Mother's Day

Disclaimer: I feel awkward when greeted Happy Mother's Day because I don't celebrate it. I only celebrate when it has an equivalent public holiday. 😂

I work as application support. And if I compare parenthood to my career, I'd bluntly say that being a mom is like being on production support. Being a dad, on the other hand, is like being on project team.

As a production support (BAU support), you are expected to keep the system alive and ready for business. 

- You have to support 24x7. Well, yeah, your job can be repetitive. But equally important daily. 

- You wake up. You ensure all systems are ready for business. 

- You standby to ensure business open smoothly. 

- You resolve incidents. Within SLA! 

- You have many bosses. 

- You ensure you continuously check the systems health to ensure good system health. 

- You apply bug fixes, patches and upgrades to ensure system is able to keep up with business needs. 

- You continuously innovate to ensure that system management is easier

- You have to work on weekends and green zone because thats when the system is down for maintenance

As Production Support, you don't get easily recognized like project team. Because your job is to keep the system alive. Its your job. To the world, you're not doing anything special or new.

Being on Project Team, on the other hand, means you

- work on business hours

- support project, handover to bau, move on

- project team don't touch prod system therefore unless you are testing new infra on prod network you dont need to work on weekends because BAU folks will do the prod change for u

Project team people gets recognized often. Once project is done people congratulate you. You become a subject matter expert because you had all the time to listen during design phase and test during project phase. You appear to be smarter. You are ahead. BAU folks cannot play with the system as much as a project person. It's live. You don't test on the live environment.

Now.

Being a mom, is exactly like production support. I'm a working mom. But I do all the daily stuff. I look after the house. Settle the bills. Do all the groceries (not to mention finding the best deals!). Plan the food. Although I have a helper, I'm a hands on manager. I manage the helper. Make sure she has a task to complete. Make sure her welfare is good. Make sure she do her job. On Sundays, when the helper is off. I clean the house like no tomorrow. Because I see all the mistakes she does. Well, not mistakes but not to my standard. To get things done I just have to do it myself. 

I take care of the boys. Make them sleep. Bring them out in the morning. Cut their nails. Prepare their things. Bring them to clinics (be it regular check ups or not feeling well). I bring them for regular haircuts. I bring them out for playdates.

Manage their school activities. I'm very very proud to say that I am very active at their school. I attend all PTA. I join their field trips. 

I discipline them. I'm the bad guy. I make Paopao face the wall or meet the stick when he's naughty. At one point he asked me to go away and said he wanted his Daddy. It killed me. Paopao smashed my heart. And burned it. But. I'm not gonna stop. I will continue being the bad guy. Because. I want them to grow up as good responsible gentleman.

As earlier mentioned, Acknowledgement and recognition is difficult in production support. But it does not matter.  What matters is that I'm doing my job the way it should be done.

I think it's one of the major difference between project and BAU. You have to love your job as BAU support. Because there are a lot of sacrifices that you will have to endure.

That said. Happy Mother's Day!

Motherhood is a great honor and privilege, yet it is also synonymous with servanthood. Every day women are called upon to selflessly meet the needs of their families. Whether they are awake at night nursing a baby, spending their time and money on less-than-grateful teenagers, or preparing meals, moms continuously put others before themselves. 
- Charles Stanley