Dopp Juice Archive

Coming up on a year of working with Cerado. First time I’ve let a tech contract last that long. And still in love with them.
(via twitter)

Putting together my October invoice for Cerado this morning, I realized this month will mark a year with them.  I’ve been building websites for ten years and living in the Bay Area for four, and this is the first tech contract I’ve let last more than 6 months.

For the last however-many years, I’ve been clinging tightly to the philosophy that if I stay uncomfortable, I’ll grow faster. And I’ve found that shifting jobs every few months is an excellent way to stay uncomfortable. (So is avoiding monogamous relationships, but that’s a can of worms I’ll save for another time.)  I tend to do something for just long enough to learn it, get good at it, and it to my repertoire. Then I arrange for someone else to take my place, and I move on. Why stick around for things to get easy?  I’ve got too much more growing to do.

I’ve been told by various people that at some point, I’ll want to settle down and keep a steady job.  I’ve also been told that I’ll want to get married and have kids.  And that I’ll wish I had my degree.  And that I want to stop working when I’m 65.  And that Pluto’s not really a planet.

That’s nice.

Anyway, my point is: I prefer change to consistency, growth to comfort, and flexibility to structure.  And that’s why I’m still at Cerado.

We do cool stuff, and it’s different every month.   Since being there, I’ve taught airplane mechanics how to use social networking tools; redesigned BlogHer.com; created a monthly newsletter; built a viral online quiz; and managed the development of a new product that’s so fascinating, I’m still not sure I understand it yet (but it works).  It’s kind of like changing jobs every month, only without the “changing jobs” part.

I get to wear all of my hats.  I manage, I write, and I build.  Most firms would probably prefer that I pick one of those and do it consistently. Cerado, on the other hand, thinks it’s pretty cool that I jump around and do whatever I want to do on a project.  When I get to a spot where I need more help, I pick the thing I’m least experienced with and ask Chris to go hire someone for it.  So far, this strategy seems to be working just fine.

I get to do all my other cool stuff, too.  I’m not quite sure how I pulled this one off, but I seem to have landed in a company that thinks the more I do outside of it, the more valuable I am.  So I travel and go to conferences as often as I can, and I just take my work with me on the plane.  Even more miraculously, though, they’re incredibly supportive of my adventures in queerdom and sex geekery, and I’m getting lots of encouragement to make Genderfork, Queer Open Mic, and Boffery successful. This blows my mind.

I get to work with amazing mad geniuses. Hanging out with Chris Carfi and Mark Resch (and all of the other mad geniuses they tend to attract for lunch meetings) has created frequent surges of brilliance and a constant reminder to think.  Example: In the middle of a meeting one afternoon, Mark made a casual comment about something that would make his life easier.  He and Chris immediately jumped on the idea and started working out all the details for how they could design that product and bring it to production within a month.  Five minutes later, they were back on track with the meeting.  I blinked a few times, shook my head, and carried on.

So in case you were wondering why I’m still hanging out with this strange posse, it’s because they’re a perfect fit.

I’m doing two things right now that feel a little… strange.  One is that I’m spending days on end by the bedside of my dying grandmother, holding her hand and carefully watching her body shut down.  The other is that I’m writing about it in real-time.  On the Internet.

My grandmother, Sarah “Sally” Dopp (they gave me her name but not her nickname) is going to die soon. The fact that she hasn’t yet is shocking. She’s come really close. Twice.

The first was Friday afternoon, when my mother called me to say they had stopped her chemo and dialysis treatments, and that she was dying. The doctors didn’t think she’d last a few hours, let alone the whole night.  They were in New Hampshire, I was in San Francisco, and the only bookable flights I could find were red-eyes that would get me there at 6am.  I panicked, packed anyway, and shot a message out to twitter:

sarahdopp: Grandma’s dying. I need a flight from SFO or OAK to BOS or MHT *right now*. Cant find anything that lands before 6am tomorrow. Can you? Help

I was flooded with messages. More sites to check, tips on how to approach and talk to airlines at the last minute, offers of frequent flier miles, specific research on possible flights, offers to help raise funds to pay for the expensive last minute ticket, ideas for other airports I could fly into, echoes to broader networks of people, and messages of love and support. A few people even started calling airlines on my behalf, asking which flights were already booked and what my other options were.

A dear friend got to my apartment as soon as she could and drove me to the airport. I spent the ride checking messages and calling people, trying to narrow down what airline would be the most likely solution. For each possible flight someone had found for me, I only had a window of 15-30 minutes to buy the ticket and board the plane.  I ran. I got a direct flight. It landed me in Boston at 10:25pm.

I would not have gotten there on Friday without your help.

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Running to the warm night beach before the sky loses all of its pink and the water fades from sapphire to black. 8:52pm

I found magic, and its tide is up. 8:53pm

Standing here alone. I’ve never seen the SF ocean so gorgeous. Want to share it. It smells like sushi. I have no camera. You’re missing it. 8:59pm

Right now, I get it. We’re building all these tools so we can connect everything because connection is the only way anything feels right. 9:02pm

I’m standing feet firm in the sand, dumbstruck that i’m talking to people who have no idea how this air feels, and that I can’t change that. 9:09pm

And at the same time, this conversation puts this experience into my narrative. Because you’re listening, I will remember this. 9:11pm

Our stories are stronger when others interact with them. I can spend entire days alone because I’ve created an audience that isn’t here. 9:17pm

I feel like my reality is changing in a direction I have too much control over. If my experience is so explicitly narrated, my ego owns me. 9:26pm

The sky and the water are both dark grey blue now, both highlighted with specks and streaks of white. But you only know cuz i’m telling you. 9:32pm

If I stand on my tiptoes and sink my feet in deep, the sand is still warm from the heat today. Even tho my head is getting cold from wet air 9:43pm

I’m still here. If you were here, you’d stay, too. But maybe only cuz I’d tell you why you should. I live-narrate meaning in meatspace, too. 10:00pm

Ok, so I don’t have more control. I just have a stronger filter on my perceptions because I have more tools to narrate and frame experience. 10:03pm

And I’ve totally disregarded my self-censoring limits on reasonable twitter frequency and intimacy tonight… making this even more surreal. 10:10pm

Before I walk away, you should know that the waves are moving like that nylon parachute you stood around in gym class and made ripples with. 10:14pm

That’s all. 10:14pm