About

I am a computer enthusiast based in Vancouver, BC with a passion for enterprise infrastructure and security-related work, particularly in on-premise and hybrid cloud environments. This website serves as a personal blog where I can express my thoughts, share my experiences, and occasionally provide helpful guides.

What this blog is about

The information on this site may become outdated over time and could lack complete details, requiring you to conduct further research elsewhere. All the posts shared here serve as a documentation of my explorations and a reference point for my previous thoughts. My goal is to make this site a knowledge aggregator for my personal use, but it may also prove useful for others.

Interests

In addition to my full-time job, I actively engage in various projects, time permitting, but my primary focus lies in the following areas:

• Cybersecurity: I continuously explore novel methods that cyber attackers use to infiltrate enterprise environments, and how to mitigate and prevent such attacks.
• PowerShell: Although I do not consider myself a full-fledged programmer, I have developed a strong affinity for PowerShell scripting and have honed my skills in this area.

Outside of projects and work, my aim is to spend as much time as posible with my family.

Work practices

Humans come first

Any team I’ve ever worked in delivers a project through collaboration with people. My goal is to empower these people to be productive and achieve their goals and get out of the way. Technology comes and goes but people remain at the core of everything that I do. I try not to lose sight of that.

Feedback helps everyone be better

Without feedback it’s very easy to fall back into one’s comfort zone or be unaware of weaknesses or issues. I ask for performance feedback frequently and from different parts within an organization. I am also not stingy with providing feedback and constructive criticism - if there is something that bothers me or I feel like has room for improvement, I will have that conversation.

Leadership and knowledge see no level boundaries

Looking at titles to determine whether the person is knowledgeable or has the right perspectives is counterproductive. I treat everyone as someone who is extremely smart, passionate, knows more than I do, and is looking to make the project and experiences I work on better.

How I Work

I was inspired by others having their own “Working with…" document that I had to create my own. It’s a useful tool to set expectations with your coworkers and partners. This is in no way something that I am requiring others to read or try to enforce every single bullet point; it’s a document that provides context on how I personally operate - I do not expect anyone to adjust to my style, but rather consider it as they make their decisions.

• I don’t expect anyone to answer my emails or IMs when they are on vacation. It can be done once you’re back and refreshed.
• If you get an email from me at odd times, you do not need to respond to it that moment. Do it at your own time. If it would be urgent, I would reach out to you in a different way that is not e-mail.
• I am remote therefore documentation takes precedence over in-person communication. Let’s write things down and have a conversation before setting up meetings or starting another long email thread. If something is not documented, it might as well not exist.
• Despite being remote, I strongly believe in the value of face-to-face communication. It’s important to regularly meet with the people I work with to discuss how I can help and plug in better into the existing projects. - I write more than I talk. Writing allows one to better flesh out their thoughts before sharing them broadly.
• I set up meetings to hash out ideas and/or build partnerships. I do not set up meetings for status updates - that can be done asynchronously.
• Most email is not urgent. If there is truly an urgent matter, please reach out through means other than email.
• I am serious about having focus time - that’s when I get the most impactful work done. If I haven’t answered your email or IM, I will do so within a reasonable time frame; I triage those requests at the start and end of day, and tend to get to “Inbox Zero” weekly.
• I value decency, honesty, straightforwardness, dependability, and presence - if you feel like I am missing the mark on anything, please call me out on it. - Time for self-development is critical. I book regular times to do it and encourage others to do the same.
• I believe in “clean” downtime, as in time off where you go firmly offline work-wise. Make sure you spend enough of your vacation days this way; it’s valuable, healthy, and important. - Remember that unless you’re really explicitly given a hard requirement, most things asked of you should be treated as input into your prioritization process.
• I aim to have “career chats” with my directs every now and then or so—to check in on trajectories, desires, ambitions, and so on. This can be as often as they like at their option, but if they don’t bring it up at all then I will.

Time management

• I believe in the Eisenhower Matrix (urgency/significance). Be aware that not everything you’re asked to do urgently is actually significant; and that there is significant non-urgent stuff which nobody is bugging you for. Prioritize accordingly.
• One super-rough rule of thumb for “significant” is “stuff that in a year’s time you’ll (a) remember you did; and (b) be glad you did”
• I also believe in the Impact/Effort matrix, and that you have to be constantly vigilant as to where you’re spending your effort. Resist the lure of low-effort but low-impact work.
• Having deep focus is the cornerstone in being able to succeed in a fast-paced environment.

Create inbox rules

There is an inbox rule that I created, that, in my opinion, works really well in determining the top-priority conversations:

• If {email} from {manager || directs || team org-hierarchy || VP || CEO || HR || legal || flagged as high importance} - goes to Inbox. Emails in this category clearly require your immediate attention and you likely need to address these as soon as possible. These emails impact the direction of your work as well as current and future priorities.
• If {email} from {anyone else} - goes to Catch-All. This is a folder that aggregates content from colleagues, partners on other teams, that I will make sure to cover, however do not require immediate attention.

I’d like to emphasize that this is not about ignoring email. I want to build great relationships with everyone. That, however, can be done when I have dedicated time for email triage.

Have chunks of uninterrupted time

This sounds really obvious, but does require a level of commitment to having such time. This practice means time that is not split between meetings, interruptions for lunch or browsing your favorite news website or even calls with the bank. The amount of time can vary (you can see a lot of this in the essay) depending on what you do, however for anyone in the tech industry, fixed amounts of focus time allow you to really think through some of the most important ideas, products, prioritization and/or anything else that you need to do for higher impact. Even email. Yes, email - block off some uninterrupted time on your calendar to empty out your inbox and answer every single inquiry there might be pending your input.

Resources

https://hunterwalk.com/2016/06/18/the-best-startups-resists-snacks-im-not-talking-about-food/ https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/