Author: ryanhuckle

Work Loyalty

I’ve got this problem with loyalty.  Well, it’s not a problem per se.  It’s a problem for me, but it’s great for my employer.  This might be a product of my tenancy to let inertia guide me, but when it comes to career progression, I tend to avoid rocking the boat as much as possible.

I’ve been at my current full-time job for 3.5 years.  I feel lucky that I got the job initially, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by wonderful people who are committed to making the School of Engineering what it is.  There are obviously little petty stuff here and there, but it’s par for the course when you have to work on teams.  I, without reservation, like working with all the people I interact with on a regular basis.

I started here as a lowly research assistant on a 9-month contract.  I got lucky when my position’s predecessor decided to retire and positioned myself to be the likely next person in line.  I was hired to fill the outgoing assistant’s job, and I’ve been steadily building myself since by accepting new challenges and seeking out ways to improve my profile (getting involved in program reviews, offering my analysis to the Chairs, accepting bigger projects, teaching, etc.).  But I have always been in the same position in the same office.  My boss has encouraged me to keep an eye on career advancement within the college, as my talents are well beyond what my original role was intended for.  I appreciate that my boss, whom has a vested interest in me staying in my current role, has always encouraged me to be open to advancement.

When I was given the opportunity to teach, I felt conflicted bringing it to my boss.  I was worried that it would signal a disinterest in my job, that I was keeping one foot out the door in case I wanted to bolt.  I pitched the job to her as an opportunity to broaden my experience at the College.  She was supportive, and I had nothing to worry about.

A few weeks back, a new job was posted within the College.  It’s a few pay-grades above where I am, and will expose me to some pretty high-up work across the entire College.  One part of me wanted to go for the job – it’s about a 10% raise minimum, it’s an entirely new role for me on a new campus, I like the people I’ll be working with and for, it’s a soft-reboot for my job, and it puts me in touch with the highest levels of administration at the College.  That alone should have had me applying automatically.

But what held me back was the loyalty I felt to my department.  My boss and I have been working on formally redefining my job so that I would qualify for a higher pay-band (we are bound by the union rules, so she can’t arbitrarily change my salary; I am stuck on the prescribed annual raise amounts).  She has been giving me more autonomy and responsibilities over my projects and the work I am doing is both valued and appreciated by the Chairs and faculty I interact with.  Plus, I’m in the middle of some big program reviews, so leaving partway through would be an inconvenience for others.

I consulted with peers at the College, I talked it over with my fiancee, and with my supervisor at the bar for different views.  I know, deep down, that loyalty to a company doesn’t necessarily make sense.  The company isn’t necessarily loyal to me (though I feel that my supervisors and boss look out for me, so there is loyalty there on an interpersonal level).  But clinging to loyalty means I don’t grow and expand exponentially within my role.  Instead, it would be a slow, iterative progression up the ladder.

As a final move, I spoke to my boss about the opportunity.  After our regular monthly check-in, I told her that I was interested in the position.  She looked it over and flatly told me that while she’d hate to lose me, it would be a shame if I didn’t at least throw my hat in on something she couldn’t offer me (salary-wise).  In the end, she knows the game: people are expected to grow and fill opportunities that they stumble into.  I wouldn’t be quitting my job since it’s an internal position at the College, so there was no harm in applying and continuing to work as per normal.  She gave me her blessing, I revised my resume, and applied to the job last weekend.  I think my boss appreciated the heads-up, just in case.

An hour ago, I received a notice from HR that I’m being offered an interview in a week for the job.  As of writing, I have no idea how this will turn out, but I guess this means I know what I need to do this next week – it’s time to dust-off my interview skills.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Keep Your (First Aid) Skills Sharp

I wrote my masters thesis in 2012 on the relationship of knowledge, first aid, and the moral requirements of rescue.  The thesis argued that 1.) if you have special knowledge or training (first aid), you are morally required to render aid, even if there is no pre-existing legal requirement; and 2.) everyone should be trained in first aid.  While it is the case that I have to keep my first aid certificates current in order to work at the bar, I believe that it’s important to keep these skills fresh and sharp regardless of your occupation.

