10th week - 300 PMs sent

I think I'm getting used to this new life. It's fun to start the day without a clear plan and change it however I feel it's right. But something feels missing for sure. Probably, it's time for the next big step. Probably... it can wait for a little bit longer.

Tuesday morning I felt the inspiration to finally shoot the videos about the worst leader types. There's a catch - somehow they became the leader. So there's still something to learn from them. The core idea has been sitting in the backlog for a few months already. Each video has been shot just once. If you enjoy watching them, be kind to AI and leave ?? under the post.

We start with the "Decision Maker". Someone wrote me that he hadn't seen such a leader ever but I believe that this is the most popular one. I definitely have seen a few men like that in my professional life. Probably that's me 15 years ago. Just trying to "fit in a professional environment". They're not bad people, it's not intentional.

The second is the "Funny Democrat". Please don't hate me for it, but, for whatever reason, often female leaders are like that. They're not bad people, it's not intentional.

There will be two more types next week - the "Mr. Wise" and the "Innovator on Steroids". The whole thing is not just some four videos for fun. You'll understand in the near future.

On my invitation to watch the video, I got a response from someone that professionals like me should not be posting parodies about leaders and that LinkedIn is not a place for such. That got me thinking... How professional does "The Unemployed Unicorn" sound? What about this picture of me in a working environment? It's just one of many examples. Being different from typical professionals has always been my thing. I'm honest, I'm vulnerable, and I'm full of ideas. It's the reason why creative engineers follow me. Just to have some reality check, I asked someone I don't personally know about this "professionalism in LinkedIn" and my actions but haven't got the answer yet. For now, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Decided. However, I must agree that the videos are not getting the recognition I was hoping for.

There's actually a funny story about the costume from the picture above. I ordered a Big Hero 6 costume for the Accenture Christmas party which was going to have a superhero theme. It arrived without a helmet. A friend of a friend lent it to me. If I remember correctly, I picked it up from Visma's office. I didn't explain which party I need it for. If I understood it correctly, they had it new, and some plans to have it as a mascot for their own parties or something. In the end, I won a prize for the best costume and it was very visible on social media. I haven't ever seen a picture of it by anyone after that day...

Some other things that happened this week:

• The Latvia DevOps Community with an Agile flavor had its workshop last Friday evening. We spent 1h together writing up a text for potential sponsors. Later at the bar no one got drunk and we kept discussing other community-related topics. Things are getting better and better.
• Last week I forgot to mention one interesting thing. I had a virtual coffee break with another RTG mentor. Basically a blind date. Muhammad Arslan is working on an IT conference which will be on a cruise. A real ship, yes. Definitely check out his website and sign up to support him: https://techxcruise.com/
• Ibrahim Timor and I had a call to troubleshoot my K8s cluster issues. After some basic checks, we came to the conclusion that the issue is not related to the K8s as such. The next morning he asked me to change the Network Adapter type. After changing "Bridged Network" to "NAT Network" and rebuilding my cluster from scratch, it seems to be working. Hurray! I continue my learning.
• Delivered the 5th DevOps lecture for the RTU students. I just don't get them. At the beginning of the lecture I wrote in the chat "While waiting for others, please write in the chat how are you doing today." From 20 students online I got... zero responses. Maybe they all hate me. That's what's going on in my head during such moments.
• The TechChill Hospitality stream Team Lead Diana Kukore opened a Whatsapp group for 18 volunteers. She asked everyone to tell about themselves a little, starting with herself as an example. 3 hours later I just couldn't help myself and sent a response. 4 people followed. The rest is dead silence. I understand that, as Mr. Larkov would say, I have nothing to do anyway, but I just can't accept these modern ways of communicating... I keep telling myself that people are simply more afraid than before Covid to put themselves out there but it doesn't seem to get any better.
• LinkedIn is changing its UI basically every week. Increased the algorithm for one of my bots. I started fantasizing about what would happen to me if LinkedIn simply bans me one day...
• As a reaction to some less-positive chats in the #RTG Discord, I proposed to organize a Mastermind session for mentors. Dagnija Veide and Diāna Butina thank you for letting me have that. 6 mentors have applied. It's next Monday evening. Hopefully, I will not turn it into a group therapy session but only the "here and now" will show. I keep wondering to myself why I'm doing this. I guess I just want to be useful. And there's nothing to hide... Lately, I'm hungry for the spotlight.
• My to-become-DevOps-leader mentee and I had our first deep-dive session. It's going to be a lot of work (for him, not me, obviously ??) but it's all looking very promising.
• Started cooking a half-legal marketing campaign for my theatre play. Can't tell you more.
• Thursday evening there was a Zoom call for RTG mentors to discuss current progress, and the plans further. A thing I definitely want to highlight is this new RTG program for IT Support specialists and UX designers. Call your non-IT friend now!
• An acquaintance reached out to discuss a business opportunity. We'll talk next week in more detail.
• The ghosts from the past showed up with real talk.
• My RTG mentee is crawling out of Kubler-Ross Depression. Changing the profession is not just a decision. It's the way how we think. We must keep in mind neuroplasticity. Rewiring the brain at a fast pace literally hurts the brain. But the result will be worth it!
• Created UI and UX design guidelines for the adopted baby project. We need a real UI/UX designer...

This was the 10th edition. I feel people are getting a bit tired of these newsletters and regular content. I needed them to keep myself sane and adapt to the new reality. But the engagements are going down. It's easy to blame LinkedIn AI, obviously. If nothing changes, I'll stop and go back to the post-only-when-inspired-a-few-times-per-year approach.