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THE DANGLING POINTER

SH*T MY BRAIN SAYS AND FORGETS ABOUT


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LIFE AFTER A LAYOFF

By Aaron Douglas

On May 23, 2023

In Uncategorized

Finding a new job takes a lot of effort. I’ve been recently laid off from
Shopify (along with 20% of my friends) and have been spending the past three
weeks applying for jobs, connecting with friends, and searching for that next
thing. It’s exhausting work. This is my first layoff (and probably not my last)
and the approaches I’ve used in the past to find a new job don’t really apply
right now.

I’ve made a few observations that I felt were worth sharing, especially for the
folks in the same predicament as me:

 1. Cold applications tend to go unanswered – try to get referrals from friends
    or previous coworkers.
 2. Silence, rejection e-mails, and bad recruiter experiences all contribute to
    making yourself feel like a fraud. Don’t base your self-worth on this job
    search. Recruiters are overwhelmed (and also getting laid off), companies
    are cutting costs and implementing crap AI for job-matching.
 3. Spend time to rewrite your resume listing accomplishments and any outcomes
    you contributed to. Put them in order of most impactful first, least being
    last.
 4. Cover letters. I have no idea if they’re worth the effort or not.
 5. You’ll dream about having a terrible job, or being back at a previous
    terrible job.
 6. Don’t be ashamed of getting laid off. You did nothing wrong.

There are way more, but those are the top of mind for me.


REMINDERS, ADHD, AND SIRI

By Aaron Douglas

On December 22, 2022

In Uncategorized

I heavily rely upon Siri (and Google Home sometimes) to set reminders for
myself. I have ADHD. I have hundreds of thoughts flying through my brain
throughout the day, all at the same priority and speed. Once in a while, I catch
onto something that I need to remember. ADHD brain says “oh hey, it’s important,
there’s no way you’ll forget it!” – where my mindful brain says “lol, you’ve
already forgotten it, jerkface!”.

HomePods with Siri have improved my life greatly. Any time I think of something
that I must recall – even if it is something I’ll need to do or write down in
ten minutes – I can yell into the air to have Siri remind me.

Siri, however, needs to listen better.

Yesterday I remember setting a reminder for something in the morning. This
morning, I get the notification … and I have no freaking idea what it is for.

The first one is legible! What are filters filter?

It looks like Siri understood me about the delivery box needing to go out. But,
what the hell are filters filter? The best part is, I think I remember Siri
reading it back to me and I lied to myself saying “Oh, I’ll remember what that
means!”.

Nope. Fail.


HOBBIES, ACCESSORIES, AND UNREALIZED POTENTIAL

By Aaron Douglas

On September 14, 2022

In Uncategorized

Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14781362334/

I was having a semi-philosophical discussion with a friend about hobbies, which
inspired this post.

In my mind, I have a long list of things I want to learn. Technical things for
work, technical things for personal projects, fun stuff, hobbies, etc. The ADHD
brain in me makes it difficult to prioritize what I spend my time on. My friend
mentioned that they’ve been spending so much more personal time lately on doing
things unrelated to programming. That resonated with me as well!

We started riffing on hobbies. My dad filled his house with woodworking tools,
metalworking equipment, cameras and studio lighting, electrical components, and
beyond. I grew up witnessing how my dad experienced hobbies and find myself as
an adult somewhat mirroring that. When I get into a hobby, I have to fight the
urge to buy all the accessories. How can you possibly do hobby X without all of
the tools possible?

Here’s the thing – the absolute truth about most hobbies is you never really
need much to start. Woodworking? A hand saw and a chisel is all you really need
to create neat things. Photography? A disposable film camera is all you need.
Cycling? A used bike is all you need. Running? Shoes and maybe non-chaffing
underwear is all you need.

I hate having caches of tools for hobbies that sit there idle, unused,
unrealized of their potential. It’s the same feeling I get having a bookshelf
full of books I haven’t read yet. If I feel I need more accessories to want to
do the hobby, it’s an indicator I’m more into collecting those accessories than
doing the hobby. Otherwise, I’ll get overwhelmed with where to start with that
hobby.

How do you like to manage your hobbies?


HELLO, SHOPIFY!

By Aaron Douglas

On June 24, 2022

In Uncategorized

Well, I took some time to figure things out, but it didn’t take too long to make
the final decision. I’m now working at Shopify (and we’re Shopifolk, lol) as a
senior development manager for the Point of Sale retail channel and apps.

