#reviews will happen whenever I manage to actually turn my notes into coherent text

[fanfickittycat]

First Glance

TITLE: First Glance

CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: One Shot

AUTHOR: fanfickittycat

FANDOM: Haikyuu!!

CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader

GENRE: Romance/Fluff

FIC SUMMARY: Ushijima doesn't know why the girl tasked with covering the team for the school paper won't leave his mind

RATING: G

AUTHORS NOTES/WARNINGS: I’m putting this below the cut but you can also read it on AO3 here

“Is she back already?” Ushijima didn’t flinch when Tendo joined his side, only nodding stoically in response. He was observing the girl with such rapt attention, that Tendo was genuinely surprised; usually, Ushijima only had eyes for volleyball. Girls seemed to be out of the question. Even when the topic of girls was brought up in the locker room, he never paused to pass comment. In fact, he didn’t look like he was even listening to the conversation, instead methodically doing up the buttons on his shirt or neatly folding his kit.

“I hear she’s from the journalism club” he said, watching his friend’s face carefully for any changes in his features. The day had been so boring, and finally something interesting was happening. “Hmmm”. Nothing. “I guess she must want to cover the team going to the finals.” “Hmmm.” Nothing again. “Maybe she’ll want to interview us?” Ushijima cleared his throat “hmmm.” Ah, bingo. “You should talk to her” he nudged Ushijima in the side “you’re the captain after all.” Ushijima finally broke his gaze, looking down at the water bottle in his hands “I’m not good at talking.” Tendo opened his mouth to say something encouraging; to bolster his friend who always seemed to be confident in all his abilities on the court, but the squabble between Semi and Shirabu stopped him.

“Hey” Ohira said “don’t fight in front of the press, it makes us look bad.” The two setters continued to scowl at one another but stopped bickering. “It’s no way to act in front of a girl” Tendo added, slapping a hand on his teammates backs “especially a cute girl.” His eyes trailed over to look at Wakatoshi who’s impassive face was betrayed by the way his hands mindlessly fiddled with the blue bottle in his hands. “I guess she’s cute” Semi agreed “if you like that kind of girl.” “What kind of girl is that?” Ushijima asked, making his teammates look up at him in shock. “W-well you know…” Semi struggled to come up with the words to describe her “she’s clumsy, did you see the way she almost tripped coming in here?” “Yeah, but she got up again with that super determined face” Shirabu interjected “like she was so nervous she was overcompensating.” “She seems energetic” Ohira said “and tenacious.” “Those are good traits” Wakatoshi said offhandedly. “They are” Tendo agreed, egging him on “and she has pretty, long hair. I usually like short hair on girls but even I have to admit that it’s very becoming on her. Right, Miracle Boy?” Ushijima looked up at her again, observing the waves of thick, dark hair that flowed past her shoulders. She tucked a strand behind her ear as she continued to speak to Coach Washijo and note down the things he said in her notebook. “Yes” he agreed “it is.”

Ushijima continued to think about the mystery girl as he got changed. Who was she? Tendo had said she was here on behalf of the school paper, but usually whenever they were written about, it was a sandy haired boy who came by. Why had he never seen her before? He idly put his jacket on, pondering what the feeling in his chest was. A sort of warmth and tenderness. He hoped he wasn’t getting ill.

“Before you all go” Coach Washijo said, stopping the boys from leaving the gym “remember we have practise on Saturday, and I expect you all to be there bright and early at 6am. No excuses. Also, we’ll have a member of the journalism club with us this week so watch your mouths.” He looked pointedly at Semi, who’s cheeks flushed red, much to the enjoyment of Shirabu who nudged him. Ushijima wanted to ask what her name was, but they were dismissed in the next instance and it seemed pointless.

The girl stayed on Ushijima’s mind. That evening he had several hazy dreams all involving her. In one, he just remembered her looking at him and smiling so brightly that he managed to miss a relatively easy receive. In another, she was interviewing him, and he was struggling to answer coherently. He didn’t remember the last one very well, but in it she was holding his hands. He woke up with her phantom touch still on him. He turned his head to squint at his alarm clock. It was almost five am, way too early for him to consider rising. He closed his eyes again, but sleep didn’t find him. He took his phone off charge and looked for Tendo’s number to text. He had insisted that he get a phone, but he didn’t use it much.

