Posts tagged: work

All posts with the tag "work"

6 posts latest post 2026-05-22
Publishing rhythm
May 2026 | 2 posts

It Will Be Hard To Do More

Recently I was given a raise at work after I broached the subject with my manager. I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be but I have learned two things in nearly a decade in corporate America: No one will fight for you harder than yourself The worst they can say is no The Raise # So I talked with my manager about my workload and compensation, and to my surprise he took me seriously. He went up the chain with some accomplishments of the year that I wrote up for him (it’s his job to advocate for me, but it’s certainly my job to give him the ammunition to take into battle). Before much time had passed, a big wig put some time on my calendar. I had a good relationship with my (then) manager, and even with the big wig, so there was always some amount of personal connection amidst the money-talk. The Reorg # Cue a managerial change and reorganization of the team. The dust settled, and my manager wasn’t my manager and the big wig wasn’t a big wig over my team anymore. The details aren’t that…

The Relief of Earning

The Setup # Work has been crazy for months, and I haven’t written too much about it, a few notes here and there but nothing substantial. The craziness is sourced in a pretty cliched-scenario where we have lofty goals and important things to build but the foundation on which we are building, like architectural decisions, is basically wet sand. So as I’ve been trying to find my footing in the mud I feel like I end up spinning my wheels moreso than making any progress. The chaos led me eventually to approach my manager about my compensation - I make a nice living but for the stress I’d been feeling I could certainly go make more. My manager successfully fought for me up the chain and I was given a slightly bigger carrot, but that’s not the point of this post. I started to feel even more anxiety after I was told about the raise because, just like with AI and agentic coding, now I was sure the expectations would be even higher. I didn’t think anything would actually come from me asking my b…
Forge Ahead

Forge Ahead

Yesterday’s Reflection - Contentment and Work has a second-part this morning. As I was wrapping up a project I didn’t realize the closed-off-ness of leaving… I handed in some notes, and mid-message to someone the clock struck midnight and I was locked out. It’s fitting to be honest, and now in the wake of yesterday’s contentment post, experiencing some more loss than I expected, today we forge ahead. My main focus for work now is a project I will refer to as. It is what I will bring to Caterpillar Autonomy but I can only build it thanks to the gifts and experience God has given me. The thing I want to put on paper is a short list of experiences I think God in his sovereignty, gave me over the last few years and what they provide for me for Forge. Cat Reman Platform # One of the first things that comes to mind is another project I was sad to lose: a platform I started for an analytics team in Cat Reman. That began as a simple python cli to automate some developer operations that was oth…
Reflection - Contentment and Work

Reflection - Contentment and Work

Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak from need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. Context # This verse showing up in Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening is a divine grace to me. Today is a significant day in a journey God has had me on towards contentment. The circumstances of that journey, the specifics, are known to some but I can still speak generally enough about it in this reflection because the generalities are not unique to me - anymore than the requirement to learn contentment, for it’s not a natural state for a man. For me, like a lot of others, it’s about money right now. Over the last few years I’ve been able to make a pretty significant income and God has blessed me through the work I’ve done, but something I have noticed is the work itself has felt less and less blessed, and more like a burden as the goal became money. I want to be a billionaire and never concern myself with a financial struggle - but this is childish thinking. The last few years hav…
Cat Autonomy 2.0

Cat Autonomy 2.0

I wrote about my new role New Job - Caterpillar Autonomy a bit a couple weeks ago during an insanely busy time - having just started the role and wrapping up what ended up being side-work, paired with some sleep-deprived ADHD hyperfocus on my new responsibilities and Nexus, that post is less of an update and more of a mind-dump. This post is meant to be a calmer update about my upcoming time with Caterpillar Autonomy. It starts, like all good stories, with Caterpillar’s RTO (return to office) mandate and how it has affected a lot of people negatively (in my opinion). I haven’t seen one positive remark about it fromanyone making less than $250k a year + Bonus + Equity if you catch my drift… I know of people who really did lose their jobs at the end of 2025 for refusing to move. My story with RTO is covered elsewhere, I’d been blessed with remote work and was even secure in a remote position in the face of Caterpillar being willing to fire me After Exceeding Expectations For 4 Years. But…
New Job - Caterpillar Autonomy

New Job - Caterpillar Autonomy

In I'm back from the dead I mentioned my new role that started this year - it’s a return to Caterpillar Autonomy. I built some data pipelines and junior-grade infrastructure 5 years ago but left over burn-out at the prospect of a job with smaller scoped work and more technical guidance. That was a good move, and in God’s sovereignty he’s brought me back. Now I’m looking at code, thankfully not that I wrote, but that the guy after me wrote - it accomplished a job, like my original work did, but also like what I built back then - there’s better ways today. The amount of things in front of me is absolutely daunting, and the people on the team have been seeded with a very high opinion of me… I don’t know how much is valid and how much is hype, but I’m gonna try to live up to it. One way I’m striving to do that is to maximize my efficiency with the AI coding tools available to me. We have Github Copilot and I’ve picked up a lot over the course of the last few years (and especially more rece…

Work Compensation Note

## Work Compensation Notes - Anthony asked me what I needed to be happy and I didn't have a good answer, but I did ask for clarity on the chaos at work. I've thought more about it and I think I'll just be honest with him. I have moon-lit in the past, exceeded expectations at Cat, and made double my salary. I don't need to go back to that, but I want to ask him what he makes in total comp and what the horizon looks like for me at Cat. Not because I want prestige, but because I want to prioritize my family and if I can give financial freedom to them (and myself) __much__ earlier than if I was solo-loyal to Cat, that's a real thing I need to wrestle with. So my question for him will be how much of that gap can Cat close over time?