Another Christmas in the Trenches

It's less than a week before Christmas and O&B is still working at full capacity! We've even taken on several contractors to help us with all the work. We have two concurrent training engagements going on (each more than a month long) and two concurrent projects. Good for our bottom line, bad for our health! :-) Next year will probably see us attempt to be a lot more picky with our projects to give people time to rest... so far I haven't been successful in spacing out our projects because we're already booked solid for training until early February!

I've been spending quite a bit of time interviewing possible hires the past couple of weeks. None of them really wowed me but many showed eagerness to learn. According to Joel on Software, you're only supposed to hire people who wow you. However, maybe I can accommodate a few diamonds-in-the-rough... I think we have a great training program, and so far the people we've sent through it who have both talent and eagerness have shined very brightly - I've had clients say that our guys with less than a year's experience are sharper and more productive than the other contractors they've hired with more than five years' experience! I'm still going to be quite picky though... I think I'll hire no more than two or three people from the current batch of applicants.

I'm very happy, too, that I'm receiving interest in student internships. Not just the formal internships organized by schools, but also some students seeking internships out of their own initiative! The latter kind is definitely the kind of driven people we'd like to have in O&B. We're lucky to have Diane Gonzales onboard as our first student intern, who approached us by her own initiative. She's also quite happy with the training and exposure she's getting. We're hoping to have more like her.

Next year should be the year we transition from a "guerrilla" organization to a more professional organization. We have a new CFO onboard, a new accountant, and a new marketing officer, which should allow us to operate with more elegance and polish. We're still the same independent, non-conformist, opinionated and highly-expressive bunch of people, but now with a lot more slick and stride.