Automattic’s Budapest Meetup

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Philip Arthur Moore

Automattic

Last week I had the privilege of finally making it public that I’ve joined Automattic. In truth it felt a little weird posting that information a few days before my official start date (October 24th, 2011) but I knew that this week would be hectic and wanted to get it out into the wild.

I’m writing this from Budapest, the location of this year’s Automattic meetup—which wrapped up last night—and my first week on the job. Nearly 100 members of the Automattic family, old and new, flew to Hungary to talk about the state of the company; give flash talks, or 5-minute mini-presentations, on any topic of our choosing; and work on various team projects that will improve working conditions for Automatticians and primarily increase happiness for users of Automattic products. What follows are moments from this week that I will not soon forget.

My Flash Talk

At the risk of being cliché I made my talk about myself, but more specifically a talk about several important lessons I’d learned over the years while living in Vietnam and how they apply to my approach to work:

Deception: Hanoi is a mix between this and this. It’s important to remember that the highs are never that high and the lows are never that low. I’ve approached working at Automattic in the same way, realizing that it is a dream job and a place that I’d like to call my working home for a very, very long time, but also keeping in mind that there are times here when chaos reigns. Never too high. Never too low.
Persistence: Vietnamese people believe their bikes can hold anything and refuse to stop pushing the limits of physics. They are stubborn and if told something cannot be done will find a way to do it. I admire this persistence and it informs much of how I live my life and how I approach coding. I’d rather live life and work on my terms than be boxed in by convention.
Perspective: When we say words like “home” or “away” it’s vital that we pay attention to context. Home for me isn’t home for others; the same applies to what it means to be away. When interacting with users or giving and receiving feedback to colleagues we must establish a baseline for that communication and understand from where they are coming. We cannot control what is said or done to us; we can only control how we react to it and how we decide to communicate our ideas and feelings to users and colleagues.
Food: Food, like code, is meant to be shared with others and consuming it alone is a recipe for unhappiness. We develop emotional attachments to not only what we put inside of our bodies but also what we produce for others. Whether what we make is great or horrible isn’t as important as getting it out into the wild and sharing it with others.
Family: I showed a few slides of my family, both in Vietnam and the US, to make the point that I take family seriously. In the same vein, who I work with is the single most important factor that I take into account when deciding to work for a company. Automattic is a family and we’re all in this together, from the 3-day rookies to the 3-year veterans of the company. I also mentioned, and will continue to mention, that any coworker who visits Hanoi has my word that I’ll show him a great time.

I’m generally quite comfortable speaking in front of large crowds, but the night before my flash talk I was all nerves and unable to sleep. Automattic is filled with intellectual freaks of nature and outside WordCamp San Francisco I don’t know that I’ve ever been around that many people at the same time who made me say “Wow”.

Colleagues

Mealtimes with other Automatticians were incredible. On my first night in Budapest I sat at a table with ten other members of the company, none of whom were American citizens—which underscores our global reach—and all of whom had multinational backgrounds. We talked about a variety of topics: living far away from our places of birth; raising children in a multicultural household; Aldous Huxley and his writing on mind-altering substances; and religion. It was so nice to know that there were other topics for us to discuss outside of technology, given how much it already dominates our day-to-day lives.

Another highlight of eating with coworkers came on the last night of the meetup, when the Theme Team went out to eat as a group. During the last two months I’ve interacted with each of its members and gained some insight into their quirks, but nothing could have prepared me for spending time with them all in person. We got along so well and have a shared vision about the future of WordPress themes on both WP.com and WordPress.org. Now when I talk to my teammates online I will know exactly how to receive their comments because the gaps of my understanding their personalities have been filled in during the last week.

Team Projects

Within the company we shoot for 2-week code and idea iterations. Shorter iteration times minimize the damage of failed implementations while at the same time increasing the amount of feedback that we’re able to gain in the long run. The company was divided into 14 teams and each team was given a project to finish and (hopefully) launch by the meetup’s end. Around 12 teams launched their projects at the end of the 6-day meetup, which is astounding considering how dense each of our schedules were during that time.

My favorite projects involved improvements to P2, WordPress’ built-in gallery styling, WordPress.com’s support system, and how WordPress feels on mobile devices. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that during only 6 days teams were able to put together such wonderful products.

Automattic

The CEO’s of the company gave an intimate talk about the current state of the company and where Automattic is headed. The best public summary I can give of this talk is that if you match one of the skills that’s listed on this page then you should apply. I feel so secure and pleased with my decision to join Automattic.

New Friends

In just six days I made some new friends at the company who I am confident I will grow closer to over the years. These are people who, even if I didn’t work at Automattic, I would hang out with and enjoy having in my close circle of friends. The best part about this is that all of them are spread out over the globe in countries that I’ve never visited, which means that I now have even more of a reason to travel. I remember at some point during the week thinking that even if Automattic disappeared overnight (it won’t) I would have left this week with some new friends who I am sure I will know for a very long time. That enough was a perfect reason to fly to Hungary.