U: Tendo, are you awake? I have a query. 4:58am

He didn’t expect to get a response and instead went to take a cold shower to focus his mind. The cold water was a welcome distraction, and he felt his body leave the dreamy warm state it was in. Today he had practise until noon, but nothing especially pressing to do afterwards. Perhaps he’d take a jog before dinner. He knew he should probably make time to review some tapes from their last practise game too. Despite him concentrating on his own schedule, his mind once again wandered to her. What would she do today?

He left the shower, padding back to his room with a towel around his shoulders. His phone buzzed.

T: What query could you possibly have at 5am??? 5:08am T: Lay it on me, Miracle Boy 5:09am

He picked up his phone, struggling to come up with a coherent sentence.

U: The girl has remained in my mind. I think I must be getting ill, should I tell coach today? 5:12am T: Sounds like love sickness to me ;) 5:12am U: I’m not familiar with that illness 5:1am T: -_- It’s a good thing you found volleyball 5:14am U: I don’t understand 5:14am T: We’ll talk about it later 5:15am U: Ok 5:15am

“She’s here” Ushijima blinked at the girl, standing before them. She looked sleepy, clutching a thermos as she greeted the volleyball team members. Her hair was tied up into a ponytail, which Ushijima didn’t like nearly as much as her hair being out. Still, there was something admittedly quite cute about seeing her like this; dreamy eyed, red cheeked, and cosy in her fluffy jumper. She shouldn’t be out here in the cold, watching the boys do laps, she should be tucked up in bed with her hair being petted gently. The thought made Ushijima flush. He resolved to himself that he was going to concentrate on practise and not on this girl, whose name he still didn’t know.

“So, lover boy” Tendo teased, as he shrugged off his track jacket alongside his friend “you like her?” The boys had entered the gym now to do some routine stretches before doing drills, and Tendo had taken the opportunity to speak up. “I don’t know her.” “But you think she’s cute?” Ushijma paused and swallowed “yes, I suppose so.” “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” Tendo winked at him and Ushijima frowned. Surely, he had his back? In their current formation he tended to be behind the Guess Monster. He shook his head free of the thought and went to join the others.

“Take a twenty-minute break and then we’ll do three on three!” “Yes, coach!” The lapse in practise was a welcome one, and Ushijima wiped the sweat off his brow with his towel, grateful for the moment to breathe. “This is your chance” Tendo sang, jutting his chin out at the girl who was speaking to Semi. “It’s rude to interrupt” he said, feeling a sinking feeling in his chest as she laughed at something Semi said. What was this? He felt something brew in his chest that made his teeth clench in annoyance at his teammate. He gripped the water bottle, turning away to drink. “Don’t be angry” Tendo chided “I’ve found out her name…”

*** You stood, trying to follow the game but it was difficult to really grasp what was happening. The ball was shot back and forth with such ferocity that you worried it would hit you. How embarrassing you cringed, picturing yourself getting smacked in the face with the volleyball. You took a step back for safe measure, trying to remember what Haruki had told you.

“The piece is about emotion as much as it’s about sport.” “What kind of feelings can hitting a ball possibly inspire?” You said skeptically. Haruki smiled apologetically “I’m sorry you have to take over for me” “You didn’t ask for a family death” you said, feeling sorry “I’ll do my best.” “You’re a talented writer. Just put your own spin on it, like you always do. I promise this is the last time you’ll have to write a sports piece.”

You had to admit, that despite the dread and the unmistakable sinking feeling in your gut from being out of your depth, you were also in awe of the players. The way they were able to make split second decisions that ensured the ball’s return to the other side of the court; the constant movement… It was actually impressive.

The red-haired boy – you still didn’t know them by name – had an almost eerie gift for knowing what the opposing side was going to do. You scribbled it down, annoyed when you dropped your biro.