You never know when you’ll need to draw upon the skills, so frequent practice is important if you want to be effective.

There have been two instances while working at the bar where a pedestrian was struck by an automobile while I was working.  The first was New Years Eve a few years back, and the second was this past St. Paddy’s Day.  Thankfully, in both instances the person did not seem to be critically harmed in the incident, and both were conscious when they were loaded into the ambulance to be taken to the hospital for further attention.  I suspect that while both had some degree of recovery ahead of them, they thankfully won’t likely experience prolonged physical suffering.

In both instances, I was working on the door, so I was the first responder on scene to start treatment.  In the case of a traffic collision, the most important steps are to protect yourself, and start control of the scene.  I can confidently say that I’m terrible at the first thing, and half-decent on the second.  This is why consistent practice is important.

Protect yourself

I fail on this in two regards.  I have a tendency to run out into the street to reach the pedestrian quickly, meaning that I put myself at risk of getting hit by a car while on scene.  The other thing I’m bad at is getting to the pedestrian and starting treatment before I finish the scene survey (which includes putting on medical gloves to protect myself).  These are big no-no’s.  I expose myself to unnecessary risk while trying to be first to the injured, when realistically I should take an additional 15-30 seconds to stop, take in the scene, and put on my gloves.

Control the Scene

I am adequate at this because I tend to default to immobilizing C-Spine and trying to talk to the pedestrian if they are conscious.  I could do this better in a number of way, such as having a fellow staff member control the spine while I assess for additional injuries and control the scene (directing people around me, updating EMS, taking notes, etc.).  In regards to the staff at the bar, I am probably the most experienced first aider, so removing myself from the decision-making portion of the response has benefits and drawbacks.  I am the best person to perform first aid until advanced medical care arrives, but I also have enough experience to understand the dynamics of the scene.  At this point, it’s best that I trust my fellow staff to respond appropriately.

Responding to a traffic incident is chaotic, noisy and confusing.  On top of this, adrenaline courses through your body, making your hands shake and your limbs jittery.  Your brain feels like mush because your thoughts are lightning quick.  Time seems to slow down, and that ambulance that is 5-8 minutes away always takes an eternity.  You are hyper-focused on your patient, but aware that there is a light din of noise at your periphery.  It’s like a bubble is around you, and you are hoping like hell that you don’t mess anything up under the spotlight of the gawking mass of people encircling the scene.

This is all normal.  It (sadly) gets easier the more you do it.  You become calmer each time you respond; it’s happening to me already.

The lesson to take from this is to always keep your certs current, and find time to meaningfully practice your skills.  Someones life may depend on it.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

 

 

 

 

 

(Blog) Weak Will and my Monkey Brain

I did something bad last night.  I went against my better judgement and stayed up until just after 1:30am.

*Gasp!*

Ok, perhaps this isn’t the worst thing in the world.  In fact, given the demographics of the area I live in, there were plenty of other people in my neighborhood who were still awake well past my drifting off to sleep.

Why is this bad?

It’s bad for two main reasons.  First, it’s bad because it goes counter to my expressed goals of striving for 7-hours of sleep per night.  It also creeps in on my desire to not use YouTube late at night.  I’ve identified this as a problem before, and I know  that giving in to “just 10-minutes on YouTube” is a recipe for failure.

But the second and more pressing concern is that I knew better, because just 15-minutes before I sat down at the computer, I was musing on the car ride home from my shift at the bar that I should put my staff meal in the fridge and go straight to bed.  I got home, let the dog out, then sat down at the computer and thought “I haven’t done any late night surfing in a while, and I could unwind a bit since I’m not tired, so how about some YouTube?”

Big mistake.

Never mind that passively consuming online videos makes it easy to lose track of time as you spiral down the rabbit hole of content; never mind that staring at a screen is bad for your sleep and inhibits the production of chemicals that help you feel tired; I rationally knew and actively thought to myself that I know what I’m supposed to do, and I went and did the irrational thing anyway!

