Creative Nonfiction by Andrea Badgley
I’ve had a black Happiness Engineer T-shirt hanging in my closet the past two years. The Editorial team at Automattic sent it to me in a thank you package for working on a project with them in early 2014, when I was a blogger using WordPress.com, before I even knew Automattic existed (Automattic is the … Continue reading I’m a Happiness Engineer again!
I have been told that it takes about six months to start feeling competent in a new role: to know where to look for things, to make decisions on your own, and to feel like maybe your employer didn’t make a mistake in hiring you. This was true for me in my job as a … Continue reading 7 months at my new job
“Never get angry,” the Don had instructed. “Never make a threat. Reason with people.” The word “reason” sounded so much better in Italian, ragione, to rejoin. — Mario Puzo, The Godfather I’ve read a number of business and professional development books. Many spend the first half telling you how awesome the book is going to be … Continue reading The three best books I’ve read for work
As a writer and a power user of WordPress.com, landing a job with Automattic and supporting the WordPress.com blogging software was a dream come true. In addition to helping users learn how to publish their content on their own personal sites, I also got to spend my days writing. At the end of my 3.5-year tenure … Continue reading Forging a career path… through blogging
I had to laugh Monday on my first day of work at my new job. I wore my exact same workout clothes, in my exact same office, in my exact same surroundings: our home. Like my former employer, Support Driven is a distributed company. To my family, my work life looks exactly the same: me … Continue reading So far, so good: my first days at Support Driven
How do you say goodbye to your coworkers of 3.5 years when you’re scattered all over the globe and none of you is in the same physical location? Last week, I sent a text to my husband, “My co-leads are going to have going away happy hour (via video) in the evening on Wednesday March … Continue reading Saying goodbye at a distributed company: my final week at Automattic
