January 16th, 2006
About a decade ago I bought a computer game called Ascendancy. It was a pretty good game for turn-based "Civilization"-style growth of a space-faring species (try saying that last sentence after your fourth Kokanee). I played the game for a few months here and there (when I had time) and then sold the software at one of those consignment stores and bought something different.
One of the features of that game was your race's scientific achievement. You spent a number of days trying to develop new technologies (and you could also build research facilities to expedite that) as well as developing on more than one colony (planet) at a time.
The thing is: You would be chugging along at your own pace, developing new space motors, shields, farming and colonization techniques, and think that you were progressing pretty well ... until out of nowhere another space-faring race would arrive unnanounced and either bomb the living snot out of your colonies or bear peace offerings and ask to trade technological advances with you. More often than not, this other race has already solved at least the problem your race was working on, and usually one or two more as well (demonstrated by the ineffectiveness of your shields and weapons, perhaps). In the case of the peaceful first encounters, months and sometimes years of work are presented to your race as finished ... and sometimes they had solved problems that you hadn't even thought of yet (or hadn't realised they were problems).
Well, there is a point to this: As anyone who has been reading previous rants will know, I started a new job at a new company. ("New" meaning "new to me") where the workstations are shiny and clean, the computers are new and fast, the employees all busy and focused ... where the local staff outnumbers the global staff of the old company by a factor of at least 3. Carpets clean and new, bathrooms well-stocked and cleaned daily ... in short, everything the last place didn't have. (Yeah, I know ... yeeech!)
And I am looking at their processes. Processes that I set up alone at the old company and without aid of assistants or tools. And I suddenly feel like a race of extra-terrestrials has popped out of hyperspace and offered to share exciting new knowledge that solves the problems I struggled with in new and exciting ways, and a few more advanced problems to boot.
You know there are two things I want to quickly add here:
- I was not creating inadequate and deficient work in my previous job; I did a hell of a good job even though I was a three-hat-wearer (four if you count my "normal" job description). But there is an army of writers, process developers, software engineers, and subject matter experts here that I had to be all of alone previously. They did a better and different job because they outnumber me 5 or 7 to 1.
- I wish I could be more specific about what those processes and tools are—especially since I am proud of at least a couple of tools I developed to aid myself in content creation ... but I dare not tread too close to two companies' non-disclosure agreements. So I will err on the side of paranoid caution. It never does well to piss off the whole company. Individuals, of course! I thrive on that :-) But not companies.
So, anyhow, I know that my own knowledge will benefit from the "cross-pollination" of exposure to other peoples' ideas of how to solve the problems that I solved. And I also know that they will benefit from my own knowledge (close to five years doing the same sorts of things can make you pretty good at them, you know).
It's sort of like cross-training. Back when I could move like the wind as a hockey player (hah hah) I used to have to run up and down stairs in full hockey gear. My team-mates and I were sometimes compelled to go up the street to a small gym and play dodge-ball or volleyball. This was to improve our hockey skills by building strengths in parts that we normally wouldn't by just practicing hockey all day. You'd think that building skills in non-hockey-related areas would be a waste of time, but it did enhance our hockey skills by aiding our wholistic strength, stamina, and skills.
Well, it's going to be the same for me here, I think—except I was never very good at hockey. I've already got one set of skills pretty much sewn up; now it's time to start learning cross-technology.
Besides (he stated mysteriously) I have a strange vague and unformed feeling that I'll be seeing some of my former co-workers again pretty soon.
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