OafTech & agile is dead & Hawaiian shirt philosophy

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Help you figure out how to be happier in life and work.

OafTech

I jokingly call myself "Artisanal Oaf" which is some sort of amalgamation of real life stuff:

• I'm tattooed and kinda a hipster
• Starbucks sells something called "Artisan Tart" which is a fancy poptart which I think is hilarious
• I like to admin that I'm not perfect without sounding TOO self-critical.

I like to say "OafTech" to describe whimsical, fun software that embraces levity.

Does calling myself an oaf mean I'm not professional? No, it doesn't.

I'm very committed to Goblin, customer service, and helping others. I have strong values. I also like to laugh and not be so serious about everything. They're not mutually exclusive.

Agile is Dead

This is meant to be lighthearted and not a slight to you!

I've noticed that a lot of teams modify agile methodologies to work for them and that teams don't usually follow them strictly (which makes sense and is completely understandable).

I hate standup, think we need standup, hate retros, think we need feedback, etc. Nothing is perfect.

The best tech teams I've seen were run by PMs that were really good and could've done just as well with excel or paper (they succeeded in spite of agile/Jira, not because of it).

I have often felt that the tech industry used to be very homogeneous and it's more varied now--so why do we still use the same methodologies? Shouldn't we develop new ones and listen to the new voices at the table?

Saying "agile is dead" is just meant to give you a little jolt and make you think--what're you getting out of retros? Are your coders happy? Do your PMs and coders fight? Is anything getting done?

Please don't be offended :)

Hawaiian Shirt Philosophy

Sometimes when I'm in a funk or having trouble truly turning my brain off on weekends/holidays, I wear a Hawaiian shirt and go outside. If I'm lucky, I'll have an outdoor speaker and listen to This Must Be the Place by the Talking Heads. It's really hard to be upset or anxious when I'm in this state. This might be something different for you--maybe you need to put on pink eyeshadow or an old college t-shirt or style your hair different and rock out to The Eagles.