Tag: change

New beginnings…

And so we’re at the end of yet another year!

2023 was a year of changes and new beginnings (in many cases returning to passions I’d long given up on, so re-beginnings?)

The biggest of these was starting a new career.

No, I haven’t left Automattic…

If we can quickly rewind, I joined the company behind WordPress.com (and Tumblr, and Woo, and Simplenote, and Pocket Casts, and Day One, and these days the list is getting really long) eight years and a month ago as a Happiness Engineer, initially providing live chat support before finding my way back to the public support forums where I’d started out as a volunteer over a decade ago ( 😱! ) as part of the public support team.

I really enjoyed helping people make the most of their sites on WordPress.com, but over the years the requirements of the job changed, and so did I. That’s normal. People change, their needs, interests and priorities change. That’s just life.

But in my case that change left me feeling deeply unhappy and unfulfilled. That’s also normal. Countless people go through this each year. Typically you have two options: tough it out, or leave. Companies that value their support staff the way Automattic does, with all the explicit and implicit benefits of working here, are few and far between, so leaving wasn’t really an option for me, so as a breadwinner I had no choice but to tough it out.

Except, Automattic is an amazing place to work, and one of the more unusual opportunities we have here is to make a lateral move to a different team, or even a completely different role. For a role switch this usually means applying for a position and going through a trial similar to a new hire, and like with any job you must make sure you’re qualified to do the job in question beforehand. Sometimes this requires further study or training, and many people here study part-time, and some even leave and reapply for a different position once they’re ready.

But I was fortunate to make it into an apprenticeship program where, for the past year-and-a-half, I received on-the-job training for the new role I wanted to move to. And so, a month ago (and exactly eight years after joining Automattic), I officially made the switch to the role of Code Wrangler (what we call software engineers) as part of the team that builds and maintains the Woo.com marketplace.

So it was a year of challenge – I had to learn a lot, about code and the practice of coding, but also about communicating and collaborating in new ways. I became comfortable with imposter syndrome and embraced the power of “yet”. And at 42 years old I embarked on a new career (my fourth if you don’t count my aborted attempt at being a post-graduate student…hopefully this one sticks).

That’s not the only change of 2023:

I joined the leadership of my church (in a way even more terrifying that starting that new career…my last stint in church leadership and ministry left me wounded and cynical and it’s only through grace that it didn’t cost me my faith), and preached again, did a live puppet show, and played in a worship team, all for the first time in over a decade.

I bought a piano and started playing again.

I got on a plane for the first time since the pandemic, and visited a new country (Vienna, Austria).

I saw my first ballet (we took the minion to see The Nutcracker the week before Christmas).

I started learning to sail.

I got a new dentist.

Yeah, I’m sure you have questions, especially about that last one 😉. Suffice it to say 2023 was a good year, full of challenging, but positive changes (perhaps all change is positive, and it all comes down to how you choose to view it?)

As I’m writing this it’s softly raining outside, and I count myself blessed and looking forward to what 2024 will bring.

So long, 2015

I started 2015 unemployed and in bed with a fever, and mused that things could only get better. That turned out to be somewhat prophetic, though I missed the bit about things first getting worse.

But things getting worse was probably the best thing that could have happened, because it convinced me to give up.

I will remember 2015 as the year I gave up. I gave up on further academic studies. I gave up on a career and a dream. I gave up on what I believed (and to come degree still believe) to be my calling and in the process gave up a significant part of myself.

Conventional wisdom says winners never quit. I say conventional wisdom is an idiot. A well-intentioned idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

For quitting freed me up to try something new. And it has paid off beyond my wildest dreams.

With little more than an hour left before I bid 2015 farewell, I look back and have to say that this was a great year. As awful as it started, and as discouraging as the first two thirds were, the final four months have surpassed my wildest imaginings.

As I told my colleagues when I wished them a happy New Year earlier, for the first time in many years I’m excited about the new year. Between my new job and the new adventure of fatherhood lying ahead, I can’t wait to see what 2016 will hold.

Happy New Year. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

On choosing me

My sister and I were very much church brats growing up. We weren’t pastor’s kids, but my first ever friend (and, for a few weeks in the fourth grade, fiancée) was. My father was head of the Sunday School (by second grade it was my job after church to run across to the school whose premises we used for Sunday School and unlock the classes before the others arrived) and organised all the church youth camps while my mother cooked for them. My first bee sting was at one of those camps.

The second Wednesday of each month was spent playing on the church office floor while my mother received the offerings collected by the deacons during home visits the previous week. Sunday mornings I sat with my dad among the elders, and my sister sat with my mum in the choir gallery.

This is going somewhere, promise…