“Look out!” Your head tilted up to see your worst fear coming true. The ball was flying towards you and you felt like you had frozen, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. You braced yourself for impact, lowering your head again but the hit never came. You heard a scuffle near you, and you opened your eyes to see the tall one with the olive hair hit the ball away. He met your stunned eyes with his formidable ones. You’d heard of this one. Ushijima the captain of the team. Haruki had assured you that despite his daunting exterior and intimidating manner, he was nobody to legitimately fear. Unless you were on the other team that is…

He looked away first, running back to the court to be alongside his teammates without a glance back. You felt winded. Whatever had just happened felt so intense that it was strange to believe that it was only a couple of seconds long. The sound of a whistle blowing, and the shouts of the demon coach did nothing to snap you out of it.

“Are you alright?” you looked up again to see the captain looking down at you. “Um, yes” you felt your hands go clammy “thank you.” He nodded at you and a silence followed. “Is it always so…” you looked for the right word “dangerous?” The corner of his lip twitched upwards “sometimes.” “Why do you play it then?” He hesitated, looking wistful “I’m good at it and I like it.” It was a terribly blunt answer, but it made you smile. “You’re funny” you said which made him cock his head to the side. “I’ve never been described as humorous before.” “It’s a special kind of humour” you said, rewarded with a faint blush colouring his cheeks. “How is your article progressing?” He asked, clearing his throat. “I think I found my angle on it” you looked up at him “but I need to do more research. I don’t really know too much about volleyball.” “You can ask me. I know about volleyball.” You felt flustered “are you doing anything after practise? Maybe you could help me clarify all the technical stuff?” He nodded “I’m free.” “Cool.” “Yes… cool” he nodded at you, excusing himself to run back. You felt your heart race as you watched him go back to the court. For the first time since you’d been assigned the piece, you felt excited about volleyball.

[thirty-spokes]

Things I’ve learned after my first year in tech management (part I)

This December marks the end of my first year as a manager of a software team, and while it's been incredibly challenging, what my team and I have been able to achieve has given me more satisfaction in my career than anything else I can think of.

I've learned a TON over the past twelve months, so this is the first part of a brain dump (that is to say, a massive wall of text) of the things that have worked the best for me so far as a new manager in tech.

Start with how you think about the management job.

Pretty much everything in the business world talks about going from an individual contributor role to a management role as if it were a promotion (climbing the corporate ladder, “stepping up into” a management role, etc.).  I think that this is a flawed way of looking at it: for me, going from individual contributor to manager is not so much a promotion as it is a brand new job that occupies a sort of support role for the team.

A good book that talks about this mindset is Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.  The viewpoint of leaders as a servant to the team is extremely important to internalize: if you view your new management role as a new pedestal from which to snatch up all the glory, you’re going to end up overworked with a team that isn’t happy to be there.

Especially for engineering, I found it important to recognize that I had a different job from my old senior software engineer position that involved maybe half as much actual coding with the other hand being a ton of stuff I had never done before.  If you see the role of guiding and supporting your teammates as an obstacle that’s keeping you from writing code (I think most of us in engineering have worked with at least one manager like this) then you’re most likely being an obstacle to the whole team’s success.

A great manager who has solid leadership skills is a force multiplier: instead of devoting time to improving some aspect of your coding skills and increasing your productivity by 20%, your efforts can result in 20% productivity improvements for your entire team, which is hugely exciting to me.

A common tidbit of resume advice for engineers is to focus on how your technical work contributes to the business’s bottom line: “I made X software more efficient, reducing OpEx by Y%...”.  These are the kinds of victories that you should be keeping in mind: you aren’t going to have as many tangible bits of code you can point to as something you contributed, so instead think about how much entire projects impact your company, or how much you are saving the company by keeping engineers happy and not looking for the first available exit (a lot!).

I like to be self-depreciating and deflect compliments by pointing out who’s doing the “real work” (the engineers on my team).  While it’s fun to joke about, if you ended up in a management role not entirely of your own volition then the above point is important: a truly great manager can impact a business in hugely valuable ways.  New managers often struggle with determining how much value they really add compared to the folks slinging code, and I assure you that it can be tremendous.

