Soon I will be one of you (necro post)
41My elite status as a Mediocre staff member is coming to an end. This is my last week with the flask icon by my username.
I love it here at Mediocre, and will be forever grateful to my colleagues and this community. I always knew the only thing that could pull me away was a 100% remote position, which would allow me to work from home most days, and otherwise take “working vacations” to travel more and see my family (they are spread out all over the country). At some point after my 20-year high school class reunion and the 10-year anniversary of my first real web development job, I realized maybe it’s time to actually make some effort towards that goal.
So, I started my search. Knowing I was competing against candidates all over the world, I thought of it as “just practice”. I thought it would take a year or more, and that I would have to publish some impressive open source work to get a remote position. It took two months. I was very surprised.
I’m excited to announce that starting March 13th, l’ll be a Software Engineer for O’Reilly Media, working on their safaribooksonline.com platform, helping people educate themselves. I’m certain my experience at Mediocre helped me get hired. I have matured quite a bit as a developer in this position. Meh.com and everything that supports it is the biggest thing I’ve worked on and I’ve learned so much from Shawn.
Will I still buy stuff on meh.com and morningsave.com? Definitely, because now I’m addicted to deals. Man, I can’t wait to buy my first fuko!
Will I still hang out on the forum? You’ll just have to wait and see!
- 45 comments, 79 replies
- Comment
Aww, much purple love to you. Good luck with your new job!
Edit: You better not leave us here on the forum.
@Barney i figured no one would believe whether i said i’d still visit the forum or not, so there was no point in actually answering that question.
@Barney …but, i think i’ll still visit the forum
@katylava
Wow best of luck. And we look forward to generally abusing you.
Maybe the new IT people at Meh will decide to make my profile viewable by a finite machine.
Hah!
@katylava Take a break from us, you probably need it, but come back and be one with us.
You will be missed, but I’m sure we’re all happy that you’re getting an exciting new opportunity that fits your needs well. I wish you much luck!
@PurplePawprints thanks!
Love O’Reilly media… best of luck!!
Yes, I’m happy that you’re moving to a job which suits your needs better, but right now, I’m sad.
Too many changes for me to adapt to re:mediocre employees.
/giphy crying penguin
You will be sorely missed, and I hope you return to play.
Wow everyone is leaving.
Congratulations on the new gig, working from home and more family time is a fantastic!
Thanks for helping to build this site and good luck at O’Reilly.
@Ignorant I’m still here!
/giphy conan here
The word is edumacate, but I digress…
That is so awesome you were able to find a position that will work with what you want. What I would give to work remotely! Good luck with the new job, I hope we see you lurking around here.
/giphy cat celebration
Most job applicants embellish their capabilities as a developer. I vividly remember interviewing @katylava expecting her to sell me on her abilities more. Instead, she matter-of-factly, ego-lessly, and accurately answered every coding challenge I put in front of her… and second-guessed herself every step of the way.
At the time, with only a few developer hires in the budget while we were building Meh, it felt like a crazy gamble bringing her onboard with a chance that her lack of ability to talk about her capabilities stemmed from an actual lack of technical ability. Just a few months later I was happy we made that bet. From day one, I never once had to go over a technical detail a second time. She handled everything we threw her way.
Of all the engineers I’ve managed @katylava has to be one of the most rewarding. It’s been a privilege to watch her confidence grow as she tackled more and more technical challenges here on Meh and our other sites.
I’ll end this by saying that I can only hope to find another @katylava to fill her open position but I fear that she’s truly one of a kind. We wish her lots of luck in the future.
@shawn
@katylava Nice report card that @shawn gave you.
@shawn @Snapster
And you’re just letting @katylava go without a fight?!?
Said with such confidence because she knows all the backdoors and hacks to get one.
Awesome and congrats on the new position!
As I get ready to load the car and drive 250mi back to work, I’m so jealous. Good luck in the new job.
If you’ll become one of us, does that mean you’ll get to taunt @snapster over stuff meh needs to sell?
/s
Congrats, BTW!
Katy, Katy, Katy
sigh
I’ve enjoyed your forum presence and appreciated your excellent technical help.
Hope those cats don’t interfere with your work.
On the other hand, if you train them well, they could do the work for you.
I wish you all the success and happiness in the world.
Squirrel!
@KDemo I’ve been through this before…
@katylava - Ah, I see. Cats are notoriously bad spellers. And they want to be in the center of everything, even words!
So glad you’re able to move to a 100% remote position @katylava, but it’s really sad to see you leave. Hope you’ll still be around so you can captain the 2017 Breakfast Octopus team!
