Monday - WARHW
Monday I was up stupid early to get to the doctor’s office by 7:15. I hadn’t had enough to drink over the weekend, so I was feeling creaky and old like I do when I’m dehydrated. Let’s just say it’s not my favorite way to start my Monday morning and leave it at that.
Traffic from Salem to Westford wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, the only slowdown was the big 93 - 495 interchange, and that’s always been slow in the mornings. Since I made it to the office so early, I gave myself permission to catch up on the New York Times and do some quick writing while I ate breakfast at my desk. I was still “at work” by 9:00.
It’s “We Are [Company Name] Week” at work. I gather that our first major release was on Halloween, and over the years this has turned into a week long celebration of our company and our culture. There’s a bunch of stuff going on each day both in the Home Office and here in Westford. We’re having a 5k run/walk, a Wellness fair, trick or treating for the kids, and a whole bunch of activities all week long. Monday we were having a Blood Drive, at least one panel discussion, and an Around the World party with different stations for different countries.
When I came into the office in the morning I held the elevator door for a guy with a piñata and loads of bags. Then, when I was headed down to the cafeteria for lunch, I rescued a dude in a kilt who had forgotten his badge and gotten trapped in the stairwell. There were photos that went out on the local mailing list of “Morocco” which looked amazing (they completely transformed one of the conference rooms into a little Bedouin tent). “Brasil” sent out a notice that they were giving away a Swag Bag, but that you had to be present at the drawing to win. I was getting curious about all the fuss, but didn’t want to wander around the office by myself, so I went to visit Erin and see if she wanted to walk around with me?
I had a busy day. Once I got through the pile of e-mail from the weekend, I had the monthly North America Content Services meeting. We had someone from the training department give a demo of the new Learning Management System (LMS). Then one of the Technical Writers gave a presentation that she’d recently given at a local technical writing UnConference. She looked at some of the challenges of Open Source documentation and made a bunch of, what seemed to me to be obvious recommendations. “The writers should be part of the team and attend team meetings.” “Take ownership of your projects” “Install and use the software.” The more people talk about our problems and suggest solutions, the more I wonder what the heck they’ve been doing around here previously? Because all of their solutions are things that I’ve been doing my entire technical writing career, for the past 15 years. These are not new ideas.
After the meeting I was supposed to give blood, but I had so many meetings on my schedule that I could either give blood or eat lunch. Since I’d already been bled once, and was feeling kinda crappy, I bailed on my blood donation appointment. I felt bad about it, but I also need to take care of myself until I get to the end of faire.
I had my weekly one on one meeting with my boss. Then I ran downstairs for a panel called “You can’t do that here” which was about diversity and working with different cultures (because we’re a global company). It was pretty much a panel of six people telling stories about different countries they’d lived in and culture clashes they’d encountered.
Then I ran back upstairs for another meeting. This one was a private meeting, because I’d asked Dawn about the three different roles, Documentation Program Manager, Content Strategist, and Technical Writer. The Product and Project Managers had asked about who was responsible for getting our doc content onto the Customer Portal, and I didn’t know, because I still didn’t understand how they divvy up the job responsibilities around here. Since I’m the only doc person on my team, I may end up doing everything anyway. But I wanted to know how it’s supposed to work if you’re on a fully staffed team. Apparently the Technical Writer’s don’t attend the meetings, the Content Strategists do. And then the CS tells the writer what to write. I don’t actually see how that works in practice, because I get a lot of my information out of attending team meetings. I actually think having someone else tell me what to write would make my job harder, not easier. But maybe there are other layers of meetings that they’re attending that I don’t know about.
Then I grabbed Erin and dragged her around the building as we tried to find all the various countries without a map (there wasn’t one, and there should have been one…).
Each station had food, some had booze and displays and costumes and music.
1. Sweden - Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce, herring, jelly roll, poster of famous Swedes
2. China - Lots of store-bought cookies and a big cardboard panda standee
3. Mexico - Margaritas, beer, nachos, store-bought and homemade salsas and dips
4. Greece - cinnamon cookies, olives
5. Morocco - Sweet tea, more cookies, amazing decorations, everyone in costume. They completely transformed their little area.
