Axoplasm❦

I get “networked” a lot, especially now that I’m working at Mercy Corps (which is a really great place to work). Similarly, a lot of people come to me with leads: “do you know any Drupal developers?” That kind of thing. I’ve been joking that I should start a referral service.

I never turn away the opportunity to help someone who wants to use me for these purposes. Never. If you want to “network” me, send me an email. The address is [my first name] @ [this domain].

I get most of my work through either my reputation or through friends, and I almost never need to show off my portfolio. The more I give, the more I get in return. Not usually in a tit-for-tat sense, but maybe more generally in karmic sense. It seems that, professionally at least, I receive in proportion to what I give.

I’ve typed a lot of emails with job advice, and advice about life at Mercy Corps. I like giving advice, probably more than most people like receiving it. So, for the sake of efficiency, I’ve compiled those emails here.

Job advice for recent grads

(Excerpted from emails to recent college grads)

Spend a lot of time on fun creative projects. If you can get known for a cool website about Godzilla movies or a Banksy-style public art stunt, that gives you some name recognition. I once hired a junior designer in part because she managed several fansites. It demonstrated she enjoyed creating things, even if they weren’t related to her life as a designer. At a minimum you should blog, put photos on Flickr, and put your sketchbook online.

Make your portfolio, not your resume, the center of your job application. (Non-creatives: make a portfolio! Show off what you did not where you worked.)

Put. Your. Portoflio. Online. Blogspot, WordPress, or Flickr are fine if you don’t want to make your own website.

Apply for senior level jobs, stuff that’s way above you. I did this successfully once and actually got the job. Even if you don’t get it, someone will probably look at your portfolio. So when a junior level job opens up, they’ll be thinking of you already. I’ve been involved twice in hiring designers who applied for Art Director-level jobs. They didn’t have the experience to handle clients but they had such strong books we created positions for them.

Networking doesn’t just mean business contacts or people who will give you jobs. I look at it as socializing. Having drinks with friends is networking, if you all work in the same business.

If you have a job lead show it to all your classmates. In the long run this will serve you better than holding leads close to your chest. I have a large group of designer/developer/marketing friends. We share leads all the time and often scoop them from one another but now we are all busy all the time.

Do favors, give stuff away, show how your work is done. The Internet economy rewards sharing. Designers and marketers are lousy at this for whatever reason but programmers do it all the time and respect non-programmers who think that way.

Don’t just apply at agencies. Lots of software companies and small businesses have occasional needs for designers.

Freelance. Work for free if you have to but don’t call it that. Present a bill but discount it 100%. Friends in bands, coffee shops, dogsitting ... all those people need websites, flyers, youtube ads, whatever. Errol Morris called this the “best commercial ever made” and I think it was a side project for the filmmakers. Make something like this and people will be begging you to work for them.

Working at Mercy Corps

(Excerpted from emails to people looking for advice on whether to apply for work here)

This is the best job I’ve had after I left archaeology 11 years ago. It’s also the longest I’ve EVER held a job (three years this month.)

I work in Internet Marketing; we generate our own budget which is a key distinction from other places at Mercy Corps. I’ll describe my work environment but it won’t exactly be everyone’s work environment.

We have a crazy lean team for the size of website we have: one designer (me), one developer, one social media marketer, and two writers. We’re adding another marketer and a developer. I have daily live-to-production deliverables, often several a day. So it’s an immensely productive environment. I probably produce/deliver 3–4 times as much as I did working at agencies, dot-coms, or software shops. Despite which I somehow manage to work 8-hour days on pretty much my own schedule, and almost never late nights or weekends. (Except during a large-scale disaster like the Haiti Earthquake.)

It’s also a family-positive (downright wholesome) work environment: compared to agency life it’s OK to leave early for daycare runs and there aren’t any late-night drunkfests at the local strip club. My coworkers are mainly earnest do-gooder milk-drinker types (like me). Lots of yoga bodies, Peace Corps veterans, bike commuters and homebrewers.