While I’m talking about this as if it’s an addiction, I know that this is less an issue of some sort of neuro-behavioral compulsion and more of a weakness of will.  Or, more specifically, it’s a lack of discipline on my part.  It’s thinking that I’m smarter than my own laziness.  Once again, my monkey brain won out and I ended up sabotaging my goals without really being aware of it.

You win this time, Laziness.

 

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Sleep Check-in

February came to a close last week, which completed another full month of tracking my sleep.  This post builds on my observations made about January.

At the end of February, here’s where I stood:

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8/28 days I hit 7 hours of sleep or more.  If it were a batting average, I’d be golden.

Eight days out of twenty-eight is still pretty terrible, but it’s a 100% improvement over January’s numbers.  I never expected to make an overnight change towards better sleep, so this kind of result is above my expectations while still giving me room to clearly improve.

I track the results in my notebook as binary entries – either I sleep 7 hours according to my Fitbit or I do not.  Here’s a snapshot of what some of these nights looked like last week:

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February 22nd was a day I called in sick and went back to sleep (I was legitimately ill, not just sleepy).

As you can see, I’m often just barely missing my deadlines because I’m a restless sleeper.  Nevertheless, I know of some various steps to explore to see if I can claim a few more nights of sleep, such as a more strict bedtime routine and possibly kicking the dog out of the bedroom at night (we spoil him rotten).

Subjectively, this is the best I’ve felt in a while.  Rising before 6:30am is getting easier, I feel less groggy in the morning, I’m more motivated and active, I feel like I need less coffee to function, and most importantly my mood has lifted a bit.  The morning exercise is probably also helping with my affect.

I’m looking forward to March’s numbers.  I’ll keep you posted.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

To Rita

On my way to work, my commute takes me past a public school and every day I see the crossing guards out.  This morning, I had a sudden flashback of a face I haven’t seen in over a decade – my old crossing guard, Rita.

I haven’t seen Rita since I left for university.  She hadn’t been my guard since I left public school five year prior, but I remember her face.  She knew my name, which I suppose is what I remember most.  And she was always kind.

I suppose, as a child, I didn’t fully grasp how important she and the other guards were.  The roads we crossed weren’t very busy, and I was used to crossing the road on my own, but she was always there; she used her super-powers to stop traffic.

Now, I appreciate what these volunteers do.  How important they are and the value of what they protect.  That they stand stoically in inclement weather five days a week during the school year.

Maybe that’s why I remember her face now.  And her smile.

I don’t know where she is now, but I secretly hope Rita’s still out making an impression on others, and keeping children safe.

Take care, Rita.

~Ryan

Blog -Disrupting Routine

Remember how I was going on last week about starting a new routine in the morning?

As luck would have it, the day after that post went live, I came down with a cold.  Normally colds don’t bother me, but it was enough for me to cancel all of my Wednesday engagements to recover, then spend the next two days at work a tired, drippy, stuffy mess.  Apparently, something is going around the Region (and our office) because many people have been off ill or discussing it online.

I had an interesting moment last week as I decided to call in sick.  Normally, I’d try to push through and save my sick days for when I was genuinely incapacitated or in need of a mental health day.  I always feel guilty conceding to being sick.  But I realized that a.) much like with sleep, it’s important that I listen to my body’s cues, because in general I feel better when I respect my body’s natural rhythms; and b.) I have a big boy job that not only pays me to stay home when I’m sick, but also expects that I respect the office and not bring sickness to it.

So, rather than pushing it, I decided to take the week and weekend off from trying to be productive.  This morning, I resumed my rowing and reading, even if I wasn’t yet up to 100%.

Slow and steady.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Morning Productivity

I had an interesting morning last Tuesday.  As I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve been getting up early with my fiancee.  She typically leaves for work around 7am, and I don’t need to leave for work until around 9am, which leaves me with almost 2-hours to fill with how I wish.

I could go back to sleep and work on hitting my 7-hours of sleep per day goal (as of writing, I’m still failing on this goal, but only narrowly).

Or, I could try to use this quiet time to do some things distraction-free.

*If my fiancee is reading this, I mean distraction from technology and daily pressures.  Love you!*

I’ve been steadily adopting the latter option, and last Tuesday I had an amazingly productive morning.

