A promotion at work has meant I have been exceedingly busy for the past month, with lots of phone and in-person interviews to build a team out.

Not being particularly outgoing to begin with makes interviewing especially rough for me, so on the rare occasion that we get a great candidate in the door I have to work hard to make them feel welcome and excited about the position they are interviewing me for. It’s quite different from sitting at my desk plugged in to Last.fm and churning out design specs… It turns out to be physically tiring, since I’m forcing little-used synapses in my brain to fire.

Interviewing isn’t the extent of the new job obviously. A new product moved into my group, so I’m meeting the right folks and asking the dumb questions to wrap my ahead around the work that needs to get done this year. Also highly social activities that become less challenging after I get to know people.

I haven’t actually gotten to the people-managing part, but once I get them in, and get to know them, the coaching and divvying up work are things I’ve done in various aspects over the years.

Overall I’m in a good mood about this. It’s what I wanted with new challenges that I asked for, and I have the luxury of building my team. I’m just a bit less energetic as I wait for the less familiar to become more familiar.

Anyway… that’s where I’ve been and why I stopped writing for a bit. I’ll get back in to the groove soon.