Compared to the for-profit world the amount of office politics and drama is much lower. Not nonexistent certainly but there are fewer of those barriers to producing good work. Because we must meet very lean overhead standards the emphasis is almost always “will it work/is it sufficient?” not “does this satisfy some political goal?” In my group we frequently launch projects and rev them on production after they generate (internal) feedback; this is “agile” I suppose but also veers close to “beg forgiveness not ask permission.”

We have an awesome new building in a great location.

We are our own clients, so we own all our work and eat all our own dog food. We almost never launch something then walk away from it; we see everything we do every day.

All of our work is held to high ethical standards (basically: no lying) which is a double-edged sword. I believe in what we do which has a wonderful clarifying effect, and I was tired of the ethical compromises I felt I was making in for-profit marketing. But on the other hand, we are marketing and fundraising; the dollars matter. We have no product and thus no demand creation. We can only sell our story, we can’t stretch the truth, and we have a fraction the budget a for-profit marketing team would have. Programs staff (i.e. those people who work with our clients/beneficiaries) may get a “helping other people all day” warm fuzzy feeling, but the fundraising team doesn’t feel it. I’ve written elsewhere about how frustrating this can be.

Dave Moulton writes:

Pro-cycling change is happening all over the US, and I believe it is partly because of this change that the non cycling public is kicking against it; people don’t like change.

This is probably true but I think it's more than just fear of change driving anti-bike hatred. I think there's an element of cognitive dissonance or outright denial. No one thinks oil is getting cheaper; consider then that our prosperity is built entirely upon it. It's scary to confront the likelihood that our Happy Days are limited. We are entering a future where everything but physical labor will get more expensive; any contraption that makes physical labor more productive (e.g. bikes), will serve us well in that future.

Big issues like energy aside, there's a personal aspect of cognitive dissonance: living a bikey lifestyle is cheaper, easier, happier and healthier. My commute is a bike ride through the woods. It costs nothing and makes me skinnier. I have a stronger heart than men half my age, despite a steady diet of donuts and beer.

I've run the numbers on this many times. By maintaining only one car my family saves about $6000/year. I burn 2500-3000 extra calories a week. And it's fun.

From my perspective, the only reason everyone doesn't live like this is because they are cognitively blocked from imagining the possibility. I'm not athletic or tough or outdoorsy. I just ride my bike to work. I've been told to my face that my lifestyle is impossible. Impossible! How then do I live it?

If I saw someone just like me living a better life for less money ... how would that make me feel?

Update, 1:15 pm PDT

Obviously not everyone can ride their bike everywhere all the time; some people have physical conditions that prevent them from doing so.

I also don’t mean to imply that non-bikey people are lazy; for the record I think all people are lazy, just in different ways. (For example: one of the reasons I ride bikes everywhere is because they are much easier to maintain than cars. I’m really lazy about getting our car serviced.)

I honestly believe that more people would ride their bikes more often, but fail to imagine their own lives ordered in such a way that it’s easy, convenient, or pleasant.

Iris has kind of been the Big News around here the past 10 days so it’s easy to overlook what the other Souders kid is doing in that span. Stuff like: eliminating somewhere other than inside his diaper. Mastering the scoot bike. Skinning his elbow and not crying. Playing alone in his room for half an hour. Buying, and wearing — at his own insistence — a backpack, and shoes with laces. Taking showers not baths. Learning his first mildly colorful song (“I’m Popeye the sailor man/I live in a garbage can/I eat all the worms/and spit out the germs”). Swearing (“oh Geez!”)

He also insists I dress like him (same color shirts, mostly) which, I must say, has actually improved my sartorial presentation.

That’s just in the last two weeks. Maybe it’s the lack of one-on-one Mommy time; maybe I’m just a lazy parent who wants to make his son carry his own backpack; maybe it’s having a little sister; maybe it’s just his brain hit a sudden maturation phase coincidentally at the moment of Iris’ birth. I dunno.