It was a great week. I leave Budapest tomorrow and finally return to Hanoi. Even though my current home in Vietnam could never compete with a swank Hungarian hotel, it’s home and that’s all that matters. I miss my bed and my water heater that only provides a rushed shower. Most importantly, I miss the food.

I’ve Joined Automattic Inc.

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Philip Arthur Moore

It was at the end of July, after a meeting with Graph Paper Press about my role and my future with the company, that I knew it was time to take another leap into the abyss of the unknown. The last two years with the team were some of the most rewarding of both my professional and personal lives, but we mutually agreed that after WordCamp San Francisco 2011, where we met in person for the first time, I would leave.

Luck would have it that just a few weeks prior to my decision to leave Graph Paper Press an employee of Automattic was traveling through Hanoi and looking to meet other WordPress folks. We originally decided to meet for bún chả in the Old Quarter and talk WordPress; we still ate lunch but were too busy discussing life to dive into industry talk.

When I met Evan and Dustin in Hanoi the last thing on my mind was applying to Automattic; I was just happy to get together with other Americans here who know tech and enjoy travel. It actually wasn’t until WordCamp that I began to give it serious thought¹.

WordCamp left me utterly gobsmacked in a good way. Even after developing with WordPress for so many years I had never attended the event and I had no idea it would completely revitalize my enthusiasm for open source software. I felt overwhelmed and inspired being surrounded by so many talented people and knew that I wanted more of it in my life. That’s when I applied to Automattic again².

I’ve reached a point where going it alone is a hindrance to my goal of becoming a top notch developer and my ability to give more of myself to the community. I’ve never been willing to compromise on where I physically work, but unless I’m willing to completely shed my misguided notions about how I work—solo, small team, or larger company—then my skill set as a WordPress developer will wither away and die with time.

Automattic is my silver bullet. It’s a company that encourages my working style and also gives me access to some of the brightest minds in the world. Moreover, it celebrates the sharing of knowledge. There is a culture of openness here that even the unseasoned rookie picks up on. It’s a culture that makes me want to be a better communicator.

My official—I use that word very loosely—job title at Automattic is Theme Wrangler³. What this means is that I spend a great deal of time making, breaking, and fixing themes. It’s what I’ve been doing ever since I began blogging with WordPress in 2004 and I do not plan to stop any time soon. As long as I’m able to contribute to the company and as long as the company will have me, I plan to give my professional energy to it.

I’m both nervous and excited about this, nervous because I want to perform well for my team⁴ and excited because I feel a new world of coworkers and future friends opening up to me.

The first projects I completed for Automattic as a trial Theme Wrangler were .org to .com conversions of the WordPress themes Nishita and Bold Life⁵. The responses to them made me feel wonderful and I hope that a year from now I have many more theme conversions, as well as theme creations, under my belt at Automattic.

Who I work with is the single most important factor that goes into any decision I make about project work or seeking full-time employment. After volunteering at the Happiness Bar and talking with so many good people, I felt positive that I should consider reaching out to the company. ↩
I applied to Automattic for the position of Theme Czar in mid-2009 and was never interviewed. In hindsight, I am fortunate for being overlooked. My skill set at the time was nowhere near what it is today and I would have been a burden on and an embarrassment to the company, not an asset. ↩
Automattic is hiring! You should send in an application. ↩
One of my greatest personality flaws is at times a near-crippling insecurity about my abilities and the quality of work that I do, both professionally and personally. I want to be perfect and mistake-free—this is a fool’s pursuit, I know—and as a result stress myself out about whether or not I’m good enough. It’s always been this way, unfortunately. ↩
I should make it painfully clear that most of the work done inside of the Theme Team is open to team collaboration; however, I was primarily tasked with these two themes and feel a very strange and emotional connection to them. ↩

On Turning Thirty* In Vietnam

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Philip Arthur Moore

Big: birthday flowers from my guesthouse. Little: jewelry box from close friend

I was born on the 9th of July, 1982 and as of today I have officially owned a birth certificate for twenty nine years. It sounds simple enough, but calculating my age—or, more appropriately, discussing my age—in Vietnam has been anything but easy since I first arrived in 2004.

Love, culture, and age: three topics of conversation that always end in playful arguments with Vietnamese friends. The reason age has become such a contentious point of disagreement among locals and me is because I have not yet conditioned myself to view age as a function of years,—the most important elements of my birthday have always been the 9 and July—while they see no point (outside of official documentation) in viewing age as a function of days and months; they only care about the 1982.

What this means is that by the 3rd of February, 2011 I was already 30 years old in Vietnam but still technically 28 in the United States. I felt it didn’t make any sense at all to tell people I was two years older than my official Western age and I simply wasn’t psychologically ready to accept being thirty earlier this year, so from exactly one year ago I began telling people I was twenty nine years old. Complicated, I know.

