Friday, March 6, 2015

Aaannnddd done.

One of the things I really like about running and racing is the feeling of finality after something is done. The marathon is finished, the training cycle is done. Wrap it up, you finished the final exam, you're done. Graduations, semesters, attempting Everest, these things all have definitive end points. A production start is no such thing. After years of working on a project, then you start to build it, full time every day, and there are issues. 

As I contemplate my 2015, based on yet one more piece of evidence: I spent five days in the factory this week, I dread having to spend the vast majority of my year traveling an hour one way to the factory to sort out issues. Regardless of my actual schedule, I guarantee that every week for the next four months someone from my team will be in the factory at least one day with issues. That's not a bad thing, spending more time in the factory is a good experience, but in the past nine weeks I think I have spent 38 days in the factory, an hour drive each way. (Plus three days on a business trip and nine days in the office.) And this is the start. Nothing is finished. To say my designs are finished is naive. Designs are never finished. They've had the iPhone in production for eight years now, and they keep changing it.

So for today, we celebrate things that finish! 

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