Just a little update in between while waiting for a virtual machine backup operation to complete... and more importantly for the food-guy to deliver my dinner. I should really offer him a free engine swap for his scooter, nothing would shorten the delivery time like a 2000 horsepower "Dyno Destroyer" V8 by Nelson Racing.
The last days have been business as usual, running around like a chicken that just got it's head chopped off.
Nonetheless I managed to pull through like always while working around the limitations of only having 24 hours in a single day and the requirement of spending at least 4 of those hours asleep.
The main thing that kept me motivated was the incredible way one of my projects is going. A couple of weeks ago I started working on an Electronic Data Interchange implementation delivering automated 2-way communication between our customer on one side and our customer's customer, divided into two separate entities. One handles their "product logistics" and the other handles the required administration and invoicing.
As you can imagine, they both have strict requirements for handling all of this and they don't make those requirements easy to reach.
Regardless, we put our heads together and formed a small dynamic team to see whether we could manage it all, and manage we did!
Our last meeting was the best example: we were completely stuck on a problem in uncharted waters, so we brought in an expert after careful consideration. We managed to scratch his back and now he's scratching ours. Impressively enough when I arrived ten minutes after the rest of the team, the problem wasn't even considered as a problem anymore and the solution was in the works.
Barely 24 hours later I had the solution in my inbox, designed in a way that made implementation a walk in the park. Thanks guys! You're all heroes in my book!
The way this issue was tackled made me realize that it's not impossible to achieve success while doing something you do effortlessly and to have fun while doing it. You just need a good combination of talent, a common drive and a give 'em hell-attitude. Taking this into account, I'm going to limit the time I spend working on projects that don't include good progressive development and return on investment, and take on more projects like this!
It's damn nice to do something you love, and to get paid for doing it...