Archive for Work
Some assorted life updates: 15 days after my lower back started hurting, it’s feeling a lot better, though still some pain. (No advice, please.) I now have even more sympathy than usual for those of you whose back issues don’t go away. I posted my first post in the local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, […]
Today was kind of emotionally exhausting, but productive. (No advice, please.) Background: Although Google laid me off back in January, I’m still officially an employee until March 31—just an employee who has no responsibilities and no access to anything. (US law requires them to give two months’ notice for this kind of thing, but doesn’t […]
(Wrote the first part of this post on Friday (Jan. 20), and posted it to Facebook. Started the second part later on Friday; finished and posted it on Saturday (Jan. 21).) (This is a long post—nearly 6,000 words. The short version: I’ve been laid off after 18 years at Google; I’m fine; I’m not looking […]
Way back in 2011 or so, I bought two sets of pro-quality bocce balls, paid for by work. My group at work at the time was starting to get into occasionally playing bocce, and I thought it would be nice to have a couple of good sets. So I ordered them and expensed them. Over […]
For our annual tech writer conference at work, I gave a talk about the sixteen-year history of our developer docs style guide; I created the original version of the guide in 2005. The conference had the presenters prerecord their talks this year, so I recorded mine before I went on leave. The people running the […]
Two things about work: 1. I have now gotten approval to work from home permanently. I’ll still go in to the office now and then to see colleagues, as appropriate, but most of the time, I can stay home. I know that lots of people hate working from home, and y’all have my sympathies. (As […]
This week at work was our annual mini-conference for tech writers from all across the company, called Burning Pen. It’s usually one of the high points of my work year, mostly because it’s really nice to get to hang out with colleagues who I like but don’t see often enough. The talks are often good […]
Today was complicated. (Wrote this post late Wednesday night, posted it Thursday morning. In this post, today means Wednesday.) On the one hand, I was super anxious. Higher anxiety levels than I’ve had in a long time. I wouldn’t call it a panic attack exactly, but very very stressful. On the other hand—partly because of […]
As of today, I’ve been employed by Google for fifteen years. As I’ve written on past anniversaries, I had never previously stayed at any one company for more than five years. And when I started at Google, it wasn’t a very good fit. (For example, at the time, I liked to refer to the company […]
The long-planned official blog post about the editorial style guide that I own/maintain at work has finally gone live, as...
(Sumana pointed out recently that I've been remiss in updating this blog lately. I'll try and post a catchup entry...
I recently remembered something that happened when I was being interviewed for my current job, back in 2004: I think...