September 2025: Settling into my new job
Hello friends! I’m really starting to feel the cold snap of autumn, and I’m breaking out my scarves and jumpers. I love the cosy vibes at this time of year.
September has been dominated by getting stuck into my new job. There’s a lot to learn, but I’m already starting to understand how everything works. Everyone I’ve met has been friendly and welcoming, and keen to show me around. When the next version of the Tailscale client is released, there’ll be a small amount of code I wrote in the CLI and tvOS app. (But what I’m really proud of is the tests that accompany that code – my changes won’t regress any time soon.)
I had some personal stuff this month which meant I didn’t get out and about as much as I normally do. It’s all fine and wrapped up now, and everybody at work was very understanding when I needed a bit more flexibility – even when I was just three weeks in!
When I did get out, my time was dominated by musical theatre. A friend took me to the UK tour of Calamity Jane – a show I did a tiny amount of work on for an am-dram society about two decades ago, but I’d forgotten the story. I’ve returned to the Ambassadors Theatre twice, for more pop-ups where my friend Nish was selling her Benjamin Button merch. And I went to a book event for Finding Hester, which tells the story of how Operation Mincemeat fans tracked down the real-life story of Hester Leggatt.
At home, I’m midway through a big project to archive my social media posts. This is a pretty labour-intensive project, but it’s clearing up my hard drive and making my archived posts easier to find. I’ll write an article about it once I’m done. I’m also starting to tidy up and clear out my house, because I’m hoping to move in with my partner early next year.
What have I been writing?
My public blog remains quiet for now – most of my writing time has been spent taking notes on my new job. Plus I have a shiny new internal blog, where I’m writing down stuff I’ve learnt during onboarding.
All three posts I wrote this month were fairly technical – progress in different personal projects, but nothing groundbreaking.
And just four “today I learned” posts, but my work with Tailscale and Go are clearly showing:
What’s making me smile?
🐴 This month’s book club book was The End Crowns All, by Bea Fitzgerald. It’s a sapphic retelling of the Trojan war, in which Cassandra’s curse is cast by a petty Apollo who just wants sex, and an enemies-to-lovers romance between Cassandra and Helen. I like how it balances modern social attitudes with the historical setting, and manages to tell a new story in a very well-known tale.
♻️ Recycling in England is about to get better is a great explanation from Chris Spargo, a fairly new YouTuber who makes fascinating and well-researched videos. I’m excited about the changes, and I like how he explains them. This is the sort of comms that could and should be coming from the government, explaining practical improvements to our lives rather than political grandstanding.
🔪 I also read Mondays Are Murder, a new thriller by Ravena Guron. This is the third of her books that I’ve read, and she always constructs fun and competent murders. My one regret is reading this book late at night, while it was dark outside and home alone. I got jump scared multiple times.
🪵 Allan Reyes wrote Keeping Secrets Out of Logs which is a detailed exploration of the topic. I’ve been bitten by this more than once, when an error message in a public build log “helpfully” included the secret it was using at the time. I recommend it for anybody who’s a software developer.
🏺 Finally, I had a delicious meal at Nonos last week, a Greek restaurant near King’s Cross. My partner and I passed it on the way home from book club and saw two salmon plates being served, so I took my sister there for dinner two nights later.
I hope you’re staying comfortable as the season changes, and I’ll speak to you soon.
Best,
~ Alex