Return-Path: Received: from [192.168.2.9] (ip5657c407.direct-adsl.nl. [86.87.196.7]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id l67sm22881593wmf.11.2016.02.03.11.51.44 for (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:51:44 -0800 (PST) From: Raphael 'kena' Poss Subject: The conversations that could/should have happened earlier To: team@cockroachlabs.com Organization: Cockroach Labs Message-ID: <56B25A4F.8030105@cockroachlabs.com> Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 14:51:43 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi guys, this email is long overdue but... as these things usually go, better late than never :) So here I am. I'm your new colleague from abroad! You've seen me in NYC but I don't think I told you about my situation in NL yet. I think writing is useful: you will have less opportunities to hear this from me during lunches or outings, so let's be upfront, and this way you can picture me better in your mind when I'm not at the NY office and until we get some kind of telepresence going on. First the obvious: we have 6 hours difference! I get up 6 hours earlier than you, in the early hours of your night. This means that eventually I will try to leave you during the day around 2pm unless there is a meeting afterwards (like on Tuesdays). But for the time being, I am putting extra hours in my evening so that we spend more time together everyday. My values: - I am a staunch defender free speech and freedom to think and tinker. Also it's important to me that things are open to outsiders, because as an ex-outsider to a lot of things I owe a lot to openness and equal opportunity. I'll always rather deal with a cheap or shitty open standard than a expensive or shiny closed technology. For example I still promote IRC and XMPP and I despise Apple and Facebook for teaching the next generation to accept walled gardens without asking questions. That's also why I don't like Slack too much. I give my money to the EFF and am a member of the Dutch Pirate party. - I believe in redemption. I don't do forgiveness and neither retaliation; instead I make things good by giving and expecting sufficient personal investment towards a better future, and believing that people can change (of their own accord). For example, I will never forgive the shitty behavior of Microsoft in the 90's but I am OK with the company they have become and very OK with how Bill Gates is spending his ill-earned money. - I live by and promote the idea you can generate value and meaning in your life by the act of sharing. Working "Open Source" is not only a work strategy that collectivizes investment; it's also a life philosophy that suits me at an emotional level. - I believe that broadcast TV and broadcast advertisement rots your brain and that the world would be a better place without either. - I believe that teachers, librarians, journalists and philosophers / spiritual guides are the foundations of society. I can explain that one next time we have a drink together. About circumstances. When I am working with you, I do so either from my home office or from my university office. About the latter, here are two things I want to share here. About this university office. You could (and should!) ask how come I still have an office there. First of all I still have a teaching assignment there the coming four months (feb-may) so I will be giving lectures 2 times per week during that time. I really love teaching. A lot. Note that I discussed this with Spence prior to me being hired and this was OK, that will be my own little way to spend "free fridays" (the teaching will be happening outside of NY office hours so no conflict). Also the university has provided me an unpaid guest position so that I could still be available to answer questions there, for the people who took over my previous responsibilities. Also, they are still paying for my work insurance and retirement fund, because I asked them to (I didn't want to deal with the mess that is insurance for an independent contractor). So we could say I am "working at cockroach but officially still affiliated to the university of amsterdam" and I also think that this is going to be an asset to the company. My university office is my favorite so far and the best I've ever had. The university is OK with me working with you from there. I share this 270 sq. feet (25m2) office with just one ex-colleague. We each have a 5"2-wide desk (1.6m) at opposite corners, mine has two plants on it. I sit next to the window -- an entire wall in the room, with view on both the playground 3 floors below, the sky, and a tree line somewhat further. One year ago, I have bought a carpet and two bean bags, and a friend gifted me a couch, so we have our own personal lounge in there that is used every day for naps, quiet study time and sometimes small meetings. I'll try to get you a picture; but you can imagine that this works much better for me than the somewhat cramped conditions in our NYC office. Then there's my home office. This one is about as wide as a NY cockroach desk, and not very deep either. But it's comfy and I get direct daylight from the window behind me, with a