i’ve got a job, i explore

After much soul-searching, nail-biting and garment-rending, I have decided to leave my current place of employment and instead go work at Threadless, where they sell t-shirts. At one point in my life, I had a lot of t-shirts, and then my closet literally collapsed under the weight of my clothing (while I was trying to sleep, no less, and let me tell you about how great a sound THAT was to wake up to) and I got rid of a good deal of them. Anyway, the point is, I like t-shirts.

When I started my current job, years and years ago, I didn’t know anything about testing. I didn’t know any programming languages (well, except html, which I have never counted). I didn’t know what an API was. I couldn’t read XML. It took me three months of asking every programmer of my acquaintance (which is a lot, as it turns out) to explain object orientation, and then, as soon as they opened their mouth, saying, “and please do not talk to me about how a cat is an animal object and its feet are the methods, okay, I get it, but I don’t GET IT” before I actually got it. (Was that a functional sentence? I suspect not.) I had never been to Pycon, or thought to myself, “I will automate this soul-crushingly repetitive task and save my sanity” (and, in fact, I sometimes still do not think that way; someone has to remind me), or worked on an open-source project. I’d never been friends with my co-workers, been drunk with them at bars, been invited into their homes for holidays, been inclined to invite them into my own home.

Which is to say: it was a difficult decision, but I feel like it’s the right one. At Threadless, I will be some sort of QA lead, in charge of making your t-shirt-buying experience bug-free and awesome. It scares the shit out of me, because it is a Big Deal. But I’m also really excited, and I think it’s going to be interesting and challenging. The people I spoke to at my interviews were all pretty clearly My People, and they all had a good time doing their jobs, and it felt right. I’m a big fan of going with my gut, even if that does end up with me wandering alone and drenched and starving through foreign countries in the middle of the night, because at least then I have good stories, and so that’s what I decided to do in this case.

If you want my job, let me know! I hear it’s open.

I’ve got a job, I explore / I follow every little whiff / And I want my life to smell like this. And so I do.