Category: Life in Happiness

Have you ever wondered whether you’d ever find a job that was the right fit? Where you’d be able to open your computer and, instead of dread, unhappiness, and a sense of being weighed down, feeling good about being there and excited about digging into your workday?

I used to suffer from those same negative feelings… After a long commute, I’d sit outside my workplace in my car, building up the energy to go in. My uniform was crinkly and had sharp edges, taking a huge percentage of mental energy already. I knew I’d have to deal with the panel lighting causing me actual pain; the corridor conversations that didn’t seem to make sense or that I’d mishandle; the barrage of questions and diversions preventing me from reaching my desk and beginning to transition into my workday. I’d try to switch on ‘work mode’ and survive until I could get somewhere silent, alone, and dark to recharge; then work to gather strength to do another few hours, negotiating with conversations and what they might mean; peering through a sensory hurricane while all the time, pushing down and away all my discomfort.

I was diagnosed autistic as an adult, and until I started work at Automattic, I’d honestly started to think I just had to spend all my working life profoundly unhappy. But here, I’ve found a job that gives me a way to participate in this world, be a useful and worthwhile contributor to my team and the company, and, above all, play a truly impactful role, helping people all around the world. That’s honestly life-changing.

Here, I work from home, in my hoodie and socks (I’ve mentioned these before!). I have the desk, chair, keyboard, lighting and sound environment exactly how I need them. I’m free to choose my own hours in advance. If I need to go to a therapy session or medical appointment, I can. If I need extra help or support to make it possible for me to travel to a meetup, I work with my HR rep to set that up. I don’t have to bargain and wrangle to make the workplace work for me, because Automattic already thinks about the workplace in terms of inclusivity. 

And with Automattic’s flexible approach to career development and opportunities, I’ve been able to prove myself in multiple ways that were not always available to me at prior jobs. Here, because we are 100% distributed and my physical environment is conducive to my comfort and growth, I’ve been in a position to flourish, and to demonstrate the skills and aptitudes that mean I became an onboarding specialist, a team lead, and then moved into a leadership development consultancy rotation, all within my first two years.

Automattic’s UK entity made this commitment to being an inclusive workplace ‘official’ recently when we became Disability Confident Committed. This means that we’ve made certain promises both to our current colleagues and to future hires, that we will continue to work on our own culture and policies to make sure our workplace is diverse and inclusive of people with disabilities. We’ve done lots of work here already, one of which is forming Resource Groups including Neurodiverseomattic and the Physical Disability ARG, which provide support, advocacy, and resources, both within Automattic and in the wider community. One example of this work is our post, How to Be a Neurodiversity Ally. We’ve also recently been certified as a Most Loved Workplace. 

As we continue along our journey with DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging), we’re also striving to increase the visibility of underrepresented groups, champion inclusion worldwide, and work towards being a leader in this space. It makes me proud and excited to work here and play a part in such a positive project.

Working at an inclusive workplace isn’t a panacea. I can still struggle with communication, such as giving appropriate levels of detail or interpreting ambiguity, and a complicated interaction costs spoons. I still have to think very hard to parse sarcasm or interpret someone’s body language, or, due to auditory processing issues, to keep up during a group video call. It’s not perfect. But I work as part of the company’s DEI committee to continue increasing understanding and acceptance. For me, that means that increasing numbers of my colleagues know and welcome me as I am (neurodivergent, but belonging), rather than conditionally, and put things in place to help me when I have challenges. I give that back by helping and lifting up others who may be misunderstood, disempowered, or marginalized, whether that’s in the workplace or in wider society.

In 2021, we created the following statement inspired by our creed as an overarching guide for how we approach this work: I will strive to create inclusive spaces along my journey and intentionally seek out different perspectives. If you’re thinking about applying to work here, do it! Perhaps yours will be the next new perspective we gain, and that enriches us all.

Here at Automattic, we have been doing this work-from-home thing for a long time now. This was actually how I found out about the Happiness Engineer position. My family is kind of spread out across three different continents, and I felt like working from home would help me spend more time with them, see my nieces grow up, and also explore the world. 

That said, while I started looking for a remote position because of the flexibility it offers, looking back to the past four years I noticed there are so many more benefits and perks to working remotely. I have learned a few surprising things I would like to share with you. 

1 – The time you save because of the commute. 

