Park City Utah / Canyons Resort
Strange Feeling
Have you ever been in a crowded room and felt all alone? I’ve had that feeling a few times over the past week even though I’ve been surrounded by awesome people.
The feelings came mostly in the beginning and now closer to the end of our company meetup.
To me it means a few things. The first is that I’m more of an introvert than I even thought I was. Next, drinking and partying late into the night isn’t who I am anymore, I just don’t fit in, likely because of the introversion. Time to stop pretending that’s who I am I guess.
The last and probably biggest reason is that I’m away from my family who I love and miss very much. As much as for the most part I’ve loved this week, I’m really looking forward to getting home to them soon.
Support as a Career
When I get home and can really reflect I’ll post a better and more full recap of my first Grand Meetup with Automattic. For now I want to talk about something great that has happened for me here. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany thanks to two town hall sessions I’ve attended. One was company wide and one specific to our happiness or support section. Not sure if it is exactly an epiphany, because I really knew it already, I think I just forgot it a little. This allowed me to bring it back in to focus. Now I need to live it even better.
When I came to Automattic as a Happiness Engineer in the back of my head I kind of thought it would be fun to use it as an “entry” position and work my way into a development role. In the past I’ve had development roles, specifically web development roles, that I could likely put to use here. I’d never pretend that I’m anywhere near the calibre of the developers we do have, but I thought I could learn from them. The funny part is the jobs I’ve always been happiest at have been the ones where I’m providing support.
If I’m happiest in a support role, why do I want to move to something else? After the questions and answers in the town halls I think it is because of my biases coming from other companies where support really is an entry level position. It’s not something that the companies I worked at treated as a serious and important career option. It was usually seen as a necessary, yet evil, cost centre. Not at Automattic. Support is seen as an important bridge between everyone that uses our products and the products themselves. Every conversation we get to have with the people who use our products is an opportunity to learn and makes things better. This is exactly the career I’ve been looking for.
There are some things I need to work on though and personally need to get better at. Taking the conversations I have and helping find where things can be made better and communicating that is currently a weakness. There are many parts I already feel I do well though. When I find something that is broken either through testing or from a user I can work with our developers to let them know so they can get it fixed.
While I can read code and understand it, I could spend a lot of time trying to dig through the code to find exactly where the bug is, but really these developers know the code a lot better than I do. It would be a lot more efficient if I instead worked on my bug and deficiency reporting so that I made the reports as helpful as possible. If I do that, they’ll be able to find where the bug is a lot faster than I could and they also can it fixed. The time I would spend looking would take me away from having other conversations with people where I can have a much greater impact in the long run.
Coding is still fun, and I’m not going to stop. In fact while here I took a course on JavaScript as there is a feature I would like to see, so I’m going to try and build it. But that will be in my spare time, as the hobby it really is for me now.
There are so many things I will be taking away from this Grand Meetup, but I think this will be the most important thing. It has helped me refocus on my career here and will help me approach interactions from a different mindset. It will be a lot of work and I know I won’t be able to do it overnight, or be perfect at it, but I’m going to work at being better.
Family Weekend
So thankful for the weekend I was able to have with my family before I left for the week. We had a great time getting to play a lot outside and taking in all that autumn in the Annapolis Valley has to offer.
We went apple picking, to the pumpkin regatta parade, played on the mini trains, and toured around visiting more of the pumpkin people. Pretty sure the kids had just as much fun rolling and playing down the hills. It was a lot of fun and I even managed to run the 10k race as part of the Valley Harvest Marathon.
Here are a bunch of pictures from over the weekend.
It’s Pumpkin People Time and Everything is Awesome
We live in an agriculture and rural area of Nova Scotia, so Fall is a big time of year. We celebrate the harvest and there are plenty of events on the go all the time. It might be heading to the farm markets for some fun activities, or a visit to one of the many corn mazes that are setup.
Each year my town of Kentville celebrates the season with the Harvest Festival which includes the Pumpkin People. This years theme is Lego! The town themselves build many displays but they also give away the supplies so that residents can participate and make their own. We’ve made our own a couple times but didn’t get to it this year. The last year we did it the theme was technology so we made a group using Apple devices.
The kids especially love each year going to see and pose with the different pumpkin people. It also brings in a bunch of tourists and other visitors each year to come and tour the extra residents that show up. In years past when running near morning when it is still a bit dark out these guys have been known to scary me pretty good when they first get setup. This year I’ve only been out when it is more light so there hasn’t been any jumping when I come around a corner and see an orange face looking at me.
Week Eight Summary
The end has come of my eight week session. The results weren’t as good as I wanted when it came to the weight loss part, but I can live with the results. In mid July I started at 225lbs, which is very disappointing because last summer I was basically where I wanted to be for weight but then fell back into old habits and gained a bunch of it back.
July was when I decided to get back on track and lose the weight again. I made it down to 216lbs on August 16th, and that’s when I decided to start this eight week plan. There were a couple weeks where even though I worked hard I saw no results and that caused me to get discouraged and slip, but in the end I kept going.
This week I didn’t expect to see huge weight loss as I held back the running so that I could have a couple of rest days before the 10k race I ran today. There were also birthday celebrations again as well as two thanksgiving day dinners. Didn’t always do well with eating right.
The week started off with a few fast 5k runs and I was worried because early on into each of the runs I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish. My energy level was very low and they took a lot out of me. Luckily after a couple of rest days I was ready for the race today.
It was pretty cold this morning, but it was mostly my hands that were bothered. After a bit into it though I warmed up and in all reality I probably didn’t push it hard enough. The pace I had in my head was faster than any 10k I had done in training, but I don’t think I set the goal high enough. Most of the race felt really comfortable and like a relaxing run. When 7k came around I pushed it harder and speed it up for the last 3k. I ended with an official time of 58:14 and a pace of 5:50 min/km. Both not as good as last year, but I’m happy with it.
Tomorrow I jump on a plane to go to a company meetup. A big part of my motivation for this was to be in decent shape so that I looked good again when I meet these people and so I can participate in some of the fitness activities without killing myself. Feeling good about how I look will help me to be less self conscious and therefore be able to get concentrate on making relationships more fully. I feel good about meeting them with where I am today.
Running not only help get me to this point of better self confidence it has also helped me clear my head when the stress for planning for this trip was getting a little much. The two rest days I took, even though they were good for the race, didn’t do well for my head. I wanted to go run so much those days to help relieve the stress. The run today made me feel much better though and I’m all set to jump on the plane.
Results:
Last week: 195lbs
Now: 194lbs
Lost: 1lb
While I didn’t make it to my goal of 185lbs in this time frame, I’m still doing well and I know I’ll get there. As of right now I have basically 20 more pounds that I want to lose to be my end goal weight. If I can make it to 175 and stay there I’ll be a happy guy.
Apple Picking
We went apple picking as a family today at Noggins Farm Market just outside of Wolfville. It was like we were tourists in our own town.
There were so many people around all looking to do the same thing. Enjoy the Autumn in the Annapolis Valley and take a tractor pulled wagon ride back to the orchard to do some picking.
We might have a few apples now.
The Grand Meetup Gitters
This past week has had me getting caught up on a lot of things, trying to be prepared to go away for a week to our annual company Grand Meetup. Last year I started working at Automattic on my Trial just shortly after everyone returned. At least one of my interviews was as they were all together. While I am very happy that this year I get to go myself and meet a large group of people who I’ve never met before, I also have a lot of anxiety about the trip.
I love traveling. Getting to see places I’ve never been, and all the people I work with are great. A few I’ve met during my team meetup the beginning of this year, but there are so many I’m really excited about getting to meet. There are going to be fun activities and interesting classes going on. The whole trip I’m confident is going to be a lot of fun. So what has me so nervous about it?
It’s not that I’ve traveled a lot, but there have been a few trips, and many of them I’ve gone on alone, not knowing anyone where I was going on the other end, but somehow this is different. Part of it is certainly the flash talk everyone will be giving. Getting up in front of people, as I’ve talked about before, is not fun for me. My presentation has been prepared and submitted for sometime though and I feel like I know how I want to present it well enough.
Even just the traveling part stresses me out. Flying is by far my favourite way to travel. I love looking out the window and seeing clouds or everything far below. The whole process still amazes me every time I do it. Airports on the other hand I don’t like. It feels like I never know where or how I’m supposed to move through. Do I take a carry on only, or check a bag? Do I have to pick up my checked bag and take it to the next leg of my flight, or does it follow me along automatically? What happens if I miss a flight? So many variables, even though I’ve never had a really bad time it still worries me.
Part of it is leaving everyone else here at home, it’s not often I’m away from Jen and the kids. Having the incredible flexibility I do with my job has allowed us to arrange our lives where we take full advantage of it. Lots of times Jen and I are just crossing paths or going opposite directions taking kids to where they need to be, or going to PTA meetings etc. So leaving everything to Jen has me stressed. Not that she can’t handle it, because I know she can, she does the lion share of organizing everything and making sure our household runs smooth anyway. But just the driving alone will be impossible to handle for one person. Luckily we have family and friends who are great about helping whenever they can, but I know it is still going to be extremely rough for her.
All week I’ve been knocking things off my to do list for before I leave. Even just little things seem to be bigger when you know they need to get done. Getting a hair cut, flu shot, car to the garage. Getting the lawn mowed, making all the phone calls you’ve been putting off. Making more arrangements for the car when you realize it needs a lot more than just an oil change.
Being an introvert and being around people, even though I enjoy it, takes me out of my comfort zone and I have to work at it. Having just gone to a conference this week and remembering how tired I felt afterwards, both because of everything going on, and because it also takes a lot out of me being in social situations like this. So realizing that I’m going to spend a week with a bunch of people, and getting to know them, makes me a bit tired just thinking about it.
All that said, I’m very excited to go on this meetup. Every interaction I’ve had with anyone at work so far has been a positive experience. Getting to meet these people and build real memories with them will make relationships stronger. One of things I’m most thankful for was getting to go, so soon after starting with Automattic, to Barcelona and meet my team. I feel it made us much closer and really solidified us as a team. Getting to do this with more people in the company will be awesome.
Knowing how much it costs, both financially and by taking people away from their regular jobs, goes to show that Automattic thinks the employees are important and that building these relationships with each other is a huge benefit. Another reason I feel so lucky to be a part of this.
Wapuu Family
I posted this originally internally at work, but it is cute so I thought I’d share it here as well.
The kids love Wapuu almost as much as I do. My newest little nephew now fits into his Wapuu onesie better so we figured we’d get a picture with everyone in their shirts. So we included our kids, my nieces and nephews and me. Jen’s shirt was locked in a room with sleeping babies so she took the picture instead of being in it.
First Kickstarter Reward Arrived
Yesterday I received my reward for backing my first Kickstarter campaign ever. Before I found this randomly in one of my social media feeds I had been looking at a way to to get some USB outlets in my home so I didn’t need to find chargers. There always seems to be an abundance of charging cables but never the actual chargers. Looking around online and in stores I couldn’t find anything affordable enough that looked OK, and would work.
Luckily I came across the Snap Power Charger Kickstater. This seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. A small low profile outlet cover instead of something that you plugged in and stick out the existing outlet. The best thing is it requires no wiring, you simply take the old cover off and put the new one in!
During the campaign I choose a $24 option that gave me two covers. Now that I installed these two I wish I had gotten more. The project was completely funded in May 2015, and they arrived today which seems like a pretty quick turn around time to me.
The installation of these things took me literally like a minute at most. I put one in my office where I charge things frequently, and one in the living room where the kids charge things. The one mishaps I had was I tried it on an outlet where the bottom plug is controlled by a switch so we can turn on and off a lamp, or Christmas tree when it is plugged in. This caused the USB charger to only work if the switch was on too. Not a big deal, because I just swapped it to another spot instead.
Sandy McFadden 