Tantrums of course have taken a sharp upswing too, but I’m impressed at his occasional rationality. Sometimes we can actually reason him out of a tantrum. Not often, but it happens.

Parents with older kids always say crap like “pay close attention to the first years, they go so fast.” Those parents are right. A month ago we had a toddler and in a few more months we’ll have a preschooler. Our nights of cuddling at bedtime are limited.

Iris Elizabeth Souders, born July 11, 2010. 7lbs, 6oz. 20" long. Ten fingers, ten toes, a full head of hair.

Jenny & Iris are sleeping, Orion is out with Grandma Ellen, I finally got five hours sleep. Some random thoughts in this short pause.

This labor was completely. Different. Than last time. Saturday I said to Jenny, "that baby's coming tonight." But we went about a mostly-usual Saturday, except I insisted on running errands and watching Orion all day. (Sidebar: we went bike riding and he actually rode his bike. Like both feet off the ground. This no-pedals thing works.) I gave O his bath and put him to bed as usual, which in our case means we fall asleep together in his bed and then about an hour later I creep downstairs. But Jenny woke me early in his bed: "I'm having contractions." There was nothing tenative about it, they were hitting hard and close together.

With Orion, the first inkling was her water breaking, followed by 15 hours of sloooowly building labor, ending with a teriffying rush into surgery.

With Iris, there was barely time to think; so somehow more focused and lucid. Jenny couldn't sit in the car, her pain was too great. She kind of crouched over the infant seat in back while I drove exactly the speed limit to OHSU. Her first words at the ER were: "get me an epidural."

Of course, they can't just shoot opiates into the spinal fluid of any random person who walks into the ER. It took maybe 90 minutes to get the epidural, by which point she was probably fully dilated and within an hour she started pushing.

As luck would have it, Jenny's usual Ob-Gyn was on call that night. So we had one doctor (OUR doctor, importantly) and one nurse for the entire experience. It was significantly less terrifying. Orion's arrival spanned two shift changes; that experience was attended by a parade of strangers.

But as with her brother, baby Iris presented backward and Jenny (despite pushing with an intensity that impressed even the seasoned L & D nurse) couldn't get her past the final curve. And, as with Orion, Iris' heartrate spiked and she started to show signs of distress. Jenny, very lucidly, put forward that Iris was the most important factor in this experience, and she was "open to whatever would be best for her."

The C-section was magnitudes less terrifying than with Orion. Orion's c-section was ordered by a doctor who had just come on rounds, and had dreadful bedside manner. The staff had no idea what to do with me that time and I spent half an hour sitting on a folding chair in scrubs, shaking and near tears. This time, waiting for Jenny's prep, I got kind of bored.

Cesarian deliveries have a kind of mysterious poetry. There's a long sequence of surgery where mom's health is paramount. Staff talk in hushed, professional tones, just like during surgeries on TV. All this happens behind a kind of screen. On the other side is Mom and Dad and the anaethesiologist. In both experiences, our best friend was the anaethesiologist. S/he stands right next to mom's head during the delivery and can narrate what's happening if Dad's too squeamish to watch. I tried.

Then with a sudden rush of activity the baby emerges. She is perfectly shaped, shiny purple and screaming, covered with cheese and ectoplasm. A being from another world. The pediatricians and nurses put her on a warming table and start doing Apgars or whatever.

Because the mother is immobile, fathers are extra-important during a c-section. We have to be comforting. We help wash off the cheese and ectoplasm. We get to hold the baby first, and give her to mom. We go from being well-intentioned supercargo to vital team members.

36 hours with Iris and I realize kids are all different. They come out different. Based on a sample size of 1 I used to say things "babies are like this" or "newborns are like that." It's really clear that "Orion was like this" and "Orion was like that." Iris is different.