6. USA - Sloppy joes, corn dogs, pigs in blankets, warm pretzel bites. More beer.
7. Italy - Meatball sliders, limoncello, Caesar salad
8. France - Cheese plate, warm brie, everyone in costume (striped shirts, red neck scarf)
9. Ireland - Kerry gold butter, imported chocolates, hurling sticks, the fellow in the kilt, and a movie starring Maureen O’Hara playing on YouTube.
10. Japan - Sake, tea, sushi, pocky and other candies, everyone in kimono. A “zen rock garden” made with foam peanuts. I missed it, but apparently they had a photo station too.
11. Brazil - More food, lots of flags, a big cardboard standee of a showgirl in a bikini and feathered headdress (from Carnivale?). Feather boas and masks and mardi gras beads.
ETA 12. Canada - beer, hockey stuff, faux Tim Horton’s donuts (they put American donuts in the Canadian boxes, the cheaters!)
13 - India - Packaged snack foods and some homemade goodies. One woman in a sari.
14 - Israel was on the fourth floor. We never made it up there.
There were supposed to be 14 or 15 countries, so I guess we missed a couple? But it was a fun way to spend an hour and we got to explore the office a little bit more. I finally saw where my former CEO’s office is now (I was peeking in the window to check out the Linux boxer shorts hanging in the window and I spotted photos of him and his family). And I ran into his secretary when we were in Brazil, she followed him here from BlackOps.
At 4:00 I dialed into another panel. This time, one of our team members was talking about how she founded the Austin chapter of ChickTech. She was encouraging people to found a chapter in Raleigh (or wherever you live). Turns out that Boston already has a chapter. I might look into volunteering. I’ll have to look at how much free time I think I have. I suspect that, since they kick off in the fall, that I might not be able to do it with Faire. Especially if they move the faire dates from October to September, which is another rumor I’ve heard recently.
By the time that panel was over, it was 5:00. I got caught up on the new e-mail in my inbox and headed home. Where I finished unpacking and headed to the Laundromat. I still don’t have a new dryer, and I just wasn’t in the mood to spend all week swapping out wet clothes on the drying rack in my bedroom. I had the pile of guild dishrags to wash, and just wanted those damn things done. So I did four loads of laundry (whites, darks, guild linens, sheets and towels) at the Laundromat in about two hours. Which was nice, now it’s all done. But that sucked up my entire evening.
Traffic from Salem to Westford wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, the only slowdown was the big 93 - 495 interchange, and that’s always been slow in the mornings. Since I made it to the office so early, I gave myself permission to catch up on the New York Times and do some quick writing while I ate breakfast at my desk. I was still “at work” by 9:00.
It’s “We Are [Company Name] Week” at work. I gather that our first major release was on Halloween, and over the years this has turned into a week long celebration of our company and our culture. There’s a bunch of stuff going on each day both in the Home Office and here in Westford. We’re having a 5k run/walk, a Wellness fair, trick or treating for the kids, and a whole bunch of activities all week long. Monday we were having a Blood Drive, at least one panel discussion, and an Around the World party with different stations for different countries.
When I came into the office in the morning I held the elevator door for a guy with a piñata and loads of bags. Then, when I was headed down to the cafeteria for lunch, I rescued a dude in a kilt who had forgotten his badge and gotten trapped in the stairwell. There were photos that went out on the local mailing list of “Morocco” which looked amazing (they completely transformed one of the conference rooms into a little Bedouin tent). “Brasil” sent out a notice that they were giving away a Swag Bag, but that you had to be present at the drawing to win. I was getting curious about all the fuss, but didn’t want to wander around the office by myself, so I went to visit Erin and see if she wanted to walk around with me?
I had a busy day. Once I got through the pile of e-mail from the weekend, I had the monthly North America Content Services meeting. We had someone from the training department give a demo of the new Learning Management System (LMS). Then one of the Technical Writers gave a presentation that she’d recently given at a local technical writing UnConference. She looked at some of the challenges of Open Source documentation and made a bunch of, what seemed to me to be obvious recommendations. “The writers should be part of the team and attend team meetings.” “Take ownership of your projects” “Install and use the software.” The more people talk about our problems and suggest solutions, the more I wonder what the heck they’ve been doing around here previously? Because all of their solutions are things that I’ve been doing my entire technical writing career, for the past 15 years. These are not new ideas.
