Jobs: Sergey Shalaev, CEO of Surfingbird.ru

What do you do in your work?

I am the CEO of Surfingbird.ru. This is a recommendation platform for photos, videos, articles, news and anything else. I deal with almost everything, from drawing prototypes and technical specifications, ending with office renovation and various legal issues in the company.

Usually my working day starts at 8 - 8.30 am. I read the mail and study yesterday's project statistics. In fact, the morning before 10-11 is my only chance to sort through the mail and answer everyone. In the process of reading letters and raking ***** ts, I have breakfast and an hour later I go for a run or workout.

At 12, I'm usually already in the office or in meetings. After 8 pm, I return to focused work on something specific, such as technical specifications or prototypes. At 23.00 I check how the moderators worked their shift and whether everything is ok with the project. At midnight, my workday finally ends.

Workplace

I usually have three in my office. The first is my table itself. I'm not one of those perfectionist maniacs who have everything on the table so sterile that you can have an operation.

My second workplace is the office kitchen. Sometimes I sit there in the morning. First, because there is a coffee machine. Secondly, the kitchen is located next to the entrance, and I can ask each employee for everything I need right in the morning. And thirdly, it's just very cozy there.

The third workplace is the roof, but due to weather conditions I can only work on it in the warm season. It is especially good there on summer evenings.

Working iron

I am using Lenovo x220. I used to be very fond of IBM laptops. Then they had not yet sold their division to the Chinese, and the laptops were black, matte and a little rough. Now they are also black, matte and rough, but we know that before the girls were prettier, and the sugar was sweeter, and in general.

I used to draw prototypes in, until the team abandoned the project and stopped developing it (I was very upset, I loved it so much). Now I'm doing everything in.

There was a time when I used Evernote very actively, but somehow it didn't. Now I use almost only Google Docs. Many times I tried to answer for myself the question of why I switched from Evernote to Google Docs. Perhaps because I discovered Trello, in which I can immediately mark something for myself, start working on it and monitor the status. And for Google Docs, it's just more convenient for me. From messengers - only Skype.

We use Redmine as a task tracker.

Paper

There is paper, and I hate all this paperwork shit. Google is going to fly to Mars, the Japanese have come up with whores-robots, and I still put some fucking stamps and signatures on paper. At the same time, working on a computer for the last 5 years, I practically forgot how to write in words, and when I need to write something by hand, it looks just awful.

Dream configuration

I hope to live until the moment when all the software will flow to the web, and there will be no more desktop applications. And I also dream that there will be projections, like in science fiction films. Then I don't have to connect a second monitor. But I can, for example, evenly smear windows with messenger, mail, prototypes, etc. over my workplace, and switch through them with the power of thought, as if by tabs. That would be cool, yes. Now this is all replacing a laptop, a telephone and a second monitor.