Event-Driven.

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.” ~ Jeff Bezos.

Late last night I was mulling over updating my CV (again) and reviewing the years I have spent involved with the job-scheduling niche — nowadays more commonly referred to (in an attempt to jazz-up its perception, no doubt) as workflow/orchestration, etc. Although this sector of IT/business has been just one aspect of my career to date, it has been a recurring theme over the years. Often overlooked, as what it does is generally a rather dull/earnest (but essential) background process, I have always had a great deal of respect for it.

Which led to me Tweeting: Life needs Events: external/internal, good/bad; it doesn’t really matter … anything.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” ~ Steve Jobs.

As with job-scheduling, our lives and business endeavours are governed by events — we are event-driven. Of course we like to think that by being proactive and dynamic we take control of our lives (in the past here I have explored, in my own limited way, fate/singularity) but in reality much of our life and the outcomes therein depends on events which are originally external to us, which become internal.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ~ Thomas A. Edison.

A job-scheduler (call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to use its original terminology when describing its function) typically co-ordinates many processes across diverse platforms and applications; often a process may do nothing more than be waiting for a database trigger or the arrival of a file by FTP and it then orchestrates a series of subsequent processes, spawned by the original event — these workflows can be incredibly complex, involving thousands of steps and dependencies. It’s fascinating to see a complex workflow visualised; the bigger-picture literally comes alive. It is agnostic to the details of the event (as long as it is valid) and the outcome; it just ensures the dependencies flow to lead to the desired outcome.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” ~ Albert Einstein.

Such is life: we need to learn to embrace both good and bad events and give them a chance to see where they may lead.

Tiny events, seemingly irrelevant (at the time), can lead to massive outcomes — both good and bad. Looking back across my own life/career, I can see where significant outcomes originated: months, years or decades later; often the source event was seemingly utterly detached from what would eventually be the outcome — it’s not until it is correlated and seen in a holistic sense we can look back in awe and bewilderment. I’m sure you will find many such instances also, when you review where you are in life at this time and ask why/how?

Reflecting on this particularly resonates with me at this time because I now find myself — after a couple of years of great frustration in business/work (as with many people) — working part-time as a *plongeur (hey, if a bartender can be a barista, I can be a plongeur!).

OK, it’s not exactly how I saw my life/career developing at this stage of my life but it’s work; it provides our household with desperately needed additional income, no matter how nominal the minimum-wage it provides may be.

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.” ~ Jeff Bezos.

Additionally, it’s exposing me to events. I’ve spent too long these past couple of years desperately trying to find/initiate a new business venture/work, to no avail; seeing myself as exclusively a technology/business entrepreneur, that was my focus. I suspect that many others also who find themselves in a similar situation and continue to live their past life online by immersing themselves into the worlds they know via (eg) social networks, so (vicariously) they believe they are still involved and before too long a new opportunity will present itself. Maybe it will…

I wouldn’t be too sure.

Anyway, I now find myself working bloody hard (physically), after years of exclusively cerebral challenges, in a very intense environment, for a relative pittance of a wage. Yet, I enjoy it: the people are wonderful and I am learning fascinating new things about teamwork and how people interact in a very stressful — and creative — environment.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein.

So, I find myself wondering if this humble part-time job is an event I will look back upon in the months/years to come and suddenly see how it connects to where I am at that time in the future. The nuances of life often don’t make much sense; at a personal level let alone when one looks at the ills of society that surround us. We have become so conditioned to believe (to expect) we are masters of our own destiny when external events impact us we can feel confused and all too aware of our vulnerability, ultimately.

Who knows what events may unfold?

*Update: This was written in the autumn of 2013. After a few months working in the kitchen, I was offered a Front-of-House role at this fine establishment — I am looking forward to more events unfolding…