view on trees. Not complaining about that. However it's at home, and that kinda sucks. I don't really like working at home, because I feel quite isolated there. But this is the office that allows me to be with you guys when it's afternoon in NYC. So to summarize when it's morning in NYC I'm at the university, usually working with you but sometimes teaching; and when it's in the afternoon in NYC I'm working from home, probably more productive but wondering why I have a shitty social life. In 4 months, this will change: I will work from the university office in my morning (your night) and from my home office in my afternoon (your morning), and you'll see me somewhat less after 2pm, and I'll get a social life back. ;) So all this was about hours and locations. Next to this there's my relationship to the US as a whole. It's a very conflicted relationship. On the one hand you have to understand that I have a background from a lower social class, and a number of personal issues (explained below) would otherwise prevent me from climbing the social ladder by sheer force or projection of personal merit: I can say I owe a lot of who I am to a number of government support structures around me, and I feel that the US is this big place where I'd have been miserable (and where you'd never have met me) if I grew up there. I also assume quite often that the US being like this, and USAmericans liking their country, means that the stereotypical USAmerican would have a hard time letting people like me get a sucessful place in society, assuming instead that I'm a lazy poor who doesn't deserve help. Of course, in my daily life in NL this is not relevant, but it does mean I have serious reservations about coming to live in the US. And on the other hand, some of my best friends are USAmericans or living in the USA, and I *really* want to spend much more time with them than I currently do. So my solution, and that's what you are dealing with now, is to stay a resident of the EU, keep identifying with this and come as often as possible to the US trying to ignore everything there other than the special relationships I have with some specific friendly individuals (like you guys!) And I'm ok with not gtting some of your employee benefits, if that means I get financial support from cockroach to come and visit you more often. And then I was mentioning issues. For one, I've had serious health issues in the past, before I got well-paying jobs, when I was poor and without a social network. You've heard about healthcare over here, I know how your healthcare works (or doesn't) when you're poor, I think I need not draw a picture! And I'd be lying if I pretended I am not scared I will become ill again, lose this job and not have much to claim afterwards. That's why salary is much more important to me than stock options, and why I'd rather be saving most of this money and pay back my mortgage (so I have a house when nothing else) instead of moving to the US and start anew with no safety net. Also... (before you read further, please do me a favor, keep your thoughts in check and consider how much of that follows triggers your prejudices, if any. If you think different about me or my abilities after reading this, let's make this an open issue to deal with via friendly conversation.) So as some of you already know I am autistic, albeit "highly functioning". This means I can't deal normally with stuff like body language, social cues, sarcasm, relationships, negotiations, etc. It takes me a very long time in comparison to most of you. In the US culture that would mean my social and emotional life is seriously impaired (USAmericans really have issues dealing with "weird" people, there are definitiely cultural stigma around autism), and this would put a glass ceiling above my head at work because I don't now how to negotiate successfully beyond a certain point. In EU, at least the places where I've been, people base their relationships (personal & work) much less on how you display yourself or how successful you appear to be at the social games, and more on your concrete actions and your personal values. And on those things I'm doing OK. Actually these issues of autism are much less visible/imparing when communicating with people electronically, I made by best friends and lovers over the Internet, and working remotely is actually going to make me better at this job than if I was sitting with you in NYC! Also this specific issue makes me emotionally overwhelmed when there are more than 2-3 people talking around me. That's why I needed headphones often during our DR trip, it's called "tuning out". It's also why I'd probably be rather unhappy staying in an open office with you in NYC all the time, even if short stays like a week are perfectly fine. Over here in the EU, it's still customary to have have smaller offices, or at least with fewer people per room, and that's what I'd need at Cockroach if I come for longer stays. And now I have reached the end of the time slot I had allocated to write this, so let's put a comma on these topics until another occasion. Until then, I'm a happy Roacher! Feel free to ask questions. -- Raphael 'kena' Poss