Farewell A8c

On Wednesday, my role at Automattic was included in the workforce restructuring which was announced. I was separated from the company.

While I don’t have much to say about how I was separated from Automattic, I have so much gratitude for my time with the company. More than I could ever fit in a single post. Automattic has been a support through some of the biggest transitions of my life. I became a mom, had a second child, stepped fully into being a developer, and moved across the United States. So much would have been drastically different about those experiences without the support of working at Automattic.

More than the support of the company, I am grateful for the connections I have made. There are so many people and precious memories which I have from the last 6 years.

Hobbes welcomed me with open arms and showed me the ropes. I am so thankful for each one of you 🍓 🍓 🍓

Shilling, thank you for welcoming me and raising me up from a baby dev to where I am today. I know I have said most of this to each one of you, already, but I learned so much from you all. Not just how to write code, but how to be a better human. I hope that when you find unintentional easter-eggs, it brings a smile to your face. Thanks for always being willing to go along with my crazy meetup schemes. You were the best for playing along.

There are so many people, teams, and orgs of Automattic that impacted my time there. I wouldn’t be able to name them all without forgetting someone, so I will just stop here.

If I could offer any advice to everyone affected by this change, it would be to only hold on to what serves you. There is a process to grieving, but don’t get stuck in it. Take the good things forward, the lessons, the memories, the connections. Let the rest fall behind you when they aren’t helpful anymore.

So what’s next? My ideation has kicked up a few things:

• Write a novel about a certain dev team which gets sucked into the world of Fae and saves it because writing code isn’t that different from writing spells, right?
• Start an online bartering marketplace and make money selling shipping labels
• Create a meetup consultancy to plan retreats for groups of 5 – 14 people

If your interested in staying in touch, feel free to contactme[at]jessboctor.com.