First, I read for around 30 minutes.  I’ve been working my way through Tim Ferriss’s new book “Tools of Titans” which is hefty 700 pages.

Then, I opened up the Coursera app on my phone and did a few lecture videos on an introductory calculus course I’m working on, including practice problems on functions.  That was around 15-20 minutes.

Then I went upstairs to row for 10 minutes.  I started rowing two weeks ago in the mornings and I’ve already noticed an improvement – I’m less winded after the workout and my hips are not nearly so tight afterwards.  I’ll probably write a post about rowing soon, but for now it’s a small habit I’m trying to instill during the work week.

After rowing, I recorded two vlogs.  I recorded a short vlog for Art Press, my podcasting partner’s side-channel that features vlogs from artists who also exercise.  Then, I recorded my daily vlog that I upload privately to my channel as my version of a diary.  The two vlogs took me 5-7 minutes to record.

Then, I finally showered and got ready for work.

Reflection

I know that starting your day on the right foot is a key to success.  It sets you up with a positive mindset that you are accomplishing your goals and using you time well.  I certainly don’t want to do things for the sake of being busy.

I suppose I’m being a little arrogant by sharing this information within my social media feeds – I’ve been tweeting my progress on rowing, and sharing my small productivity wins as they happen.  Am I just looking for approval from others?  Does sharing this really keep me motivated and accountable?  Would I enjoy the process less if I didn’t share (boast) about it?  Am I looking to inspire others?  Lead by example?  Make them jealous?  I don’t have good answers for this.

I also don’t know whether I can keep this up regularly.  This system (I’m calling it a system for the sake of the argument) is fragilely held afloat because of my fiancee’s schedule.  If that were to change, I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t be able to wake up at 6am on my own – I have about of decade of anecdotal evidence to support this.  Also, will I be able to keep this pace?  Exercise, reading, studies, and vlogging takes up a lot of time; will I be able to guarantee that I’ll have enough time and mental focus everyday to continue this process.  Again, I don’t have an answer to this.

Time will tell.  After all, as of writing, I only have one data point to draw an inference from.  It’s important to not get too far ahead of myself and focus on hitting my targets tomorrow.

 

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

(Blog) A New Timeline

As of writing, it is February 3rd.

Yesterday, I had a realization – I am in a new timeline.  And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The reference comes from an episode of Community where the characters are playing Dungeons & Dragons and the storyline focuses on six distinct timelines based on the character’s decisions.

At the close of February 1st, 2017, I officially entered a new timeline.

For the last year, my focus had been geared towards preparing to apply to a paramedic program before the deadline closed on Feb. 1st.  I took preparatory courses, read books on medicine, talked to teachers and industry people, exercised, and started laying some of the financial groundwork.

When I proposed to my fiancee, I had to re-evaluate my future career path.  My plan had assumed that I would be on my own, or at least my career wouldn’t necessarily be influenced by needing to consider anyone else.  However, by proposing, I was intertwining my life and career with my fiancee’s.  I’ve been at my current job for almost three years now and I enjoy a stable paycheck and good benefits.  My fiancee graduated from her program in April and just landed her first major job in her field.

After consideration, I decided to put going into paramedicine on hold indefinitely in order to help support her.  She’s only on a short contract, so she doesn’t have stable employment yet.  She also commutes about an hour each way, so her ability to manage the house and take care of the dog alone until I finish moving in is challenging.  It would put us in a bad spot if I were to stop receiving an income and re-enter school while she is focusing on putting down her own career roots.

Feb. 1st was the deadline for equal consideration applications to college programs, and it has since come and gone.  I am no longer preparing to make a career switch.  I have entered a new timeline.

It’s a little scary for me.  It’s not scary because of the unknown; I actually relish possibilities.  No, it’s scary because I no longer have a sense of direction.  All last year, I had a target to aim at.  I had a matrix to make decisions within.  Decisions were always made within the context of a mission and a set of values – does this bring me closer to my goal, or does this hold me back?

Now, I’m adrift again.  I don’t know what the next step is, or what I should be working towards.  If I learned one thing about myself this last year, it’s that I need purpose.  I need a mission.  With the close of Feb. 1st, I have neither for my career.