Ok, this is not surprising at all. It’s actually kind of obvious, but I believe cliches are cliches for a reason and this is a wonderful one, so bear with me for a while. I got 360 hours/year back. This is if you don’t count all the subway delays and snowstorms. It’s amazing what you can do with this time. Don’t get me wrong, commuting is not all bad. I used the time I was on the subway to read. But sometimes I was not in the mood to read or the subway was too crowded and I had to stand all the way from home to work. 

I’m a morning person. I wake up early naturally, so I keep waking up at the same time as before (around 5:00 AM), start working around 6:00 AM, and I’m done by 2:00 PM. That alone is an awesome thing. But I now also have time to skype with my sister, nieces, and brother in law who are 6 hours ahead of me in Europe. I have more time to exercise, cook my own food, or do absolutely nothing while I listen to music if I want to. Also, I was able to buy a house outside the city where it’s way cheaper because I don’t need to commute anymore. 

2 – I can control my own environment

During the pandemic, I have heard from a lot of people that working from home can be chaotic or lonely. I have also read many articles about the same issues and I have to say they bug me a little bit. Working from home during this horrible time cannot be compared to a true work-from-home experience. Working from home in pre-pandemic time meant I got to stay at home in my office if I knew I was going to need peace and quiet. I could control the room temperature, the amount of light (Do I want my blinds open or closed? Lights on or off?), and the noise level (Do I want to work in complete silence, listen to Beethoven or Heavy Metal?). Or maybe I would work from a cafe by the lake if I wanted to see people. Or simply ping a colleague on Slack (our internal communication tool) and work together with them. It meant taking a flight to New York City to visit my colleagues and friends from work so we could work together. As long as there’s a wifi connection or a good data plan, I am in charge of my environment. Is the coffee house too noisy for my taste? I can relocate and work from a park instead. 

3 – Communication is Oxygen 

Being part of a distributed or remote organization means you need to focus on your communication skills. This is actually part of our creed: I will communicate as much as possible because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. So we do. We are constantly sharing what we are working on, what is on our mind, our successes and our struggles, when we get stuck, and when we need help. And one thing I heard (actually I read because most of our communication here is done through Slack) from a friend is to always assume good intentions. It can be really difficult to read the tone of a conversation via text. To help with that, we often use emojis and gifs, but misunderstandings can happen, and assuming the person on the other side of the screen meant well helps because the vast majority of times they really did mean well. Also, be kind.

Here we communicate not only about work. We have several Slack channels about many different topics. Our watercooler channels range from fitness to Harry Potter, which helps to connect people who have shared interests. We also have a tool that pairs you with a random person from the organization so you can chat and get to know each other. This helps with networking within the company and bonding between colleagues in general. 

4 – Collaboration is everything

Continuing the topic above, having the right tools to enable your team to collaborate is extremely important. Google docs is a tool we use often, but we also use our very own P2 blogging System, which is a fantastic way to keep everyone in the loop and share information between team members, different teams in the division, or even the entire company, plus the information does not get lost in anyone’s inboxes. It’s there for anyone to access in a very organized and collaborative way.

5 – You need to take care of yourself

To be honest, Automattic makes this part pretty easy for us. We really care about not only our customers but also our employees. The company is regularly reviewing and revisiting our goals and what can be done to support us in the best way. However, there’s one side of this situation that depends on us. We must understand our own limits and try to disconnect completely from work after we are done working. All of these are things you should be mindful of. You are not physically in the company’s office. Your lead is not actually seeing that you closed your computer and went home. So as much as the company effectively works to build an environment where you can close your computer and disconnect when you are done, it’s really easy to overwork. So you need to do your part as well and know when to stop working. 

So, having a “time to go home” ritual once you are done working actually helps to disconnect. I close my computer, change into my gym clothes, and go exercise. It can be going for a run, bike ride, or using the rowing machine in the basement. Any kind of physical activity helps my brain to understand that I’m done with work from that moment on. 

Contrary to what some say, most people do not need to be in the office to be productive. There are a few skills that are good to have and you need to be able to focus and motivate yourself. Maybe you need to be more organized and work on your time management skills but in general, it can be a lot easier than you think. If you feel you are ready to start the journey into the Remote Work World, take a look into our open positions. We are hiring!

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Interested in becoming a Happiness Engineer at Automattic? Visit the Work with Us page to learn more about how you can express your interest!

Every Happiness Engineer has a different type of day, schedule, tasks, etc. That’s one benefit I love so much about my position… I work when it is best for me and my family! The flexibility is very important to me, as it is lots of people.

