whole crises this week about shaving my hair to save time (and because of the recent news of the class action lawsuit agains the Deva Curl hair products I use), said that I should have that hair because he didn’t like my two strand twists I had today.  Every time we hang out, and sometimes even at work, he criticizes my clothes and hair.  Sorry, he doesn’t criticize them, he is downright disrespectful and will ask, “What are you wearing!” and “I don’t like that.”  As if I am dressing for him.  I did not call him out the other times, but I did this time.  I do not give a damn what you think, but I am not one of your male friends. I am a woman.  Talk to me nice. I know he’s only saying these things because he feels so inadequate and awkward and knows I look at him as nothing more than a friend.  He keeps coming around and I keep trying to be forgiving, but I really gotta ignore these stupid ass people...for my sanity...

In better news this week: one of the Black women I recommended a role for has an onsite next week!  I am glad I worked out more days this week than last and I was recognized in the biweekly team meeting (another damn meeting) for writing a great tech spec.  I am glad my mentor pushed me and I am glad I pushed him.  Going to try harder next week.

Saturday, I was committed.  I woke up, went to the dentist, kept my calm when my dentist roughly yanked out my temporary crown, only to replace it with another temp with the crown’s color was wrong, hit the weights in the gym, ate healthily, then caught up on some work.  I spent all day doing my midpoint reflection.  Thank God for the documentation I have been doing and the feedback my Apprenticeship manager created that served as my template for my internship midpoint performance review.  After doing a “deep dive”, I realized I actually HAVE been working my ass off.  Despite me not writing as much code as I think I should be, every meeting I attend and present in counts, every shadowing session, every piece of documentation I contribute to, every expression of curiosity and wanting to learn and do more COUNTS!  

Here’s an excerpt: “My team manages the tools that serve the company as the #1 demand levers.  Those levers include dropping incentives like ride passes and coupons on users.  I have done one of those coupon drops that was distributed to 40M users in the US and Canada.  After that coupon drop, to help onboard 4 other new team members to this task, I updated our weekly Personalization Coupon Drop documentation.  I have written the tech spec for and created a working endpoint that will facilitate the system that supports the delivery of the newest incentive we are offering.  I proposed my internship project to my team and PMs across the Growth org at our Fortnightly review.  Contributing to team operations and productivity, I led one of our team's Bi-Weekly Retros.  To save the company money and lower bad user experiences and incidents, I added a fix in our team's service, coupons, to prevent coupon currency mismatches.  I have made one of my team's services (coupons) easier to iterate on by removing confusing code for coupon claiming validations.  To ensure we are flexible to the company’s new contra revenue definition, I have made new coupons and coupon groups that enables us to have more efficient growth spend.  I have reviewed 6 PRs for my team.”  

Reflections like these help. I feel inspired and ready to do more.  I thank God for the strength and opportunity to honor him with my work.

Some things I have switched up that help me focus:

I’m more forgiving nowadays.  No time to stress over hurt for too long.  When you know you’re blessed, it’s hard to worry about the not so great things.  They just won’t add up to be significant enough to even waste time on discussing.

I lost my headphones.  Instead of replacing them, I just don’t use them anymore.  This has caused me to read more on my commutes and be more aware of my surroundings.

I volunteer and say yes to a lot, even when I think I cannot complete it.  The #ToiletPapers were an example.  I didn’t think I’d have the time, but I made it work because it was important to me and it ended up taking less time than I thought.  It also helped me get the message out about Black History in yet another format at work.

I have stopped eating meat as much.  I’m losing weight, I feel lighter, I feel like I’m being better to the environment.  I eat less, and thus am less stressed about eating constantly.

I drink more water.

A best friend stopped texting me.  I was let down a bit, but it’s freed me up a bit and I have one less voice of influence in my head.  

With cutting words and claws, HELLSCREAM is here to sow chaos!

TECH SPECS:

Strength - 5

Intelligence - 8

Speed - 9

Endurance - 7

Teamwork - 5

Courage - 7

Fireblast - 8

Loyal arbiter of justice, ULTRA MAGNUS is here to make things right!

TECH SPECS:

Strength - 5

Intelligence - 9

Speed - 4

Endurance - 6

Teamwork - 8

Courage - 7

Fireblast - 6

Founder and leader of the Decepticons, GALVATRON is here to set the masses free!

TECH SPECS:

Strength - 8

Intelligence - 7

Speed - 4

Endurance - 10

Teamwork - 5

Courage - 8

Fireblast - 10

Passionate master of rhetoric, SCOURGE is here to speak the truth!

TECH SPECS:

Strength - 6

Intelligence - 8

Speed - 5

Endurance - 7

Teamwork - 7

Courage - 6

Fireblast - 7