To keep from going utterly mad in Vietnam I have decided to add one year to my Western age at any given moment that I’m asked about it. Yesterday I was 29, today I am 30, and I will be 30 for precisely 364 more days before I am willing to say that I am 31.

The reason I do not follow my Western age exactly is because I live in Vietnam, which is anything but a You/Me/I society. There are certain parts of my culture and Western upbringing on which I am not willing to compromise because they give me meaning and a sense of connectedness to friends and family in the United States. Age is not one of those.

What I ended up doing today isn’t all that noteworthy or important, really. I woke up late, went for pampering at a spa, and followed it up with a meal at one of my favorite restaurants in Hanoi. Outside of close friends and family I didn’t mention in advance the day to anyone. I’ve been trending towards the non-birthday birthday for several years now; sometimes there’s nothing better than sneaking away from the world for a day and spending it with my thoughts and dessert.

100,000

Aside

100,000

100,000 recorded plays since 29 May 2006. That’s an average of 54 tracks, or 3 complete albums, per day. Not bad for the last 5 years of my life.

I’m much more comfortable (and happy) digging through old musical tastes than old photos; I find the former useful, the latter depressing.

Here’s to the next half-decade.

On Huế / On Oversensitivity

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Philip Arthur Moore

It occurs to me that I’ve traveled to Hue at least once per month this year, twice for the sole purpose of acting as an amateur tour guide for a best friend and family member and once for the sole purpose of spending time with VIA friends. My next trip to Hue won’t come until June, when Phu Bai airport reopens.

Last week’s trip was especially nice, notwithstanding Hue’s terribly nasty weather. My brilliant, beautiful grandmother and I—along with a friend from university—went on the tomb circuit, shopped for incense, and visited Thien Mu Pagoda. Between fighting back “been there done that” feelings and extreme laziness brought on by wet feet and warm blankets I did enjoy Hue again.

There’s something about the place. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s one of the few locations in Vietnam that I talk up. Hue denizens are among the most graceful folks in Vietnam, good food there is never hard to find, and in terms of culture Hue comes second only to Hanoi as a place that oozes history and tradition.

Yellow Incense Sticks in Hue, Vietnam

One of the byproducts of all this recent travel, though, has been what I can only call my growing oversensitivity to negative comments about the Vietnamese.

I usually sympathize with visitors who gripe about trash on sidewalks, civic pride, traffic conditions, noise pollution, and procedural inefficiency. But I also find myself becoming extremely defensive with tourists who bitch and moan about getting ripped off, Vietnamese service industry workers who don’t speak English, airport employees who have bad attitudes, or anything that even remotely suggests a collective character deficiency in the Vietnamese.

It’s silly, and I know it is, to get so tense about criticisms that at the end of the day mean nothing to the Vietnamese and nothing to me. Locals and foreign expats have lives to live; we certainly don’t spend all of our time occupied with tourists’ unoriginal takes on idiot drivers or men and children who urinate in public spaces. We have our own issues with Vietnam that usually run much deeper than current pricing for boats, trains, or planes.

But, still, there’s a part of me—underneath the sarcasm and aloofness—that so badly wants for friends, family members, and strangers alike to enjoy Vietnam. Vietnam has been more and more of my home since 2004 and I feel like the moment I decided to become an expat was an implicit statement of purpose to in some ways defend Vietnam’s idiosyncrasies against uninformed, foreign opinions.

The danger of course has always been and will always be falling victim to Vietnam worship. There’s room for improvement here, and lots of it. To pretend otherwise would be just as offensive as Vietnam bashing.

But there’s a nuanced way of criticizing the country, its people, and its culture, one that usually begins with the questions ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’ Instead of growing angry at a waitress for screwing up an order of “salad with no carrots and dressing on the side” I’d rather an English-speaking foreigner ask himself how he could have phrased the request differently. Instead of issuing the blanket statement “the Vietnamese can’t seem to get anything right” I’d rather someone question her expectations.

Another part of this is the lopsided nature of the relationship between the Vietnamese and visitors. Vietnamese people are almost always in the position of serving; foreigners are almost always in the position of being served. It makes fussing by tourists seem awfully bourgeois. Unless someone lives in Vietnam for a very long time or is fluent in Vietnamese, it’s incredibly difficult for him to see Vietnamese people as people. All of this just seems to create a natural tendency towards griping and crankiness on the part of visitors. Fetch me another bia Tiger, boy, and make sure the ice is clean.

Ultimately, I don’t think these feelings will ever end. I want people to like Vietnam because it’s my home, but I also need to come to grips with the fact that people always bring their cultural and economic biases with them wherever they go in the world. It’s not always Vietnam that people don’t like; sometimes they just don’t like different. Nobody can fix that and I really shouldn’t be losing sleep over it.