A couple of weeks ago, I kicked off my first sabbatical since starting at Automattic a little over five years ago.

The first fortnight of my sabbatical has consisted of:

Three Rings CIC's AGM weekend and lots of planning for the future of the organisation and how we make it a better

automattic, volunteering, sabbatical, three rings, work, theme park, job, travel, barcelona, castles, spain

My employer Automattic's having a bit of a reorganisation. For unrelated reasons, this coincides with my superteam having a bit of a reorganisation, too, and I'm going to be on a different team next week than I've been on for most of the 4+ years I've been there. Together, these factors mean that automattic, published on gemini, work, job, open source

This post is part of my attempt at Bloganuary 2024. Today's prompt is:
What's your dream job?
It feels like a bit of a cop-out to say I'm already doing it, but that's true. Well, mostly (read on and I'll make a counterpoint!).
Automattic

I'm incredibly fortunate that my job gets to tick so

automattic, volunteering, three rings, employment, work, job, bloganuary 2024, bloganuary

This post is part of my attempt at Bloganuary 2024. Today's prompt is:
Come up with a crazy business idea.
Smell-based social networking for dogs.

Hear me out...

I've tried to explain to our occasionally-anxious dog that, for example, the dog-and-human shaped blobs at the far end of

joke, bloganuary 2024, social networking, bloganuary, funny, job, dogs

Nowadays if you're on a railway station and hear an announcement, it's usually a computer stitching together samples. But back in the day, there used to be a human with a Tannoy microphone sitting in the back office, telling you about the platform alternations and destinations.

I had a friend ai, science, history, employment, work, job, technology

(This is yet another post about Automattic. Seee more posts about my experience of working at Automattic.)

Off the back of my recent post about privileges I enjoy as a result of my location and first language, even at my highly-multinational employer, and inspired by my colleague Atanas' automattic, geography, cartography, work, graphs, job, teleworking, maps

I've been thinking recently about three kinds of geographic privilege I enjoy in my work at Automattic. (See more posts about my experience of working at Automattic.)
1. Timezone Privilege
Take a look at the map below. I'm the pink pin here in Oxfordshire. The green pins are my immediate team - automattic, geography, brexit, languages, language, employment, work, job, travel, teleworking, maps, passport, timezones

When the COVID-19 lockdown forced many offices to close and their staff to work remotely, some of us saw what was unfolding as an... opportunity in disguise. Instead of the slow-but-steady decentralisation of work that's very slowly become possible (technically, administratively, and politically) automattic, telecommuting, employment, work, job, teleworking, covid-19, futurism

Eight years, six months, and one week after I started at the Bodleian, we've gone our separate ways. It's genuinely been the nicest place I've ever worked; the Communications team are a tightly-knit, supportive, caring bunch of diverse misfits and I love them all dearly, but the time had come for bodleian, music, employment, video, job, memorable, drinking, party, cake

Some years ago, a friend of mine told me about an interview they'd had for a junior programming position. Their interviewer was one of that particular breed who was attached to programming-test questions: if you're in the field of computer science, you already know that these questions exist. In interviews, recruitment, quantum computing, programming, funny, job