15 August 1997: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Friday, 15 August 1997:

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Cultural pop quiz: You know the source of today's title, right?

My boss at work is out until Tuesday, and I was left as sort of acting team leader, overseeing that the work that needs to get done by the team by the end of Monday, gets done. This mainly involves some checking to make sure all the modifications made for this release are in the right place to be packed for shipment, and the checking is parceled out among all developers. It's basically a precautionary measure, to make sure we didn't forget something that could have been easily fixed.

About a third of us, myself included, still have some fine-tuning (i.e., coding) to do, in addition to the checking. So when one of our newer developers said he'd finished his checking and asked if there was anything else he could do, I had to resist saying, "Yeah, you can do the stuff assigned to me." Boy, the power of temptation!

It's always kind of neat to be the Person In Charge for a short time; I'm pretty good at organization and keeping track of a number of things (although I have my limits), and there's a certain pride in discharging the responsibility. But as far as being a manager full time? You can have that job. I'm a programmer.

I have an APAzine deadline tomorrow, and not a whole lot written for it. I worked on it a bit after work today (including a review of Thieves & Kings, which I mentioned a week or so ago in this journal), and have to put in some hours tomorrow. I also need to go buy a bike helmet, and then pick up my friend Karen who's returning (again) from New York.

I went down to the coffee shop tonight, but first I stopped and bought some new CDs. I'll talk about them tomorrow, probably, when I've had a chance to listen to them. I caught up on my New Yorker reading, and then decided to head home. I'd brought my laptop because I'd hoped to start working on a story I've wanted to write, but I wasn't up to it. I'm often "not up to" writing fiction, which is frustrating and a really hard block to overcome, considering that I write all kinds of other things. Aargh.

Well, life is hard.

Friends: People who know you well, but like you anyway.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)