Where Orion struggled to eat, Iris won't stop. Orion barely reacted to the world, Iris shows a keen interest in anything near her face. Where Orion cried, unprovoked and inconsolable, Iris only cries when something bugs her and shuts up when it stops. Where Orion slept fitfully for 20 or 30 minute periods, we have have to wake up Iris to eat. Where Orion liked tight swaddling and lying on his back, Iris likes her hands near her face, and sleeping on Jenny's chest. Where Orion could barely lift his arms, Iris can move her head (!) and kick off her socks. (She is, in fact, very strong).

The corollary here is kind of keen too. As a newborn, Orion was fussy and collicky, fragile and indifferent to people. But as a toddler he's adventurous and empathetic, rugged and outgoing. Kids come out different but they don't end up the way they come out I guess. He was a "difficult newborn" but he's an "easy toddler." Iris might be the other way around, or a totally different configuration, who knows? One day isn't very long to know a person.

So I did something really extreme. I took all the cyclometers off my bikes. Lemme ’splain.

I’ve been going a little nuts lately. Like “sudden flashes of violent emotion” nuts. Waiting for our little girl to hurry up and get born is making me crazy. Not just the waiting but a kind of mounting pressure that I will shortly be the sole breadwinner for a family of four.

But I can’t entirely blame that, although I certainly feel a little buried by my life lately.

I have dozens of “projects” hanging around: bike “training” of dubious necessity; bicycle improvement projects; web stuff I want to build & learn; work projects that have no ROI but enormous future-proofing potential; home improvement stuff; landscaping stuff. Projects. But I’m not 24 any more, hell I’m not 34 any more. My energy for “projects” is nil.

But it isn’t entirely a lack-of-energy thing either, although I sleep never and have free time less. (By way of illustration: I have more time to take showers at work than at home.)

The thing of it is, I have goals and hopes and aspirations. Lots of them: big (“new backyard”), small (“paint backdoor“), vague (“learn more Django”), specific (“ride bike 100mi/wk.”). When I have a hope or a goal: I’m stretching to attain. There’s a gap between the state I’m in and the state I wish I were in. It’s this gap that’s really driving me nuts; it has always driven me nuts. Difference is, when I was 24 (or 34!) I could turn that nuts energy into action, and get stuff done. When I was 24 it drove me to learn and build web things. When I was 34 it drove me (us, rather) to move to China and learn Chinese.

That I never actually finished these projects is immaterial. It felt good to have them going, to make progress, to aspire to something. But these days the weight of obligation — a wife and dog and kids and mortgage to feed — pretty much nullifies the energy overage I could always tap for projects.

The Buddha’s second noble truth is that suffering arises from craving. We suffer in proportion to the amount we desire. I always knew but never understood this; because I desired so little, and because I had surplus ego. Before 2008 or so, my life was pretty much entirely about me. But now I am (and, by extension, my projects are) the least important thing in my life. Ego is now in seriously short supply.

And, to add to the suffering, one of my longtime desires is for a simpler life. But living an uncomplicated life without furniture or a credit score is just capital NOT going to happen (see: wife, kids, dog, mortgage). Think how perverse this is: what I want is nothing and what I have is abundance. Thus I suffer.

Which brings me back to the cyclometers.

Last week I checked out a cyclist’s training manual. I’ve been shopping for GPS/heart-rate monitors. It worried me that some of my mileage is “off the books” — because does a mile count if a cyclometer doesn’t register it? And then there’s the 70 or so bicycle-related blogs and Twitter accounts I read every day. My bike love was finding expression in numbers. This weekend I had a beautiful ride over Parrett Mountain and the Chehelem hills; but I was stressed that it was “short miles” (only 43!) and I was too slow (only 15.9mph!). I had let the desire for attainment overwhelm the joy of riding. If I’m ever going to let go of all that desire, the bikes are a good place to start. Because it should be possible to experience joy (“whee, I’m on a bike!”) without desire (“...but I’m only going 15.9mph!”). Quit counting. Be here now. Obsess less, ride more.