Heckin' Long Hack Day

Today was a long day. It is the longest uninterrupted day of work that I had done in a while---no naps either on the trip to the office, nor in the middle of the day during the lunch break, nor any time after. Straight up being awake since 0500hrs to what I think should be 2330hrs before I crash out from exhaustion.

But let's back track a little.

Hack Day is one day in the work week that I deliberately set aside to have uninterrupted blocks of time to work on things that require time to think. Back in my I²R days, it evolved from having to deliver software artefacts while being involved in various meetings with various parties. For me, meetings are disruptive to my thinking process for two big reasons:

1. As working level staff, I need to prepare for the meetings, and the said preparation work is non-trivial. It's more than just clobbering some slides together---it is also about getting the framing correct, and simplifying enough of the material so that the other attendees of the meeting (not all of them at the same technical level as what I am working on) can actually understand enough of what is going on to give useful feedback. This is one of the reasons why I absolutely detest meetings with no agenda, because it will be a colossal waste of everyone's time. By extension, I have unbridled righteous anger at those who enjoy calling such agenda-less meetings, and beginning said meeting with ``Do you know why I've called you all here?''.
2. As a person who dislikes having to deal with people as a matter of principle, I personally need to summon energy reserves to ``put on my game face'' to attend meetings---the more external parties there are, the more energy I need to summon from my reserves. Since I'm no ``big boss'' calibre person, it means that such meetings often require me to actively participate to understand enough of what is going on to provide timely and accurate technical input/feedback to my bosses so that they can make the best decision---that also drawns upon that energy reserve. Meetings with my team are less draining due to the more candid nature we have to adopt to get things moving as fast and misunderstanding-free as it is practically possible, but they still require some energy expenditure.

For a deeper explanation that is more general than what I have said here, I highly recommend Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham.

Hack Day used to be on Tuesdays back in I²R; they were made obsolete with the deathmarch-esque grind at my next place of work. Now I have instituted them again because of the nature of the work, but it is on Wednesdays instead.

Hack Days usually mean that I come earlier to the office, and leave later so as to maximise the number of large enough blocks of time (about 3 hours per block). The keyword here is ``usually''---the time of arrival/departure to/from the office is less important than the number of big blocks of time that I can have. As noted in this brief description of my typical day, the standard bus-only route that has maximal comfort cannot provide that early arrival time. I²R Hack Days were usually executed through driving the family car, which allowed me to arrive at the office at around 0630hrs, and leave at 2000hrs.

I'm cutting back on the driving these days just so that I can acclimatise myself to a lifestyle where there is no access to a car (or taxi for that matter). It's a choice thing because sooner or later, the family car isn't going to be around. I see no reason to feed a beast that I use at most once a week, and eventually even my father would be too old to actually make use of the car more often than he currently has, making it even harder to justify continuously feeding the beast.

So... no car. I had to come in earlier today because I needed those large time blocks, not to mention that there was some production issue that I needed to quickly look into. That issue was minor, but it still needed some labour to rectify after all.

To come in earlier though means forgoing the use of the bus-only route. Because the two-hour travel time meant that I needed to be on the bus at around 0540hrs, which meant leaving the apartment by 0530hrs, which (working backwards some more) meant that I needed to wake up earlier to ensure that I still got my morning exercise, shower, and coffee going.

I'm already running on dangerously low levels of sleep. Getting up even earlier is a no-go.

Thus, it would be by subway. And if by subway, it means no nap for two reasons:

1. No guaranteed seating in subway;
2. Travel duration per leg is too close to the 20-minute mark that my naps on public transport tend to take, making it very risky.

That explains the no nap this morning.

As for no nap during lunch break, well that's much easier to explain. I needed sunlight, and getting sunlight meant no nap either, since there is no comfortable way to actually nap. It's not like there were chairs to snooze in, and I didn't bring along those straw mats to allow myself to lie completely flat on the floor.

Thus, a long day.

I wanted to write something about the vastness of space and how it is a good thing because it protects us from being annihilated by monstrous levels of energies that are out there, energies that are far beyond what our science/engineering can manipulate to create ``perfect'' localised conditions such that we have leverage on to effect our will, but it got all complicated.

So all you're going to get is just that small paragraph above.

And that is that. Till the next update.