TeamLife: Idea Port Riga blog about day-to-day life in a human centered IT company | EN

ya_frosia: A bundle of scrap, generally, sinks 
alexei: ya_frosia: But floats fine in mercury 
zoogenic: alexei: But if the scrap is uranic, it sinks in mercury too 
alexei: zoogenic: you go sink uranic scrap in mercury yourself 

 (From an ancient insane dialogue on dirty.ru)

Autumn 2017. Clear understanding that it won’t get better anymore, that there is decay and emptiness ahead, I’m sick of all, and, all in all, - it’s time. And the wife says: “Did you see these courses on Udacity?”.  All, without exception, important and fateful events in my life have always taken place in autumn. So, now also… 

— So, how is your health?
— Don’t get your hopes up!

(old parable)

There was just a certain sense of...incompleteness after our last conversation. After all, it's incredibly interesting: have they asked me to pack up and leave or not? Did I screw up production, or not yet?  Am I still working for food, or …? Sensing these questions, I decided that my turning from a duckling into an (arguably) beautiful swan deserved at least a continuation, if not a conclusion.

Many companies lament how hard to it is to find good employees, and that it is even harder to keep them. Employers use a range of tactics, invent unconventional recruitment strategies - like launching viral campaigns in social media, setting up stylish interior designs in the office, buying the trendiest gadgets and furniture, hosting posh parties. Still, people leave.

Let’s sort it out together: why does it happen?

“…Lenin chimes into an argument: It’s better to have both a wife and a mistress. Tell the wife you’re with the mistress, tell the mistress you’re with the wife, meanwhile you go to the attic – and work, work, work!”

(From an ancient Soviet joke)

Hard to believe that almost two months have passed! Then again, seven weeks are a good occasion to look back and talk about work at IPR and how an intern (me) sees it.

Five weeks of my new life have passed. The New Year is approaching like a sweeping jack-screw, and it is clear that I haven’t merely survived at Idea Port Riga but am starting to settle in.  I’m coming to work with pleasure, I like everything, I am successful at everything, I am satisfied with everything, BUT… that “but” is exactly what I’m going to talk about today.

— What do you do for work?
— I solve problems whose existence I did not know about using methods I do not understand.

(From an eavesdropped conversation)

Oh, my! Has it really been two weeks already? Honestly speaking, it’s a little hard to believe, but it’s even harder to argue with my calendar. Last time I promised to report if I would still be alive. As you are reading these lines, you can probably guess – I am! Still alive and kicking… that is, clicking. At my new metal computer. Good morning!

Grand opening of IKEA store in Riga. It would be rather hard to find a single person in Latvia who would not be excited about this occasion. It looked like people split into various groups. There were those who cancelled their trips to Lithuanian store and counted days left until the official megastore opening in Riga. Hundreds of Latvians kept themselves busy with rewriting and rethinking their shopping lists, picking things to buy at local IKEA. There were also those who were getting impressed with the speed of construction and how quickly engineers made the new building “stand” above the city scenery. There very also those, of course, who ‘hated’ it all - the overall quality of the build and cheeky store guidance system that takes you through predefined routes and spits you out at the counter, seconds before you end up with miles long receipt and are guided to the exit.

-Come on, Tell me! The world's at war again, a new crisis is coming, banks are falling, neighbors are renovating their apartment for the third year, your wife is cheating, your daughter started smoking, you got fired, your wallet is empty, and yet you're still calm. How do you manage?! Share your secret!
-Tablets.
(Old joke)

On your own, you - even you! - will not be able to design or develop this feature, no matter how talented of a professional you are. This requires collective effort, and not just from management - from absolutely everyone. So, where do you start?

Spent two hours in a meeting discussing the outcomes of the last meeting. An hour and a half writing a report on the number of reports in a reporting period. Visited my boss with, as dad would say, a “rationalisation proposal”. My boss promised to discuss it with his boss and find out if it might interest his boss's boss. Just between you, me, and the watercooler, this means either "forget it" or "we'll discuss it, and if Venus leaves the shade of retrograde Mercury, we might approve it in half a year, axing the best bits". What? Did I work on my project? Well, yeah, of course... a bit, during lunch break. Why'd you ask?