Personally I choose to work most weekends and take weekdays off. We are homeschooling our kids this year, so it works best for us to be available to help them on weekdays. I also choose to start my work day between 5am – 6am. I like to get a few hours in before the kids wake up to start their day — and who can beat waking up and not having to get dressed before your work day starts?! I often start each day in my pj’s wrapped up in my blanket. Especially in the Winter, I am beyond thankful that my commute is downstairs to my laptop.

I really enjoy being able to work with co-workers in all time zones, Oceana/Pacific, Europe/Africa and the Americas. This early schedule has helped me to create some great relationships with Happiness Engineers all over the world.

As a Happiness Engineer we have a scheduling tool called Happy Schedule. Each week we each add in the hours that we can work for the week. We are expected to add 8 hours that we are available to work to each day, but those hours can be anytime throughout the day. They can be added all in one chunk of time or you can add some hours in the morning, some at night, etc.

After your hours are added, a Scheduler will assign you up to 6 hours of direct customer support based on when you said you were available to work. This is a mix of live chat and ticket shifts. When you are not working in support, there are other things you can do such as reading internal blogs, learning, doing some work in one of our many Guilds that you can join, etc.

Not only do you add the hours that you want to work each week, you also add your 2 chosen days off to each week. Every 4 weeks you are expected to work up to 2 weekend days, but you get to choose which weekend days and when on those days you want to work. When you want to take vacation, a sick day, a holiday day off, etc., that can also be requested through the same tool.

In the Summer, I will often work split shifts on weekdays and weekends. I put in 4 hours in the morning and then spend the afternoon at the beach enjoying the sun. I then come home, make supper and work my remaining 4 hours. In the Winter season, I tend to work more of a condensed schedule to be off in the late afternoon / evenings. I like changing it up depending on what is going on in life, the weather, how I feel, etc. You can work a different schedule each week if that is something that you desire or the same hours every day all year, totally up to you!

Having a larger family makes flexibility so important to me. I really like that I can work my schedule around my life. It makes taking the kids to appointments, traveling and other activities hassle free! Working from home is amazing.

You can never be lonely either since we communicate through a program called Slack and you always have co-workers to reach out to to talk about your day, your life, ask questions to, etc. And the amount you will learn about other cultures is endless! Did I mention you can work from anywhere? All you need is your laptop and the internet.

Does this sound like a position you would love? My husband Sandy wrote a blog a few years back that really can take you through what you need to know / do to become a Happiness Engineer. Check it out!

We are hiring right now, so take a look at some more info on becoming a Happiness Engineer! You can read find instructions for applying here.

Part of working with a distributed team, like the one at Automattic, includes communicating with co-workers on video calls. 

Even though most of our communication is asynchronous and my teammates are in different countries, I can still see and hear them thanks to video conferencing. 

Once a week I have a meeting with other members of my team using the Zoom video conferencing app. I also have other meetings relating to projects I’m working on, and on occasion, also lead webinars for customers.

Communicating over video calls is incredibly important for team building, bonding, and problem solving. When we can’t be together in person, video is the next best thing since you can still hear someone and see their facial expressions and gestures. You get a better idea of their communication style and tone of voice and get a better picture of the person behind that email address or username. Video, however, is not perfect!

You’ve probably participated in a video call where someone was talking to the group, but they were facing away from the camera. Or saw someone in a dark room and couldn’t see their lips move. Or perhaps you’ve seen someone who was positioned far away from the camera and it made them look small and not interested in what was being discussed during the call. Not ideal when you’re trying to connect and communicate as effectively as possible.

Aware that I could do better I attended a workshop called “Better on Video” where I learned some very useful tips. Not surprisingly I learned that it’s all about the camera and how you interact with it in order to make others on the call feel like you are communicating directly with them.

Establishing eye contact is key. Make sure that whoever is on the other side feels you’re talking to them, and not to a camera positioned in an odd place. As you know, this also applies to interactions IRL (in real life). 

One good trick here is to position the Zoom app screen directly below the camera on your laptop or monitor. When you’re talking, look at and talk to the camera. Those watching you on the call will feel that you’re looking directly at them and – trust me – will notice the difference.

Once you get in the habit of looking at the camera, you can make improvements and fine tune your camera presence. A small change in posture, for example, can make a HUGE difference! 

