I just can’t figure how to follow all those “improve your productivity” guides. I’m sure you know the ones I mean: they suggest exercising at 6am; or switching off your email and Slack during the day to avoid distractions; or to schedule all your meetings in the mornings; or…

Can anyone make those things work?

The problem I have is that I work and live with other people. So, sure, I can try to schedule my meetings in the morning but I don’t think my American colleagues will appreciate having to get up at 4am to make my 9am daily standup; if I don’t have Slack running I’ll miss the notification that the database server is going down; without email I won’t learn that the client meeting I’m preparing for has been cancelled; and going to the gym at 6am would be great except who is going to look after the kids while I’m out?

I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people who know me In Real Life have no idea what my job is. Most think I sit in front of a computer all day, programming. That’s not really true. Well, I sit in front of a computer but I actually spend surprisingly little time actually writing code.

There are lot of ways to explain what I do, but many quickly get too technical for most people. At a high level, I’m a client-facing engineer. Most often, I sit between engineering — the people who do spend all day coding — and the end users of the product.

How do you interview people for developer and technical jobs? This is an enduring question, and one with many angry factions.

It’s too big a subject to tackle in its entirety and I have no intention of trying. Instead, I want to talk about one aspect: should you ask Computer Science questions or not?

In one corner are the people who argue that you never need to implement a linked list or write Quick Sort in real life, so asking you to do that in an interview is unreasonable and excludes good candidates. They argue that there are more important things to consider, such as the use of applications frameworks or design or working with other people.

I’ve not had an entry for the last few weeks of PhotoFriday, but an image jumped straight to mind when I thought of this weeks challenge, “My Obsession.” This was inspired by a day working from home on a cold, wintry day followed by some relaxation afterwards and my realisation that they looked pretty much the same from the outside…

My job means that I have to write detailed notes and designs just to keep all the moving parts in my head. “Detailed” is this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, so I think this image fits the bill.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Downward.” I’m entry number 121.

• Why is America the ‘no-vacation nation’? – “So despite research documenting the health and productivity benefits of taking time off, a long vacation can be undesirable, scary, unrealistic or just plain impossible for many U.S. workers.” More fool them, I say!

I got a lot done and with the ninety minutes I saved by not commuting I went to the gym, but there are problems with working from home…

A few years ago I was subcontracted to one of the large consultancies. I was taking over from someone who was, supposedly, quite senior and the task at hand, I was told, was very hard. I should take copious notes as she wouldn’t necessarily be around afterwards to help me. Making a mistake or missing out any one step could be disastrous to the whole process. If I did everything properly each new installation would take about a week.