On the Inside, Looking Out
I worked from home again today – part of a bigger picture I have not written about in the blog, and may never explain fully. Let's just say I needed to make sure somebody followed plans put in place for them. Working from home feels strange after being accustomed to offices, co-workers, trains, busy hotels, packed conference rooms, and so on. Strangely, I think I could get used to it though.
I've been reading a personal blog written by one of Automattic's “Happiness Engineers” for a while now – I started reading because they cycle everywhere, just like me, and then happened upon their posts about working from home.
I'm wondering if my future may end up being along that path. I've always been the developer that's “good with people” – so inevitably get wheeled in to do pre-sales, introductions, demonstrations, consultancy – that kind of thing. Bizarrely I would also say I'm a bit of a development purist – going the extra mile to write code I'm happy with, which often flies in the face of commercial concerns. There's also the whole open-source history with me – I've contributed quite a bit over the years.
It's kind of humorous that I ended up working for a Microsoft partner on commercial projects – for years I was known among both co-workers and friends as “the Linux guy” – the only person they knew that ran Linux at home, and worked on open source projects. I still remember the first time I visited Microsoft at Reading – half expecting klaxons to go off as I passed the great seal in floor of the entrance lobby. I've fought for years to convince the powers that be about giving software away, and selling services, but never got anywhere until Microsoft turned towards subscription models recently – then of course the “new way of working” is presented back to us by the same people that were deaf for so many years.
I am starting to wonder when my time as a developer, or as part of a traditional commercial development house, might come to and end. I've been writing code for twenty years, and the world is finally changing – morphing into the world I foresaw when few around me did. I've been head-hunted once or twice, and resisted. I've nearly walked once or twice, but stayed put. Given the challenges of bringing up three adopted children, however – purely in terms of bending the clock around their lives – I'm wondering if my future might lie somewhere more forward thinking, and more flexible than places I have worked in the past.
There are a number of modern organisations built around the idea of staff working from home. The most obvious would be Automattic, the makers of Wordpress – the software that underpins this blog's existence on the internet. Working for somebody like Automattic would be interesting, given that I've built my own blog platforms, written Wordpress themes, and written corporate integrations for Wordpress in the past. I also know the alternative platforms inside out – my tech notes are self-hosted with Drupal, for instance, and I've done a few freelance projects with Joomla.
I guess ultimately time may be the deciding factor. In order to do a trial for Automattic, I would need to clear every evening out for several weeks in a row – given that I typically don't get any “me” time until 8pm at night, and then at the expense of spending any time with my better half, I don't see how I can do it. There's also the factor of unpredictably spending week-upon-week “on the road” with work – living in hotels.
Never say never though.