Good luck with your new job! Hope you hang around, post photos of your cats and… if you get your first fuko, well, you know even better than the rest of us where the junk comes from and the odds of disappointment. Guess you missed the boat for that last chance attempt with VMP (however I am open to a bribe to try for one on your behalf) LOL
@Kidsandliz She has VMP, it is a freebie provided by snapster to Mediocre employees. Gee, I hope she will be able to afford the 5 bucks a month now.
@Kidsandliz @Barney I’m not sure what happens to my VMP, since I’m not currently paying for it, and I can’t sign up for it and start paying for it.
@Kidsandliz @Barney
Well that settles it. @katylava can’t leave now.
@katylava Ask for it as a going away present. @snapster - yes?
@katylava If only someone had access to the code behind the site and could change the VMP rules…
Also, I still get… No, um, my friend who uses an ad blocker. That’s the ticket.
This friend still sees advertisements for VMP on meh when his ad blocker is on. Maybe there’s a rabbit
hole 
somewhere…
@Kidsandliz
Surely though @katylava asking for @unixrab to be given VMP status would be better.
Then @katylava could share with the Meh community.
@PlacidPenguin you must have missed when snapster said no way about unixrab and VMP gifting on another thread…
@Kidsandliz to be sure my intent was clear: the only real win is making him want to have joined VMP by rewarding VMPs.
@snapster OK. I hadn’t gone back to look at what you said specifically when I wrote my reply above. In some thread or other I had suggested he be made VMP as a joke and I had recalled that wasn’t going to happen. I had not remembered exactly what you had said.
@snapster …and yet, even after all that noise, there was no win since I felt absolutely no desire to join wah-wah-waaaahm
@kidsandliz @placidpenguin
@unixrab why are you talking past tense? now that the program is closed, we’re just getting started. You’ll have to die happily not VMP to win
Hopefully you won’t have to be up at 1:30 am fixing the site anymore!
@dashcloud I guess we will have to take better care of our toys since @katylava will not be around.
@Barney we’d appreciate that
@harrison Hey, no promises!
@harrison
Who do I bug to get a counter put on the site which would say how many hours/minutes it’s been since @narfcake mentioned catshirts?
@PlacidPenguin
We have a FUCK counter. Can’t we have a CATSHIRT counter?
@f00l
Except I don’t want him to new encouraged to make references to them.
@f00l @PlacidPenguin No. A google search reveals only 311 mentions for catshirts, 131 for catshirtswoot, and 4 for catshirtsteeturtle. That’s nowhere near the fuck count – and that’s a good thing.
https://www.threadless.com/product/6035/careless_whisker
@narfcake
Except the two counts can’t be compared due to how many people were/are involved in adding to each count.
@PlacidPenguin
Fuck yeah. I never fucking mention motherfucking catshirts.
@narfcake, you also gotta search for plurals, or I won’t give a fucks.
@PlacidPenguin you’re on your own there
@harrison
Sorta like how @narfcake is on his own with getting Meh to sell catshirts?
Oh well. I’m still better off. (I at least got a response to my effort.)
@f00l So what’s the plural for catshirts? Catshirtssssssssss?
@PlacidPenguin I can always bug @snapster about the lack of camisetas con los gatos …
@narfcake
Separate searches for each shitfucking term, searching both singular and plural mehfucking forms, then add the totals per term together to get a megafucking total, then post the megafucking total along with a list of terms searched for into a dedicated motherfucking thread already.
And watch your octopusfucking language, catshirt.meh.fucker.
@f00l …or maybe post it as a fucking spreadsheet…
Aww, congrats @katylava! It certainly is strange to see the original cast moving on but I’m happy you followed your dream! Since you’re kinda special, mehbe we’ll let you pick your own month to be goat, because you know damn well it’s going to be discussed!
Dang, well that should be a nice gig! Congrats!
Congratulations! You’ll be missed so try not to be a total stranger!
Best wishes! I (got to, had to) work from home for a solid month last year when work was moving to a new location; lease ended but new building not yet ready. It was a challenge getting used to it (discipline) but the benefits are clear. Given a choice I’d do it again.
You’ll be missed.
No, that’s fine, go on, I’m really happy for you…
This is going to be just like when @JonT left and we never saw him again, isn’t it?
/giphy bawling
Good luck! Don’t forget to actually travel - easy to get in a rut working from home.
Congratulations. Working from home rocks. I did it for about ten years and loved it. My 2¢: I found that it worked best when I’d get up in the morning, get cleaned up, get dressed, have breakfast, and then start work. It made a good delineation between “not work” and “work” and made it easier to dive in to being productive.
I have access to a subset of Safari Online through my ACM membership. I should probably take more advantage of it. In any case, O’Reilly seems like a good outfit. Their stance on DRM implies an enlightened management. I hope you love it virtual-there.
