A good week

This week was a good week. I had a good meeting with my managers about managing time and expectations, and then I started to enroll in a new project. I also started the internal training I have prepared for my colleague, and I got a fair bit of work done on the presentation for the webinar I will host later this month. I also had two meeting with Atlassian that were very productive, and even the internal meetings at work felt more productive for some reason.

This weekend I have slept well, and yesterday I actually slept a whooping 14 hours. It shows not just in my mood, but also in my blood sugar, which has dropped significantly. Because of this I have been writing a bit again in my book and I will continue with that today. I also have several videos I am planning to record, which feels good as I have felt a bit too stressed to record lately.

I think that stress comes from many sources, where one is of course the bad experiences I suffered last year at work. This is still affecting me a bit, I think, perhaps more than I want to admit even. Starting a new job is always fun, but a bit stressful as you need to find your place and understand the culture. In my case I am employed in Sweden, but my line manager is in Poland, so it is a bit more confusing than normal. The culture in Poland and the culture in Sweden is also different and if we add the fact that Sii Sweden only have a few employees and Sii Poland is a massive company with 7500 people, there are some additional dimensions to consider.

Overall, though, it does not feel too bad, even if it takes more effort than expected to understand how things work and the actual expectations are. This is why I asked for a meeting this week to go over this, and I think the conversation was good. I am starting to get closer to my colleagues, which is always more difficult when you never meet in person. I did meet some of the team when I went to the leadership conference in Warsaw, but it was a bit too hectic and overwhelming to really have time to sit down with people to get to know them.

I am off to what Sii call Integration next week, when the purpose is to get to know each other better. I actually have two of these, even with one being here in Stockholm, and then I am flying off to Gdańsk on Friday. I thought the integration was in Gdańsk, but it is actually 400km south of that, so I will be in a car for 4 hours, which is so weird. I will get almost no sleep as I will land in Gdańsk around midnight, and then I have to get up and get ready to be picked up at 6.30 in the morning. Then it is integration all day until late in the evening, and checkout is at 11 on Sunday. I then will travel by car again back to Gdańsk before my flight leaves at 20.30, so I will be home around 23 and in bed around midnight.

Considering the importance of eating right and getting proper sleep for my diabetes, this is not ideal, but that is the price you pay for not checking things before you accept :)

The reason I did not check properly is that this came right after my father passed away. It was very sudden and came as a shock for me. My mother also became very sick right after and almost passed away as well, as she got both a nasty flu and blood poisoning. Fortunately, my aunt lives nearby, and she could take my mom to the hospital where they could take care of her. I was planning the funeral and trying to figure out all the things that need to be done after someone dies, which was no easy task as I got mixed information.

There were several weeks of trying to balance 13-hour workdays (with commuting) with getting everything planned for the funeral while also worrying about my mother, and it took its toll mentally. I have never been so relieved after a funeral as I was after my father was finally laid to rest next to my brother, and I felt a bit guilty about that. I feel that I have not really had the time to grieve yet, so I get bursts of sorrow here and there, but I need to center myself a bit more before I can do that, I think. I think I am slowly getting there and once this month is over with all the new things happening, I think I will find the time and place to say my goodbye finally.

While there is still a lot of stressful things to manage, but at work and privately, it is not bad. I am slowly regaining my footings and my energy, and with two long weekends this month I should feel even better soon.

Speaking of feeling better, I had two meetings with Atlassian this week and I attended a local Atlassian Community event here in Stockholm. The first meeting was on Monday, where Community Champions were invited to talk about the name changes Atlassian has made to call their products Apps. It was a great meeting with good information about the directions Atlassian is taking and why. I am still not fully onboard with the name changes, but I understand it a lot better now.

The second one was on Thursday where I was invited by Mikael Helldén who I worked with at H&M and who is now the head of the Atlassian platform at H&M as well as the Community Leader for the Stockholm Atlassian Community. This meeting was with Chris Shernaman who is in charge of the new Success Champion program that is currently in beta. It was a very interesting meeting and I will make a few videos and probably some articles about this in the future.

The ACE (Atlassian Community Event) took place on Tuesday, and it was extra interesting since it was about Teams 25, which is what my webinar will be about as well in a few weeks. It was a small event with just 15 or so attending, but we had great presentations, and it felt nice to finally be able to attend since I missed the previous two events due to being sick and my father's passing. It was nice to see familiar faces and to get to know some new people as well.

This weekend I have been writing in my book again after some time, and it feels good. I have a lot of things I want to add into the book, and I would like to have a first draft done this fall. That is because I would like to have a finished product in May next year so I can release it in time for next year's Teams event. I will probably have a first round of feedback after the summer with local Atlassian profiles, and then another round in the fall if all goes as planned.

I have around 130 pages at the moment, and the goal is probably between 400 and 600 pages at least. For now, I am just adding raw text and I have been jumping around a bit to focus on where my mood has been. I will continue this quantity over quality process until I feel I have the basics in place, and then I will start refining the content and plan the graphics. Yesterday I wrote about authority and handling conflict, and today I will focus on security and access, which is a huge topic.

This week I also decided to finally create a LinkedIn group for Atlassian Administrators with the focus on keeping people updated on news and Atlassian related events. So far it has been growing well with 70+ people in just a week with pretty good engagement. The creation of this group and the positive response has given me a little energy boost, which shows that I might need some positive feedback in other areas as well :)

As you can tell by this wall of text, I am feeling the urge to create again. I have quite a lot on my private to-do list, so I will dig deep into those and get them done, as that will also reduce stress. I am feeling creative, and you might have seen that I released two videos related to Confluence, and I plan to make more videos today or tomorrow. I am also setting up the Atlassian section here, which will be equal parts information about the Atlassian offerings, but also about me and my services and knowledge related to certain topics.

So, this has been a good week.