How can you check your posture when you’re looking at the camera? Record yourself on video. A short 30 second clip of you on a video call can help you evaluate your appearance. 

If your eyes were looking away in that clip try again. Record, watch, re-record, watch, re-record…. you get the point! 

The idea is not to be a perfectionist, but to be aware of the small ways you could improve in and get better over time. 

After feeling more confident about your eye contact on video, you can improve your overall presence by experimenting with many different things that factor in on how you’re showing up on video.

Is there a time of day that you feel more confident in or your voice sounds better? Do you need to add a new lamp, face light, or ring light to your office space so that others can see your expressions more clearly? Does changing your chair help improve your posture? Perhaps standing works best for you? Is the background in your space messy or distracting? Can others see your hands? 

Give yourself time and space to experiment. Find the combinations that work best for you. Over time you’ll improve, communicate more effectively, and make a great impression during video calls. 

If you find this type of remote work appealing, you can learn more about the Happiness Engineer job and find instructions for applying here.

Working from home doesn’t have to be lonely. In fact, many Automatticians have pets to keep them company during the work day. Supporting customers gets a little easier when you have furry companions like these to make you smile during the most unexpected moments. This month we invited our Happiness Engineers to share how having pets around improves their work day.

“Mostly my pets ignore me – but on occasion it’s nice to have Mojo (our dog) curl up under the desk.”

– Jayden, Happiness Engineer in Australia, WordPress.com

Working for a distributed company comes with the added benefit of creating your very own “corner office” outfitted with all the things you enjoy and make a workday better – yes, even having a dog taking a nap under your desk! Talk about the perfect coworkers!

I have a fluffy Pomeranian that is 4 months old – He is always under my desk, next to my feet. Definitely makes my mornings less lonely as I’m the first one to get up in the morning. He always follows me around.

– Laura S., Happiness Engineer in Spain, WordPress.com

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I have two dogs. They particularly lift my mood toward the end of the day when it is close to their dinner time. My border collie will come up and push my arm up into the air whilst I’m typing, making it difficult not to laugh (and also difficult to type!). He’ll also lie down somewhere right next to the chair so I can’t move.

– Karen A., Happiness Engineer in Scotland, Jetpack.com

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Sophie spends the entire day keeping me company. When I’m at my desk, she is relaxing either on my washcloth-covered laptop, or on her kitty bed perched on the corner of the desk. When I’m working from my couch, she is either on curled up my legs or squished under my arm, with her paw outstretched across me.

She makes my days infinitely better, and is the best pandemic companion I could have hoped for!

– Kathryn P., Happiness Engineer in Canada, WordPress.com

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Yes, my chihuahua mix Nica (pictured above) improves my workday. Every morning I say, “time to go work Nica!” She joins me in my office in her office bed, where she spends most of the day snoozing with her fox.

She is the best office companion. Any time I need a quick screen break, she’s there for a cuddle. We also get to enjoy morning, afternoon, and evening walks, which are very important when you’re sitting at your desk most of the day.

I can’t imagine not having her with me all the time, and I’m so grateful to have a job where she can be with me everyday. She also makes people smile when she’s in the background of my Zoom calls!

– Sasha S., Happiness Engineer in USA, WordPress.com

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I have a cat! He makes my day interesting (when he tries to bite through my things), he makes it adorable (when he falls asleep next to my keyboard) and he also makes my days warm and lovely (when he falls asleep on my lap).

– Samantha H., Happiness Engineer in Peru, WordPress.com

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Working from home makes it so much easier to indulge my dog obsession. I currently have a 7-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (Murphy) and am indefinitely fostering a 5-year-old Anatolian Shepherd/Lab mix (Binx). I’ve heard that working remotely can get lonely, but I’ve never experienced that with my fur babies being here with me all day! And there’s no better way to clear your mind mid-day than taking the dog for a walk in the fresh air. Dogs (and cats!) with remote worker parents are some seriously spoiled babies.

– Missy S., Happiness Engineer in USA, WooCommerce

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I have a big family of cats. 3 cats and 5 kittens, to be precise. They’re sweet companions during my work hours, and keep me happy during a long work day. I’m so grateful that I can work from home so I get the chance to take care of them during breaks or after work hours.

– Rina, Happiness Engineer in Indonesia, WordPress.com

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Are you interested in working in customer support for a distributed company? You can read more about the Happiness Engineer role and find instructions for applying here.