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Hi all, if you thought last week was terrible, I give you this week. I’m not going to add to the already well-detailed list from last week. Instead, I’d like to celebrate something. Happy Birthday, DevOps’ish DevOps’ish turns five years old today! Max was a year old. I told my wife I was starting a newsletter. Two-hundred forty-seven issues later, we’ve arrived here. This morning, I told Julie, who thought I was nuts at the launch, that DevOps’ish is one of the best things I’ve done for my career. This has paid off on the home front and improved our overall quality of life. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the newsletter also enabled MORE charitable giving than before too. Has DevOps’ish been a success? Yes! DevOps’ish at 5 Is the newsletter self-sustaining? Yes. I’ve optimized costs as much as possible. I’ve filled sponsorships as much as I can. The balance sheet is good. The newsletter has pivoted from being a metrics-focused newsletter to being very privacy aware over its five years. I don’t want to know anything about the DevOps’ish readership unless they volunteer it. I don’t track clicks or open rates, and I’m very upfront about that with sponsors. ...

AWS re:Invent was this week. I put a whole section in the notes this week for y’all all about AWS re:Invent. There were a lot of cool announcements this week. There was a scenario where I was going to be there. But, family was getting COVID-19 vaccines the Sunday before, I had doctor’s appointments, and it wasn’t meant to be. Thank the Maker I didn’t end up going. This week has been a nightmare, wrapped in worry, with a big dose of impostor syndrome on top, and I caught a cold too. First, there were multiple family crises. At one point in time my sole focus was on two of my nephews because we needed to watch them at one point with an extra dose of sunshine. Really glad I was here to help and support. Then part of a terror plot unfolded in our front yards. This story is really sad, bad, and preventable. A lot of people failed in their responsibilities and people are dead as a result. It’s a truly horrible situation. Max was home from school for two days this week. Again, glad I was here to help and support. I think everyone in the know was definitely pegged out on the stress meter. Normally, I turn to work to help distract me from stress but, I’m still forming my path. That’s when the impostor syndrome set in (because that’s a totally normal reaction). Thankfully, this video helped with the impostor syndrome. I got the ship righted by Friday. But, wow… This week has been something else. ...

“PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE. KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING.”: This almost 2000 lines of code that make up the persistent volume controller was one of the most popular social media posts this week: 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 // ================================================================== // PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE. // KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING. // ================================================================== // // This controller is intentionally written in a very verbose style. You will // notice: // // 1. Every 'if' statement has a matching 'else' (exception: simple error // checks for a client API call) // 2. Things that may seem obvious are commented explicitly // // We call this style 'space shuttle style'. Space shuttle style is meant to // ensure that every branch and condition is considered and accounted for - // the same way code is written at NASA for applications like the space // shuttle. // Two things struck me about this comment: ...

Editor’s note: Times are hard for a lot of folks right now. Take your time. Your emotions are valid. Process them. Managers should give their people some grace over the coming days. Reader’s in pain, I am with you. This week has been a week of milestones. 1) My daughter turned 21. Yes, I feel old. 2) Julie and I are celebrating ten years of marriage this weekend in Traverse City, Michigan. On #1, Aubree has been in my life for more than half of it now. In the late 00s, I said one day, “Being a father helps me be a better leader. Being a leader helps me be a better father.” During one busy summer, I had 50 people working for me at one point. Managing that many direct reports isn’t something you do easily. My trick was to manage the natural groups of friends that formed. But still, maintain team cohesion. At the same time, I was playing the role of a single father to a Kindergartner. A lot of the skills I was teaching at work were helpful at home and vice versa. I had to deliver presentations to senior leaders. This was very normal for the work I did. ...

bellwether — noun — a person or thing that shows the existence or direction of a trend; index. I want to introduce a metric I use to evaluate potential employers. I have bellwethers. People that I respect and whose work interests me. I use them to gauge my potential for success at a company. I keep a mental list of folks and where they’re working. In some cases, when I start to evaluate a specific employer, I check how long they’ve been there and often ask folks who have been there a long time how to succeed. These bellwethers have to be people you can call or chat with when you have questions. Often they’re folks that you have established relationships. Even better, have a bunch of bellwethers; this way, if you end up with multiple opportunities, you know folks at each potential employer, you can have a chat. These can be local, national, or international. But, two keys, you have to know them and have a lot of them. ...