@SSteve Thanks for the advice! I expect it will take some trial and error to find a good routine. Of course, I’ll be expected to be available on Slack during certain hours, so it’s not like a totally flexible schedule, as far as I know.
My first week I’ll be actual-there in Boston, instead of virtual-there. I’m excited about that… never been to Boston.
@SSteve Boooo. When I worked from home, I often wouldn’t get dressed or shower until noon while the frozen pizza was baking in the oven. Just use a different room for your office space and you’ll have no trouble separating work from life.
@medz Of course everyone has a routine that works best for them. I did the “don’t get dressed and don’t shave for a week” routine too but, for me, it was just depressing. And that was with a separate office space.
Can you take @jont with you?
Congrats and best wishes @katylava. It takes a special kind of person to work remotely. I did it for 4 1/2 years and decided it wasn’t for me. What languages/frameworks will you be working in?
@jsh139 Thanks! I’ll be working mostly in Python/Django. Python is my favorite programming language.
@katylava Cool
I dabbled in Python/Django once upon a time. Fun stuff.
@katylava Oooo, Python. I’d love to do Python full-time. Every time I do a little Python project I like it more and more.
Obligatory:
Congratulations!! I am so happy for you. I mean, we will certainly miss you, but who wouldn’t be excited to be able to work without pants on??? I mean… from home…
@Thumperchick sadly I think getting dressed for work every day is going to be important for me to get in the right mindset, at least in the morning. But, I’m hoping to be able to exercise in the afternoon and who knows what I might wear after that.
@katylava
And they said programmers didn’t know how to relax.
Well played.
/giphy so long old friend.
@connorbush i don’t understand giphy’s choice there
I was just on Safari today!
Good luck and don’t be a stranger @katylava
@kc5rbq cool! What were you learning?
Congrats and good luck!
Hope to still see you here from time to time…
WOo! Congratulations!
/giphy follow Your Dream
@katylava
Any chance we could have an approximate time for when you will be losing your flask icon?
@PlacidPenguin nope, @shawn doesn’t exactly put terminations on his calendar.
@katylava i mean, when it comes to terminating, all the time travel stuff can make schedules really messy
@harrison it’s true
@katylava @harrison
Y’all could just pull a Season 9 move (like the reboot).
Congratulations, fucker!
You know, I’m a little disappointed no one complimented me on my excellent gif selection.
Especially the raccoon.
@katylava That was a most excellent gif selection. (How’d I do?)
@Barney thanks!
@katylava I was just reading through to see if anyone said anything about that fat bastard raccoon. He’s a winner.
We’ll miss you, @katylava! Congratulations, I bet the new job will be
@matthew excellent gif selection!
All righty… imma wipe my computer now. See you on the flip side.
@katylava
/giphy crying penguin
@katylava
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/code-master
My VMP is gone too. I feel so empty.
@katylava But you got your K. K’s rule!
(I still think they should have given you your VMP. Meanies!)
@Barney it makes me want to change my name to “atylava”.
@katylava That would be cool.
@katylava and so ends an era, and my hopes for a /me command.
Good luck with your new job!
@katylava If you’re seriously considering a name change, how about lavakat?
@dashcloud She’d still be katylava, but she would be using the Kickstarter K for the K at the beginning of her name. But lavakat is pretty good!
@katylava
@katylava - But working from home is going to be great!
As noted previously, cats are notoriously bad spellers.
@KDemo
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/destroying-grammar
@katylava
They should grandfather in the option of VMP for ex-staff who want to pay for it. @snapster?
@katylava Did you actually lose VMP status or is it just that your Kickstarter K supersedes the VMP V?
@jqubed
Breakfast Octopus > Mediocre Employee > Kickstarter backer > VMP.
I know scapegoat is higher than kickstarter, but I don’t know if it’s higher than the other two. I guess we’d just have to goat @snapster to find out!
@jqubed @katylava’s been kicked out of the Meh army for desertion and they stripped her of the VMP rank that @snapster had bestowed upon her.
Her “K” she earned on her own.
@jqubed
Was there some sort of epic farewell party we weren’t invited to?
@jqubed nope
@katylava
O’Reilly Media! All the O’RM books on my bookshelf just applauded!
Congrats, good luck and remember… If you can’t have fun at work, why go?
Congratulations.
@onlyonetruth2 you made a new account to bump this because, why?
@onlyonetruth2 @RiotDemon kinda makes me want to create a new account to post a congrats too. But then again… I’m lazy as fuck.
@katylava Congrats!
What is even happening
@katylava
/giphy HI!
@katylava A newbie(?) necroed this thread and then others followed up.
@katylava @narfcake only 3 years too late.
@katylava @narfcake @RiotDemon it’s never too late
Although I haven’t been writing much, I have been lurking whenever I can, and you will be missed!
Tschuss!