Despite the enjoyment I get from doing development or even working through a configuration or installation issue I often find that I have weeks like the last one. Last week I was unable to code at all either at work or at home. Work was just a series of firefighting exercises largely to get to new projects deployed and at home I spent my few free hours coding and catching up on some old household todo items.
I’ve accepted that my job as a manager is largely to develop my people. Still, I realize that most technical folks will quickly lose respect for you if your technical skills wither substantially. My compromise has always been to devote myself at home to doing a lot of learning and coding. This week was just one of those where I didn’t get time to fire up an IDE and work through some more unit tests while learning Ruby.
Balancing technical skills versus management skills is something I expect I will probably always struggle with and is just part of the territory. I’m just glad I really enjoy both or the balance would get out of whack in a hurry.
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