I’m still in my onboarding time here, but my role and responsibilities will
become clearer over the next few weeks. Shopify has a seriously well-organized
program to onboard all new employees. I am super impressed. You can read about
some of the recently released cool things from the team I will be working on.

Shopify uses React Native for most of their mobile apps which is one huge
departure for my previous experience! I can’t wait to learn more about it and
put that knowledge into practice leading teams. The tech stack is rather
impressive and I can’t wait to learn all the things.

Shopify is hiring and we’re 100% remote!


FAREWELL, AUTOMATTIC!

By Aaron Douglas

On June 8, 2022

In Uncategorized

On April 3, 2013, I was sitting in the #devmke Freenode IRC channel talking to
other developers in the Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA) area. I saw a conversation
about one of the people working from home and thought, what an incredible place
this must be to work! For some reason, I had heard the name Automattic before –
and after landing on the homepage, I realized why! It was because of WordPress
and specifically signing up for WordPress.com to get an Akismet API key to
prevent comment spam. When I saw a Mobile Wrangler job posting, I immediately
applied. I got the offer in May and started near the end of July 2013.

Without really exaggerating, working remotely at Automattic has literally saved
my life. I’ve learned more about how my mind works, how I approach work, what
relationships mean to me, and what value I can bring to an interaction. I’ve
learned how to lead like Aaron, embracing my own unique style of seeing the
universe and helping inspire others to connect and create outcomes.

Every year (pre-pandemic), every Automattician would get together in one
location for a week – called the Grand Meetup. My heart is sad that I won’t be
at the next Grand Meetup. That annual event has created some of the fondest
memories of my entire life. I’ve become friends with people that I still have
yet to actually work with directly. That’s the power of the system there – we
value our connections over the work. With those connections, we overlay the work
after. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned those lunchtime conversations
at the GM into conduits to get things done later. Meetups are critical to
Automattic’s success.

DJing @ the 2016 GM – photo by clickysteve

Some of the highlights of my time at Automattic was with helping organize
several of the Automattic Grand Meetup closing parties. In 2015 it was with the
first Automattic band performance and the Jane Doze DJing, 2016 with a coworker
and me DJing, and 2017 with MICK DJing. This all came from me plugging my phone
into the PA system of the dinner tent in 2014, playing some of my favorite
songs. Our favorite Chief of Staff, Rose, noticed everyone enjoying themselves
and pinged me to help out in the following years. Little did I know that I would
be negotiating performance contracts and coordinating an audio and lighting
production crew in the next months. What a rush. Seeing the look on Matt’s (the
CEO) face walking into the ballroom before we opened the doors in 2015 was the
best payoff ever.

Trying out the photo booth before the 2015 GM

For the last four and a half years I’ve been leading the Woo Mobile product
teams, and it has been a joy. I started the team with just one other person and
grew it into the group of 30+ people it is today. Mentoring & coaching four
leads made me see how I could be a better engineering lead. I also got a chance
to develop product management skills, wearing multiple hats. I’m so proud of
everyone on the team (and everyone else we’ve worked with!) for getting the
product to where it is today. I feel like I am leaving at a high point in my
career there. Nine years will have been the longest I’ve ever been at a place
before.

Automattic has been a great home for me and has helped me through a lot of bad
times and given me a lot of good times. It wasn’t my intention to find a
different place to work. I started looking at other companies for inspiration on
defining my role better and for seeing where I should aim my career at. The side
effect of that research was a little spark of excitement forming to try
something different. Life is too short to not take some risks once in a while.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My last day at Automattic was Friday, June 3. I spent the last couple of weeks
passing the baton off to a teammate and getting as much as I could out of my
head for others. I had 1:1s with my boss, my team leads, and other Automattic
employees wanting to say goodbye.

Those two weeks were tremendous in helping me process my exit. I posted my
farewell notice, told the team, turned in my hardware, filled out the exit
survey, had a final 1:1 with my HR rep, DJed one final Friday jam session, and
then attended a farewell Zoom I planned. My team put together a very thoughtful
farewell video and organized a couple gifts for me which were amazing. I
definitely felt the warm fuzzies and the sense of loss we all were feeling. What
a great group of humans!

I didn’t stick around for my access to get cut in Slack – it was already an
emotional day and waiting for that felt unnecessary. I walked away from my last
day feeling a bit lonely which is certainly an artifact of not being in an
office with other humans.

