What A Data Engineer (Really) Does On A “Slow Day”

No meetings doesn’t mean no work.

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Although I wasn’t a huge fan of working at Disney, one of my favorite roles was being a recreational host at one of the wilderness-themed resorts — this was pre-COVID.

My role was simple. Rent watercraft and activities on an ad hoc basis. That second part is important. While some jobs in a hotel, like working the front desk, will involve near-constant guest contact, working the rental window offered a luxury not often found at the world’s busiest theme park: A slow season.

Slow season ran from, roughly, October — February, during a period Floridian’s call (somewhat inaccurately) “winter.”

Like rental hosting, data engineering is also subject to seasonality; note: this depends on industry/domain.

I work in publishing. It’s important to know this isn’t book publishing. It’s digital (and a limited bit of print) media — an industry subsidized by advertising.

Consequently, our busy periods tend to correspond with the busy marketing days of the year: winter holidays, Black Friday, whatever Amazon is calling its latest string of “deals.”

Like any role, slowness is relative. For the day I’ll describe below, I define slowness as a meeting-less day without urgent-priority tasks.