Today marks thirteen years since I was hired at Automattic. I’m always in a reflective mood this time of year, so I’ve been reflecting on what these thirteen years have brought me.

I’ve been able to be a good mom. Grant used to toss out, “you’re the best mom ever!” And I would tell him, “I would be lucky to crack the top 250.” We did this over the course of a few weeks, until one day he said, “mom! you’d place third in a mom contest.” Which is really sweet! He’s trying to hear my perspective, that I’m not perfect, but I want to be a good mom for him, and he still ranked me really high. All that to say, I have been able to get to third place in a mom contest because I have the flexibility at work to be present. I make and take them to their appointments, I can spend time with them when they’re off the bus, and I can model what a successful working mom looks like. I can stay home with them when they’re sick or have snow days or need a mental health day. I have taken each one on a solo trip with just me, thanks to the generosity of having a sabbatical. I worked with them on the shitshow that was pre-k and third grade during the lost COVID year. I was able to really be there. I took five months off for my parental leave with Grant. No one told me how long to take, the company let me decide (now I think in the US it’s a standard 6 months). It gave me time to spend with the twins and with Grant, and help begin to build the bond between the twins and Grant. I don’t know where we’d be without that time together.

I’ve been able to be a pretty good partner. I could take on a lot of the kid stuff when the kids were littler (and now the twins are very self-sufficient and Bob coaches, like, every kid in town, including Grant), so Bob could focus when he needed to. As I have grown as a lead throughout my tenure, I have been able to share my lessons learned and advice with Bob, and he has turned into a wonderful leader in his own right. I’ve been glad to be able to provide some mentorship to him, as it’s allowed us both to gain a deeper appreciation of each others’ work. I’ve had access to world class coaching and professional development opportunities (conferences, books, subscriptions, etc) that have helped me grow personally and professionally. I think over the thirteen years, I’ve become a good leader, but a better person. And I’ve been able to share these riches with Bob.

I’ve been able to learn. I really like finding out about new things. Give me a good rabbit hole any day. At work, I learn all day long. I soak up information from my colleagues, from peers across the industry, from watching, from reading, from listening. It’s such a gift. I work at home, alone, all day long, and I am buoyed the entire time by the heteroglossia of Automatticians. It is phenomenal. I have been lucky to be able to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am. You will never stop learning when you accept that you don’t know everything. And importantly, you never will! You will only be able to learn more. What a gift.

I’ve been able to help others grow and develop their skills. I really like leadership because I get to support the growth of others, and then see them go so far beyond what I could ever do in ways I may never have expected. It’s really exciting! I have the opportunity and the trust bestowed on me to leave people better than when I found them. They always make me better, too. I’m grateful, even, for the times when things didn’t work out, and we had to part ways. Going through that process many times now has helped me gain perspective on all the different ways people need support, the different avenues to communicate with them, and how to approach incredibly difficult conversations. With very, very few exceptions, the people I have had to fire were just in the wrong place for them to thrive. I do hope that they all have found the right place, and are indeed thriving – and experiencing what it is like to be in that right place!

I’ve learned about a lot of different types of human. My colleagues come from all over the world and are all kinds of ages. Being able to be among them has broadened my perspective, and grown my appreciation for others. I have lived all over the world, but have lived in America for a long time now. Being consistently exposed to many other cultures and perspectives is rare, and I relish it. I have been able to empathize more, thanks to our distributed culture. When I first started working here, we did all our communication in IRC and Skype chat, and our longform communication on P2. P2 is still here, but we’ve shifted to video calls and Slack for the more instantaneous stuff. In the IRC days, you might not see someone’s real face until the Grand Meetup. You got to know the human, not the window dressing. It’s a lesson I carry to all parts of my life — we are all human, and we all matter. We need to protect vulnerable populations, like our trans communities, because every human matters and the very lives of these folks are being threatened on a daily basis. We cannot engage in hate and we must put fear away, because all humans are human and need our care and empathy.

I think, how I might sum it up, is that, like the scary uranium, I have been enriched. I have had some really rotten times, and been an idiot, but I have also been elevated, been thrilled, and set free. I can’t believe it has been thirteen years – it doesn’t feel that long. I like who I am more, now. I am happy to be the person I am, and the I like the path that I am on. I feel I am able to have an impact in the real world with the work I do, and I can’t imagine anything nicer than that.