I have a bad habit at work of saying “I don’t care” without qualifying it. It comes off as sarcastic or dismissive, when that’s not how I mean it – which means I need to find a new way to express it. Most of the time, it pops out of my mouth when my manager […]
Author: Kevin Lawver
Bring me all the joys
I’ve co-lead Gusto’s Employee Resource Group for families for the last year and a half, and it’s been a ton of fun. It’s brought back a ton of memories from when the kids were little, and reminded me (constantly) that parenting never stops being stressful. The stressors just change over time, get more complicated and […]
Travel Tired
I used to travel for work a lot. I just started really traveling for work again, and… it’s exhausting. I’m not in travel shape anymore, and my back screams at me after every flight. Adjusting to time zone changes is harder. I love seeing people in person, but getting there sucks and I’d like it […]
App Defaults
Why not do an old school blogging meme for day 13? Well, that’s what I’m doing today, so… let’s go! I’ve seen it a couple of places, but I last saw it over here, which is where I was convinced that it would be today’s post. I’m pretty much all Apple for end-user things. I’m […]
Proof I can maintain something
Today is my 1,500th straight day of doing at least one lesson on Duolingo. That’s over four years of learning Spanish (and trying out Korean, Chinese, Turkish and Portugese, but I always go back to Spanish). Am I conversational yet? Oh no. Can I understand more than I used to? Yes. I can even make […]
Just go read this, and then write something
Thanks to Terence Eden for point me towards this lovely essay about writing on the internet by Henrik Karlsson. I’m not going to write anything better than that today, so… just go read it instead.
Just trying to be understood
If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. Anne Lamott The creation of all […]
People are always the problem
I’m now a very senior engineer. I don’t even know what the right title is (once I got “CTO” titles kind of stopped mattering), but at Gusto I’m an L6 and there are seven levels at the company. One of the great things about working at a larger company is how many people I get […]
Looking back: ficlets launching
I was going to just post a quote for today’s NaBloPoMo, but I was looking for old posts and stumbled on this one about ficlets launching. Re-reading it, sixteen and a half years later, a few things jump out: Most of the hundreds of projects I’ve worked on over the years (LOL, decades) blur together […]
Be kind, but have boundaries
After yesterday’s post, Amy asked another question that I’m ill-equipped to answer, but I’m going to try anyway: Ok, tough question: a thing I struggle with, (maybe as a woman or maybe just my family of origin), is me behaving in a kind manner often means being seen as inherently weak or (shudder) useable to […]