Schedule a one-on-one with each of your teammates for the same time each week.

I have come to believe that regularly scheduled one-on-ones is a crucial part to building trust between you and your team. I first picked up this practice from The First Time Manager by Loren B. Belker. Make sure you schedule it for the same time/day for each person (for example, I have one-on-ones with one person every Tuesday at 1:30PM, for someone else every Wednesday at 1:30PM, and so on) and blocking off 30 minutes is a good starting point.

If your teammates get into the habit of meeting with you at the same time every week, they will often begin saving up the various things they want to bring up with you for that time instead of bringing them up when they come to mind, which can help with your personal focus.

I first thought that 30 minutes every week would be way too much, but trust me, it's not. We almost always go slightly over time with these discussions.

To make these meetings most effective, your team should feel like this is time for them. Try to avoid turning it into a status update meeting, and let them do most of the talking.

A great way to start off is simply asking "what's on your mind?" and following up their statements with "and what else?" - I picked this up from The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier and am working on making it a habit, but it works wonders.

I don't like to really take notes while the other person is talking, but I do make a point to write down any action items that come up during the meeting once we're finished.

Use influence instead of authority whenever possible.

One of the most important metrics you should be aware of as a manager is how engaged your teammates are in their work, and one of the most important factors in keeping people engaged is giving them agency.

Thus, while you are often going to need to direct the efforts of your team in various specific ways to achieve the business goals, you should always resist the urge to simply tell folks "do X." You should always be striving to convince your team that X is the correct or most important thing to be doing, and engage their own creativity in coming up with the best way to do it.

This is a huge, abstract concept that I personally am still grappling with, but there's a few concrete ways that I've been practicing it.

It makes a huge difference in someone's work engagement when their boss is a believer in and can articulate the mission that the team is focusing on. If you don't understand why your team is being asked to do something, ask your manager until you do. When you present new projects to the team, make sure you're focusing on the why and try to be excited about it! Ensuring that your team understands why the work is valuable is a critical function of a leader (I learned this from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, probably the single best leadership book I've read so far).

It seems like most industries tend to promote managers from high-performing individual contributors (which makes no sense) and tech is no exception. This means that you are likely to be the strongest or most senior engineer on your team, so your teammates will look up to you or defer to your authority. One thing I am personally working on building into a habit, which has already shown great results: when someone asks how I think they should do something, instead of reflexively offering my opinion I ask tons of questions like "What options do you have? What are the pros and cons of each of those options?"

Building the skills of influence and persausion are especially important because your peers and allies are now other managers: people you are dependent on for various things but have no official authority over - this is also a big part of "managing up" (managing your own manager). You can gain incredible leverage in your org if people want to help you achieve your goals because they trust and respect you. Great books on this include How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Influence: the Psychology of Persausion by Robert Cialdini, and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

The worst thing you can do in someone's performance review is to surprise them.

Make it a personal goal of yours that your teammates should have a really clear idea of what their performance reviews will look like before they officially see them. This means that folks should always know what the expectations are of their role, what you expect from them individually, and how they're stacking up to those expectations.

Knowing what's expected of you in particular is a huge component to work engagement (see: First Break All the Rules by Harter and Buckingham). I highly recommend reading that book and internalizing how important it is that people are never confused about expectations at work.

Regular one-on-ones help with this, but only if you can bring yourself to broach the subject when necessary. It is naturally uncomfortable to tell someone that what they're doing is not quite up to snuff. However, you should be shooting to make these frequent, minor course corrections that are easy to swallow instead of what often happens: dumping huge critiques on someone that are almost insurmountable all at once.

Similarly, if something is going on with someone that requires a corrective conversation then have that conversation as soon as you can: treat it like ripping a bandaid off. The longer you wait or drag it out, the more uncomfortable and ineffective it will be, and the greater the risk of hurt feelings instead of learning. I picked this up from Marc Hedlund's Management in Ten Tweets (it's #1) which was hugely influential for me starting out.

