From space to happiness

Dear simians,

Many have wondered what's going in my life. I haven't been blogging and even my Twitter and Facebook feeds have been quieter than usual. Well, I've been a bit busy. The best year of my life is closing to its end and I wanted to finally recap what really has happened. So fasten your seatbelts, people. It's going to be a wild ride. :)

It all started on January. Well, the year usually does. The momentum that separated me from Sogeti Finland. I have my personal and professional values, and while they have usually fitted wonderfully into surrounding environments, they never quite fitted into Sogeti. I tried. I really tried. At times I even questioned my integrity while trying to adapt to the world of Sogeti, but ultimately I started separating myself mentally from it. And finally, after four years of trying, also physically.

Some have said that I should've stayed, because Sogeti can be changed only from within. I agree, but I believe the majority: I've appeared much happier after leaving. And I actually AM much happier now. One of the reasons might however be that I'm a father now...

Yes, a father.

Roughly at the same time while I was exiting Sogeti my wife told me that she was pregnant. It was an early morning moment when my wife woke me up and showed me the test. Two blue lines. I didn't quite know what was happening, because my brain switches on usually around noon. So I went back to sleep. :) Couple days later we went to ultrasound scan and verified the pregnancy. Our life was about to change dramatically. For the better.

I was pretty motivated to seek a new job, to say the least. Actually me and my friend had been planning on starting a business of our own for the last two years, so the direction was quite clear. We started to put more and more effort into it. We started concepting our ideas further in the area modern testing and quality management. My background on context-driven testing and my friend's background on Agile and Lean methods was a good mix, but we figured we wanted a third ingredient. Gladly an ex-Sogetian saw the potential in our effort and joined our merry group. He brought vast experience from different IT areas to our portfolio, expanded our contact network and gave us also more technical muscle, thus completing our core team.

And few months later, September 2014 to be exact, Happy Monkey came to be.

The start was a bit bumpy. We had a couple of customers lined up, contracts ready to be signed and all, but our "greenness" as a company caused them to back down. Nothing unique when running a business, but for a small, starting company that was a disappointing setback. Because of this I started to "hedge" a bit, considering the upcoming baby, and I became more open to the headhunter suggestions. They call every now and then, but after leaving Sogeti their approach frequency nearly tripled. One of the opportunities was at TeliaSonera. They wanted me to join one of their projects as a test manager. Our meeting went really well and due to a series of fortunate events I eventually ended up as their acting head of testing.

A month later, at the end of October 2014 our daughter was born. The most beautiful thing in the world. Now, I've never been a baby person. To be honest, I've always found them ugly and smelly. Vessels of piss and poo, which come interesting roughly at the age of five when they pass me in maturity. But oh boy did I become a baby person within an instant! Every moment spent with her feels like the best time of my life. Earlier I stared at TV and computer screen, but now I stare at her. All the faces she makes, sounds, hand wavings and yes, even the smell makes me happy.

I love that little vessel! :)

Now we are at December of the year of my life. I'm in the best job I ever had, I have my own company and I have the most beautiful human being in the world sitting on my lap, farting her ass off. Big times behind me, even bigger times ahead. I might move my blog from this site to our company site, make the transition from Space Monkey to Happy Monkey, which is quite symbolic. For a long time I was drifting in space, but now I've found happiness.

You never know what happens next. Stay tuned. ;)

Cheers,

Sami

PS: Oh, I and got 1st dan black belt on Hontai Yoshin Ryu jujutsu last summer. Banzai! :)