It is slowly getting light, birds are chirping... This alarm clock was really the best purchase in a long time! Just a minute. That's not the alarm clock at all, it's just before 6 o'clock and it's spring. The birdsong is not the familiar artificial sound from the bedside table, but real “bionoise”, including the distinctive Guruu-guruuu of the doves — grinning on the face. Since Chrizzy imitated the characteristic (let's call it that) song, I've kind of grown fond of these animals!
So get out of bed, into the bathroom and then into the office at the dining table! Corona home office also has its advantages. In normal times, I would already be sitting on the train on the way to Chemnitz at this time and often snooze off a bit more. Now I can even sleep in (the alarm didn't even work anymore) and start the day in a good mood.
Laptop on, first official act: Off to the internal Slack channel and a “Good morning (smiley of the day)” thrown into the virtual room — and maybe a look at the Sococo virtual office that we're just trying out again. Who is awake anyway? Ramon seems to be still sitting in the virtual office. Did he sleep at all? And Rainer probably fell asleep at home on his construction site too, still “away.”
Mirko's status indicator in Slack is also green again. I'll just give him a quick Slack call to see if we can solve yesterday's deployment problem together. Something is still wrong with the configuration in the new Kubernetes cluster...
And suddenly it's already half past 9. Mirko needs new coffee and I want to quickly put baked rolls in the oven so that I don't starve to death in a quarter of an hour on Zoom at the Remote Coffee Circle. I hope I'll even get to dinner laughing.
At 9, the first ones disappear into their Dailys, leaving the rest of the round around Chrizzy, Caro, Nico and me. Always the same ones who quickly exchange the last flat and dove jokes before it's a quarter of 10 back to work.
At 9:30 a.m., my team will also have the Daily. The progress and problems of the last day and the plan for the current day are discussed. But Ramin and I will certainly get together in our team's Zoom meeting to continue working together on the new API features for our customer and to discuss the UI.
And suddenly it's already noon, I slide one seat to the left at the table into the lunch break. The “canteen” at home is actually not that different from the factory kitchen in the Schönherrfabrik; one thing is certain: When in doubt, there is pasta, every day. It just takes longer in the local canteen, even without standing in line. 100% freshly cooked, at least if there aren't any warmed up leftovers from the previous day.
After dinner (or during the meal), it's back to work. A pull request still needs to be reviewed, Ramin and Nikhil had implemented the discussed API endpoints including tests. And they have already prepared the test documentation for the next endpoints.
Later I'll talk to Ramon briefly about the next Softwerkskammer Meetup, and then I'll discuss ideas for our planned joint blog post with Stefanie.
It is now past 3 p.m. I spend the rest of the day developing architectural concepts for the new API management portal, today's topic: Monitoring and Alerting.
But then it's also good at some point. Even when things are often difficult, especially during Corona home office times, we absolutely want to avoid overtime and also take time for family and other leisure activities.
5:30 p.m., the cell phone rings. Katja has thought of something else. We briefly exchange ideas about what we have achieved during the day. How are things going in the team? One or the other sticky note is written and glued to the dining table for tomorrow.
It is really good to come into contact with so many pentacorneses throughout the day, even independently of teams and projects. Especially in times of isolation at home in the home office, this is really worth its weight in gold — and somehow not all that different than in the office, if we disregard the time when we now partially get together.
Finally (and surprisingly) it is 20:00. Chrizzy invites you to remote team yoga. For an hour, we test the limits of our bodies. But it may not be so bad that no one sees us. The others can certainly imagine my difficulties with balance just as well, as they know it from team sports at Indifit. If I keep wavering or falling over, I won't be able to stop laughing. Is that where the term “laughter yoga” comes from?
The evening comes to an end with meditation. It is dark and quiet. Thoughts fly by. It's very quiet, kind of too quiet. Looking at the TV: “The meeting has ended.” Looking at the clock: just after half past 10. The relaxation was probably pretty deep again. Great!
Now off to bed, the birds are already waiting. I'm curious to see who will wake me tomorrow — the real ones or the artificial ones from the alarm clock.
