Back to work
2024-08-19
My parental leave ended recently, I'm back to work. Not that my days would _look_ very different, because I work from home, so I'm still sitting at my desk most of the day. The main difference is that I'm no longer wearing the baby. He wasn't really helping my productivity!
I was excited to get back. After six weeks of days that mostly looked like each other, and taking care of our little monster, I was happy for something new-ish: getting back to working on complex problems and real world issues, talking to my coworkers, etc. I was a little tired of it six weeks prior, so it was a really positive break in that sense. It helped me to remind myself that I love that job.
The weird thing about getting back after such a long break, is to see how everything continued to work perfectly well without me. I was knee-deep into a very complex technical project involving a lot of different components and whatnot. My teammates just picked it up where I left, and it's now in production. On one hand, it's amazing to be able to rely on such great colleagues. On the other, it makes me very aware of how expandable I am.
While it's somewhat humbling, it mostly puts back in place some ideas that we may sometimes forget: yes my company needs the value I produce for them. But really what they need is the value produced by a senior software engineer who knows his job, not necessarily MY value.
To leave this gemlog on a positive note, and not on my rumbling: I'm back to work and I enjoy it!