I have entered a new timeline, and it’s time to start getting my bearings.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

 

I Really Need to Sleep More

As the title says, I need more sleep.  It should surprise no one that sleep is good for you and you generally feel better getting more of it.

And yet, I’m terrible at it.  I’ve known for a while I’m terrible at managing sleep, but wearing a Fitbit over the last year really helped quantify how terrible I am.

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Here is a typical week for me back in mid-October, 2016.  As you can see, I was averaging less than 6-hours a week, and I would occasionally punctuate my sleepiness with a crash that would waste half a day by recuperating.  By the end of the academic term, I was turning into a zombie.  Things were starting to slide, I felt irritable, my weight had gone up; basically everything bad about not getting sleep was happening.  The only thing that thankfully did not happen was falling asleep behind the wheel.

A small part of me wore my fatigue like a badge of honour.  It was the natural consequence of hustling and being busy.  The problem with this is it was impressing no one, it was wearing me out, and it was pissing people off who I was failing to deliver to on my promises.

Something needed to change.

… And the Clock Strikes Twelve – New Year, New Rules

While I’m not a big new year’s resolutions guy, I saw the start of January as a good time to try and reclaim my sleeping habits.  I had wound down a bunch of my obligations, finished teaching, and was going to spend less time commuting for a long-distance relationship (the fiancee was moving back to my city), so January made sense to focus on cultivating a better sleeping habit.

Step one in any major change is to identify and isolate the variables you want to modify, and track the delta from your baseline.  After all, you can’t change what you don’t measure.

I set 7-hours as a good goal to strive towards as it was more sleep than I was used to but not an unreasonable jump that would set me up for failure.  I decided to track each day’s worth of sleep as a binary yes-no check in my notebook.  The Fitbit would auto-track my sleep, and I would manually log my sleep to ensure I was consciously paying attention to sleep.  I modified the Bullet Journal method and tracked the days I got less than 7-hours of sleep (alongside the days I read, and the days I exercised).

After one month, I look back at my progress.

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For privacy reasons, I’ve blocked out my calendar notes.

Yikes.

Needless to say, if January is my baseline, then at least I have nowhere to go but up.  I hit my target four times all month.  My reading habit was fairly strong, and my exercise is still abysmal.

Light on the Horizon

There is one thing that has changed in February so far that has given me hope: my fiancee has started a new job.

As of writing, she’s in her first week at her new job, and I have only now given notice to my apartment managers that I will be moving in with her, so I’m spending a few nights a week at her place to help support her as she starts the job.  This includes groceries, errands, and taking care of our dog.

Her new job is a few cities over, so she needs to commute about an hour each way, meaning she needs to get up before me and hit the road before I normal would wake up.  As a consequence, she needs to follow a fairly strict bed time while she adjusts to the new schedule.

At one point, I would have let her go to bed, then I would have gone to bed whenever I felt like it, and set my own alarm.  But, in the spirit of supporting her (and wanting to spend quality time with her), I’ve been going to bed at the same time as her, and getting up with her to tend to the dog’s morning needs.

The days where I’ve gotten 7+ hours of sleep have been the greatest I’ve felt in a long time.

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Wednesday would have been 7-hours if I hadn’t had restless sleep.  The Fitbit subtracts your restless period from the total duration of sleep.

Obviously, it’s too early to suggest that I’ve got my habit down, but subjectively I can report feeling better overall.  I have wanted to wake up early for some time now, and getting up with my partner has felt great.  I have time to enjoy my morning coffee while I read or listen to the news, and not feeling rushed out the door has lifted my spirits.  Ideally, I want to keep this going, so it’ll be interesting to see how the system adapts to other obligations in my life (working at the bar being the harshest pressure on my sleep schedule).

I know that rationally, sleeping is good.  It’s good for mental clarity, it’s good for decision-making, it’s good for general health as well as weightloss.  But knowing the facts has so far proven to be a challenge for me.  Perhaps focusing on my relationship and supporting my partner’s success is just the motivation I’ve needed to force me to take better care of myself.

We shall see where things go from here.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan