Tag: automattic
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Back at work after a three-month break, and it turns out the first thing that I'd missed is my team's quirky morning ritual.
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Slack screenshot of Dan saying, at 08:57am: 'You know how many people pika-waved at me on a morning while I was on sabbatical? None. None at all. I missed you guys.' The quote is bookended by an animated GIF of Pikachu waving and another of Pikachu dancing around a heart. Five people have reacted with a mixture of Pikachu dances and waves.
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Sabbatical Lesson #1: Boundaries
My three-month work sabbatical has taught me a lot, perhaps too much to digest in a single blog post, so here's the first lesson: especially in a life-friendly distributed workplace, it's important to set boundaries to make your work/life-balance function properly.
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Sabbatical Magic
Two weeks into my extended break from work and on my way home from Spain, I've discovered something magical about a sabbatical: it frees me from my compulsion to think about next week's work, at the weekend.
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✅ Inbox Zero
✅ Slack Notification Zero
✅ Assigned PR Reviews Zero
✅ Owned PRs... one, but it's approved and just waiting for the right moment to mergeThat's got the be the first time in... literally years... that I've ended a workday so "clean". Feels amazing.
There'll be a mess again tomorrow, but hopefully only of a manageable size because I'm particularly clean to finish this week at "Work Zero".
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Calm after the storm
Rosie, who like me never even considered taking Automattic's alignment offer, writes about her experience of this week's meetup.
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Meetup Magic
As I come to the end of a week in Mexico with ~400 of my the smartest, friendliest, open-source-loving geeks I could wish to know, I come to realise that Automattic's meetups are just... magical.
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Goodbye, Tulum! You were delightful, if very hot. It's time for me to head back to the UK.
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Dan, wearing a rainbow bandana, with an ornate ice cream cornet in a Mexican city.
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Hurricane Milton
From safely outside of its predicted path, just around the Yucatan coast, Hurricane Milton seems like a forboding and distant monster. A growing threat whose path will thankfully take it away, not towards, me. My heart goes out to the people on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico who find themselves along the route of this awakened beast.
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It's a bit hard to perform close-up magic to an audience 40 metres deep, so I pre-recorded my favourite card trick! Then I talked over it, explaining to colleagues from my division why it's my favourite bit of slight-of-hand, and what great magic tricks have in common with great code.
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Dan, standing on a stage, holding up five fingers while a video screen behind him shows a close-up of his hands displaying five playing cards.
I feel like I'm likely to have to perform a lot more illusions at the bar later today!
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It's 05:30 local time on the third day of my work meetup in Tulum, on the Caribbean Coast of Mexico, and I was just woken by incredibly heavy rain. I got up and stepped out until it, and was surprised to discover that it's almost as warm as the shower in my bathroom. In the distance, beyond the palm trees and over the hill, the booms of thunder are getting closer. Beautiful weather for a beautiful place.
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Tropical vegetation under stormy skies. Long exposure in pre-sunrise light.
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Something I've long enjoyed about Automattic gatherings is the opportunity to meet some the most diverse characters you'll ever find in one place.
But today was the first time I've ever been at a beachside disco that was attended by a foraging racoon.
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A slender long-tailed racoon stands on wooden decking in front of lush tropical vegetation.
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Max props to my employer for providing pronoun pins not just in a diversity of options but also offering blank ones for people not represented by any of the pre-printed options.
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Boxes of pin badges representing various pronouns, plus blank ones and a sharpie.
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Well this is a sight to wake up to. 😍
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Sun rising over the sea as seen from a tropical beach.
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It took almost twenty hours of travelling but I made it to Mexico!
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Dan, looking tired, in a hotel room.
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Think I blew Ruth's mind this morning when I set off for a week in Mexico with only a medium-sized, underseat-suitable backpack.
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Selfie of Dan in a tunnel walkway wearing a backpack.
But since working for Automattic five years ago I've totally been bitten by the travelling-light bug. Highly recommended!