User Guide

Most of what I want people to know can be found in my personal Philosophies.

When you can find me at work...

Times are in Mountain Time

• Ideal day starts at 9AM and ends at 5PM on a weekday so I can have some intentional quality time with my family before (6AM-9AM) and after (5PM-8:30PM) work.
• I carve out 30 minutes at the beginning and end of each day to make sure I set myself up for success. Usually that means I'm offline during those periods creating/refining my daily plan or documenting the day.

If you need something from me...

Always ask! I may so no or not right now because I have to keep other commitments I've made, but it's better to ask and know if I can help than to assume I can't or won't.

Reaching out...

• Slack is the best way to successfully get a response from me. I try to be prompt in responding to people in Slack as long as it's during my normal day.
• Email is the worst way to get in touch with me.
• Text for emergencies if you absolutely need me. I'd appreciate if texting is only used as a last ditch for something that we've both agreed is absolutely critical.

The best way to give me feedback...

• as soon as you see a red flag, let me know. I don't want any potential frustrations to fester and boil up into something worse later.
• I prefer getting/giving feedback face-to-face (in a Zoom meeting) but if it's "minor" feedback I'm happy to discuss it over Slack.
• sharing examples of how/what I could do better/different goes a long way in helping me be successful in being a better team mate.

Things I need...

• clearly defined vision. If you want to unleash me on a project, give me the vision.
• autonomy to make decisions.
• my work purpose aligns with my life purpose.

I love...

• my family. They will always be a driving force behind how I make decisions about my career, never the other way around.
• interacting and collaborating with others.

I find energy in...

• building things for people who build things.
• teaching others skills that will enable them to be more effective.
• finding and reducing toil helping define and optimize work streams & processes.
• automating the drudgery!
• trying out new things.

I struggle with...

• selling products that I don't believe in. I feel uncomfortable pitching a product the team is building that's not ready or something that feels gimmicky rather than purposeful.
• unnecessary chaos. I embrace intentional chaos that helps to build resiliency. I do not like chaos that's created "organically" because there was no effort in creating order.
• silos. It's important for me that people are able to work with the least amount of friction.

What I expect of my teammates...

• Be human. We're in this experience together and I know my expectations are just that: expectations. I'm human. You're human. Let's be humans, acknowledge we're humans and act accordingly.
• Be honest. I want to know the reality of a situation, not what someone thinks I might want to hear to not be upset.
• Be kind. This is caring about people enough to have hard conversations (rather than skirting around them) but tempering those conversations with love and grace.
• See the best in me. It's easy for me to feel an overwhelming fear that I'm not good enough for the work I'm doing, but I'm a hard worker who will strive to give it my all.

What my team mates can expect from me...

• All of the points listed in the What I expect of my team mates... section.
• I will always investigate before I initiate on projects, tasks or conversations. I want to make sure I understand something before starting work on it so that I can make awesome things.

Why does he...

• Why does he use a ✅(or a 👀) on so many of my Slack messages? I like to make sure I mark things I've seen and know I've either done some action on _or_ marked as seen so that the sender knows that I've seen it. I find a lot of times that I ask "has <INSERT NAME> seen/read this yet?" I imagine if I think that, others probably think the same for me, so I want to give clarity that I've seen something or it's been resolved/completed if it's a task.