Adopt some kind of organizational system.

As a manager your work life is going to revolve around being able to keep track of a ton of things happening at once, and holding this all in your head simply doesn't scale.  For me, it was important to be able to coherently follow up and not lose track of the smaller things my team would ask of me in passing and committing them to notes helped me not forget them.

I personally use GTD (inside of Emacs org-mode, which is great) but it probably doesn't make too much of a difference so long as you're using some kind of system to organize stuff. GTD is great for me because I get tons of e-mails each day asking for my opinion on something or an answer to a question, so being able to go through my inbox and create tasks for the e-mails that need a response and then prioritizing them has been a huge help, instead of treating my entire inbox like one big stack.

Additionally I typically don't bring my laptop to meetings, and instead take any notes that I need on pen and paper (and transfer them to org-mode as necessary).

Knowing the answer to "how are projects going" is a big unspoken part of your job now.

You will be expected to know the details of how particular tasks and projects are going at any given point in time. This is tricky, because if you simply ask for status updates all the time people will feel micromanaged, but if you're too far away from the progress being made then you don't have your hands on the steering wheel.

For me, the best way to achieve this has been keeping a close eye on how things move in JIRA, making notes to check in with folks on things that are high-priority or seem to be falling behind, and ensuring that people are calling out any roadblocks they're facing in our morning standup.

One of the biggest traps you can fall into as a new manager is recognizing that someone seems to be stuck on a task and not speaking up, or something's taking longer than it should and not saying anything because you don't want to upset them or come off like a micro-manager.

This has personally been something I'm working on, and so far the easiest thing to do has to simply ask "how is X coming along?" when I have concerns. Sometimes, people just don't know how to express that they're stuck and that question is all they need, but don't shy away from probing more if the answer you get doesn't jive with what you're observing.

This is typically the only kind of status update stuff I like to bring up in a one-on-one: digging down into what is keeping someone from making progress, and making sure the tone of the conversation is "what can I, your manager, do to help?" instead of a performance review.

Knowing the answer to "how is the team doing as a whole" is another big unspoken part of your job.

If you're doing regular one-on-ones you should have a pretty good understanding of how individual team members are feeling, but a challenge for me was trying to gauge how the team was doing as a unit. It's important to be able to see the health of the team so you don't get too focused on individuals.

The way I get around this is to send out a survey (via google forms) to the team every other week, where the first two questions are always the same ("how are you feeling about this week?" and "how well do you think you understand how your work is connected to the company vision?") and a third more open-ended question about something I'm curious about. This lets me see historical data about the morale of the team in general.

If you do a survey, make sure people can respond anonymously!

Manage your burdens carefully.

One of the ideas that really stuck with me from Extreme Ownership is the idea that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. I don't know if this is a universal truth per se, but I think it's a great philosophy to have about your role as a manager.

For me, what this means is making sure that I give as much credit as I can to the team for our success, while absorbing as much of the responsibility for problems as possible. However, this can be a really tricky balance that I think taxed me emotionally at several points during the year. I've arrived at the following few ideas about this:

Describe every success of the team in terms of "we" or "the team" regardless of who you're talking to or who's listening, instead of taking personal credit.

If there's some issue like a production outage, accept the responsibility without forcing the blame on to yourself. I try to make a point to the stakeholders that I'm responsible for the outage and owning the resolution, but I make efforts to not blame myself for the outage occurring. Earlier in the year I absolutely ended up blaming myself for every issue that came up and it definitely led to feelings of burnout - now, I try my best to accept responsibility but absolve myself of blame.

Another great idea from Extreme Ownership is when you do need to correct someone's behavior or bring up a critique of their work (for example, some part of the task was left undone), phrasing it in terms of your own responsibility: "This part of the task wasn't done correctly, and that's on me for not being super clear about what I was asking for there." This sounds kind of hokey, but it does make a difference.

This is probably only a tiny amount of the things I’ve picked up over such a mind-expanding year, but I’ve already written such a huge wall of text that I’ll follow this up with a part II.