The problem with pre-writing posts is that the posts won't line up with events. Since it'll be after New Year's Day when this is being read, I should have done a New Year Resolution write up, but since the year hasn't finished as of the time of writing it feels strange. But it's close enough to over than I think a wrap-up would be appropriate.
My New Year's resolution from last year was to be more social and meet new people. I think I did pretty well - and this is probably the first time I've actually gone through with my resolution for an entire year. I've met so many people. So, so many people.
Pretty Girls Club
(Note: This is my own name for them, they do not call themselves this at all!)
So this year, I made it into the PGC. No, they don't sit around the office putting make-up on and talking about how wonderful they look. They're just a bunch of girls who regularly eat lunch together, despite working for different teams, and I think they're all really pretty, so I just nicknamed them the PGC. One of them is a former gamer (though LoL instead of Dota), and she is incredibly nerdy. I really like her, and I feel like she's the kind of person I'd like to be some day. Despite the fact that she used to play games far more than I ever did - her longest gaming session was 28 hours, I think - she really has her life together. She is incredibly intelligent, has a stable job, owns 3 properties, has a good relationship with her boyfriend, she is very well liked by everyone she meets, and she really takes care of herself.
I'm really glad that I met these people. I enjoy spending time with them, and since becoming friends with them, I've really pushed myself to become better.
Java Club
Along with Grad Paul, I've formed a Java Club at work. We have so many developers, but would you believe me if I told you very few of them talk to people outside their own team? I have my own ulterior motive for starting the Java Club, as there is on developer on my team who seems to care very little about the coding standards we have within our team. Not only that, but he has checked in broken code (although he didn't write any unit tests for it, so the automated build didn't flag it as broken - it wasn't until I wrote some tests that happened to cover aspects of his code that the breaks came up). I tried talking to him about it, but he just brushed me off as a standards nazi.
I understand that there are people who value working code over processes and procedures, and that's a large aspect of the agile methodology, but I personally feel like some of the processes we have in place are to ensure that our application doesn't fall over when the wind blows a little too hard, and that it's easy for someone else to maintain the code long after the original programmer has left.
Anyway, the point of the Java Club was for people to talk about the things that their team does, which might help other teams learn about a new way of doing things. It started off pretty slow, at around 30 members, but by the end of the year, we now have almost 350 members. As one of the leaders of the club, I've had to deal with various people in the industry, to try and convince them to speak at our events for free (someone at PayPal said he'd pay $2000 to speak at our event - that's pretty cool, but at the time, we had to turn him down as we thought there might be a bit of conflict of interest).
The weirdest thing is that I'm finding I have the confidence to talk to senior and executive managers to ask them for things, and they're listening...sometimes. There are developers out there who seem to think I'm really passionate about programming, because I decided to start this club, but also because I started making some Java brainteasers. That's gotta be a good thing, right?
Social events in general
I think the biggest thing that has come out of last year's resolution is that I am no longer intimidated by going to an event where I don't know anybody. I've gone to events with 300+ people, where I haven't known another attendee, and I've learnt to push myself to strike up conversation with someone I don't know. In fact, I met the person who will be making our wedding cake this way. So much of my life is dominated by gaming that I often forget that there are other parts to me. Now that I'm learning to talk about these things, I find that I'm a lot more approachable.
In fact, this has helped a lot with other people in my team as well. There are only a few gamers on my team, but I've found that since learning to talk about other topics, there are a lot more people who will come over and chat (see joining the PGC). It's strange, as I organised a team Christmas lunch, thinking maybe 4 or 5 people would show up, as I didn't think anyone would want to spend their last lunch before break with me. But I had 20 people who accepted by invitation. Was a bit of a struggle to find a venue that big!
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This isn't really a wrap of my year, as a lot has happened. We finally had engagement LAN, we've set a date for our wedding and honeymoon, I've decided that I'm going to sit the Java certification exam, but on that note, I've also been seriously thinking about doing something other than being a developer. All in all, I think I had a good year.
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