The departure process at Automattic felt anticlimactic. I’m not sure what else I
had expected to happen, honestly. They celebrate new hires, new houses, new
partners, and new babies, but don’t really celebrate someone leaving at a
company level. My farewell post had a LOT of heartfelt goodbyes and the process
of reading and replying to them was cathartic. It helped me recognize my true
impact on the company by hearing the stories of how I’ve helped shape the
culture there and affected so many lives. That was priceless.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the exit survey, Automattic asks “would you consider ever coming back to work
at Automattic?”. I answered truthfully:

Yes.

What’s next? More details to come.


LOVE THE LIGHT AND ENDURE THE DARKNESS

By Aaron Douglas

On January 4, 2022

In Uncategorized

I saw this quote on a friend’s wall as I was leaving their house. I found the
original and decided to share it here.

> I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness
> because it shows me the stars.
> 
> Og Mandino


THE RADIO EFFECT

By Aaron Douglas

On December 1, 2021

In Uncategorized

I listen to a lot of electronic and trance music to keep a part of my mind
occupied while I focus on my work. What I’ve noticed over the years is using a
playlist or a service like Pandora doesn’t quite do it for me. I could never put
my finger on it until it clicked one day. Having the ability to skip a song
makes the experience of listening more in the foreground where I have yet
another choice to occupy my mind. Do I like this song? Should I go to the next
one?

I grew up listening to broadcast radio. The DJ was the one making all the
choices for me. I merely had to pick a station, turn up the volume, and go about
my day. I’d hear songs that were interesting, some terrible, others meh.
Commercials were also a mindful break for me to step away. Taking away the
decisions about what song to play next was freeing. It also felt like the DJ was
in my room with me – you even developed weird relationships based solely on
their voice and style of DJing. You knew others were listening to the same exact
thing you were at that moment in time. It was a way of building a community.

> You knew others were listening to the same exact thing you were at that moment
> in time.



That’s why to this day I will still subscribe to services like Digitally
Imported and SiriusXM. It’s also why I love DJing music for other people. I like
being part of that subconcious community enjoying that music at the same time,
on the same planet.

It reminds me I’m not alone.


SOMETIMES IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS…

By Aaron Douglas

On September 16, 2021

In Uncategorized

I haven’t seen a majority of my coworkers off-camera for 559 days as of today.
The mobile teams at Automattic got together in Chicago at the beginning of March
2020, right before the pandemic hit the USA. We continue to do things to help
connect people together to accommodate that lack of in-person meetups. It’s not
the same, but it helps.

Then yesterday, I got this in the mail.



It’s funny how sometimes the small gestures can have the biggest impact. I know
I’m not alone. Getting this small physical item does help ground my mind a bit
to realize I work with other humans, not just Zoom participants.


A SHORT ANALOGY ON FEEDBACK & UNIT TESTS

By Aaron Douglas

On July 23, 2021

In Uncategorized

Unit tests are something that engineers write to test the work they’ve done in
smaller pieces. Code that is tested tends to perform closer to expectations.
Future changes to old code protect the way things work by causing unit tests to
fail if something is changed unexpectedly. Passing tests are green checks .
Failing unit tests are red Xs .

Default behavior is to write your unit tests after you’re done writing the
solution. When an engineer sees all , they call it a day and ship it. The funny
thing with unit tests are … they are also subject to being full of problematic
logic or buggy code. How does the engineer know their tests are correct or cover
all the scenarios if you’ve never seen a failure?

There is a concept from test-driven design (TDD) that helps mitigate this. Write
your tests first before writing the actual solution. Your tests will all start
with and you’ll slowly turn those to as you write the solution.


FEEDBACK

I was chatting with a coworker today and gave this analogy of unit tests being
like feedback. How so?

If you receive feedback from a lead and always get positive remarks ( ), how do
you know if the lead is actually seeing your work enough to find any areas of
improvement ( )? I’ve found that feedback feels less impactful unless once in a
while you get something constructive or critical to work on.

I figured the analogy was kind of neat and figured it might illustrate the
importance of feedback being a system of trust. You can’t trust your unit tests
until you’ve seen other than just successes. And likewise, receiving only praise
can make someone feel uneasy and possibly not trust they’re getting the whole
picture.


WHEN MY BRAIN GOES ON A LITTLE ADVENTURE

By Aaron Douglas

On December 28, 2020

In Uncategorized

It me.



What a funny (and accurate) way of describing the mental float during
conversations when my ADHD is ramped up. This cracks me up! I feel like there
should be some background sound effects with this. A nice animated parallax
effect would finish it off.

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RECENT POSTS

 * Life after a Layoff
 * Reminders, ADHD, and Siri
 * Hobbies, Accessories, and Unrealized Potential
 * Hello, Shopify!
 * Farewell, Automattic!


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