After the meeting I was supposed to give blood, but I had so many meetings on my schedule that I could either give blood or eat lunch. Since I’d already been bled once, and was feeling kinda crappy, I bailed on my blood donation appointment. I felt bad about it, but I also need to take care of myself until I get to the end of faire.
I had my weekly one on one meeting with my boss. Then I ran downstairs for a panel called “You can’t do that here” which was about diversity and working with different cultures (because we’re a global company). It was pretty much a panel of six people telling stories about different countries they’d lived in and culture clashes they’d encountered.
Then I ran back upstairs for another meeting. This one was a private meeting, because I’d asked Dawn about the three different roles, Documentation Program Manager, Content Strategist, and Technical Writer. The Product and Project Managers had asked about who was responsible for getting our doc content onto the Customer Portal, and I didn’t know, because I still didn’t understand how they divvy up the job responsibilities around here. Since I’m the only doc person on my team, I may end up doing everything anyway. But I wanted to know how it’s supposed to work if you’re on a fully staffed team. Apparently the Technical Writer’s don’t attend the meetings, the Content Strategists do. And then the CS tells the writer what to write. I don’t actually see how that works in practice, because I get a lot of my information out of attending team meetings. I actually think having someone else tell me what to write would make my job harder, not easier. But maybe there are other layers of meetings that they’re attending that I don’t know about.
Then I grabbed Erin and dragged her around the building as we tried to find all the various countries without a map (there wasn’t one, and there should have been one…).
Each station had food, some had booze and displays and costumes and music.
1. Sweden - Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce, herring, jelly roll, poster of famous Swedes
2. China - Lots of store-bought cookies and a big cardboard panda standee
3. Mexico - Margaritas, beer, nachos, store-bought and homemade salsas and dips
4. Greece - cinnamon cookies, olives
5. Morocco - Sweet tea, more cookies, amazing decorations, everyone in costume. They completely transformed their little area.
6. USA - Sloppy joes, corn dogs, pigs in blankets, warm pretzel bites. More beer.
7. Italy - Meatball sliders, limoncello, Caesar salad
8. France - Cheese plate, warm brie, everyone in costume (striped shirts, red neck scarf)
9. Ireland - Kerry gold butter, imported chocolates, hurling sticks, the fellow in the kilt, and a movie starring Maureen O’Hara playing on YouTube.
10. Japan - Sake, tea, sushi, pocky and other candies, everyone in kimono. A “zen rock garden” made with foam peanuts. I missed it, but apparently they had a photo station too.
11. Brazil - More food, lots of flags, a big cardboard standee of a showgirl in a bikini and feathered headdress (from Carnivale?). Feather boas and masks and mardi gras beads.
ETA 12. Canada - beer, hockey stuff, faux Tim Horton’s donuts (they put American donuts in the Canadian boxes, the cheaters!)
13 - India - Packaged snack foods and some homemade goodies. One woman in a sari.
14 - Israel was on the fourth floor. We never made it up there.
There were supposed to be 14 or 15 countries, so I guess we missed a couple? But it was a fun way to spend an hour and we got to explore the office a little bit more. I finally saw where my former CEO’s office is now (I was peeking in the window to check out the Linux boxer shorts hanging in the window and I spotted photos of him and his family). And I ran into his secretary when we were in Brazil, she followed him here from BlackOps.
At 4:00 I dialed into another panel. This time, one of our team members was talking about how she founded the Austin chapter of ChickTech. She was encouraging people to found a chapter in Raleigh (or wherever you live). Turns out that Boston already has a chapter. I might look into volunteering. I’ll have to look at how much free time I think I have. I suspect that, since they kick off in the fall, that I might not be able to do it with Faire. Especially if they move the faire dates from October to September, which is another rumor I’ve heard recently.
By the time that panel was over, it was 5:00. I got caught up on the new e-mail in my inbox and headed home. Where I finished unpacking and headed to the Laundromat. I still don’t have a new dryer, and I just wasn’t in the mood to spend all week swapping out wet clothes on the drying rack in my bedroom. I had the pile of guild dishrags to wash, and just wanted those damn things done. So I did four loads of laundry (whites, darks, guild linens, sheets and towels) at the Laundromat in about two hours. Which was nice, now it’s all done. But that sucked up my entire evening.