I haven't posted in here for a while!
Been pretty busy at work - had my appraisal a couple of weeks ago which went pretty well. Well enough that I got to mock the entire appraisal process, disregarded all of the objectives I was given and write my own. "Get it right first time" is not a valid objective for a software developer!
At home - I've been working on my Giant Tetris! The last of the main parts arrived last week (the stand and the plastic sheet for the front windows) so I was very busy over the weekend trying to fit it all together (typically - none of the holes lined up!).
Turned out pretty well!



I've also found my first sponsor - National Instruments might be giving me a piece of kit worth £250 in return for using it at marketing events!
Also at work - a couple of weeks ago someone at work gave a presentation about setting up a company social initiative thing - basically trying to set up a group for organising social events, volunteering and that kind of thing. Said colleague is also leaving at the end of this year so she presented the idea and is then leaving. A small group of us said we were interested in helping (I wanted to help out with volunteering in STEM - science, tech, engineering, maths). Somehow - I've ended up taking her place of 'championing' the initiative and trying to get it started/running. Wasn't really expecting that but we'll see how it goes over the next few months.
Started off in the right place by sending a survey to all the employees to see what they want from it and spent like 3-4 hours this evening trying to come up with a workable plan and to figure out what needs to happen. Probably means I'll have to do some spokes-personning and give a presentation or two to the whole company along with meeting some fairly senior execs (who previously, as a lowly software engineer, I have managed to avoid!) to discuss getting their support and if we want any funding or anything like that.
On the one hand, I'm pretty apprehensive - having never done anything like this before but on the other hand I think it'll probably be pretty good for me (my career here if I don't fuck it up, future career stuff etc.).