The One Where We Geek Out on Career Pivots with Ash Patel

Mar 12, 2024

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

About our guest:

Ash Patel is an independent advocate for better software reliability practices. He's been a seasoned manager for over a decade and takes an organizational design and team development view on improving technology outcomes.

Find our guest on:

Find us on:

All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingout
All of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillela

Show Links:

Additional Links:

Adriana on SREPath Podcast

Transcript:

ADRIANA: Hey, y'all, welcome to Geeking Out. The podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery, DevOps, Observability, reliability, and everything in between. I'm your host, Adriana Villela, coming to you from Toronto, Canada. Geeking out with me today is Ash Patel. Well, welcome, Ash.

ASH: Hey, how's it going, Adriana?

ADRIANA: Not too bad. Where are you calling from today?

ASH: I am actually in Australia right now because I wanted to escape the Toronto winter early. I feel like I've done it right in time.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I think so. I think you caught it. Just like when the sun is setting way too early and the weather is just that special shade of blah.

ASH: Yes. Just around Halloween times, it starts to hint at it's going to get bad. And then by mid November, we're already thinking, I need to get out of this.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah, I totally don't blame you. So how long are you in Australia for? The duration of winter?

ASH: Pretty much. I'm looking at somewhere around March, April.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. So it's like summer for you all the time then, because you're going from summer to summer.

ASH: It has its downsides. I mean, it gets really hot in Australia, but it's a lot easier to deal with than -15 degrees or worse. Right?

ADRIANA: I agree. I come from a tropical country, and I have been living in Canada for 35 years, and I still cannot get acclimated to the freaking cold.

ASH: Oh, yeah, about that. I noticed that your mascot for the pod is a capybara.

ADRIANA: Yes, that's right. Which, incidentally, I discovered capybaras as a result of Instagram. It wasn't even because of, like, because I'm from Brazil originally. It wasn't even because, oh, I grew up with them and they're so cute and cuddly. No, it's like Instagram started showing me videos of these. I'm like, oh, my God, where have you been all my life? And so I got slightly obsessed. And in High Park in Toronto, there's like a zoo and there are capybaras and went to see them in the summer, and they are just like...they're glorious animals.

ASH: They look amazing.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I would love to have one as a pet.

ASH: Not sure if you can do that legally.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I don't think so. That is a dream that will remain unfulfilled. All right, well, before we get started with the meaty bits, I am going to subject you to some lightning round questions.

ASH: Sounds good.

ADRIANA: All right, let's get started. Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?

ASH: Ambidextrous.

ADRIANA: Ooh, that is very cool.

ASH: But probably ambidextrous. Yeah, but best if I don't write with my left hand. It's shocking, but it's doable.

ADRIANA: Nice. That's very cool. Okay, next question. IPhone or Android?

ASH: I wasn't an OG iPhone guy for the first two releases, so I'm talking way back, like 2008 to 2010, somewhere around that time, and then Android right up until earlier last year. So for a good twelve years, Android only, and now iPhone only.

ADRIANA: Oh, wow. That's quite the switch. Very cool. What made you switch back from Android to iPhone?

ASH: I think I just saw a whole bunch of people playing around with their iPhones, and I'm like, I want that. It's slick. The UI/UX, and I'm one of those UI/UX nerds. It just really struck me. I was like, oh, I need that. I need that in my life.

ADRIANA: That is very cool. Yeah. I have to say I'm dazzled by the UI/UX of the iPhone and just, like, the slickness of it. I wish that I wasn't one of those clumsy people who had, like, a naked iPhone, but I have to put a case on mine, unfortunately, and it makes me deeply sad. But, yeah, if I didn't have a case, there'd be scratches.

ASH: Oh, most definitely.

ADRIANA: Okay, next question. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows in your day to day life?

ASH: It's actually kind of a similar story to iPhone versus Android. Windows, right up until last year, and all of a sudden, a switch to Mac. And a lot of my friends are going, dude, you used to really hate on Apple. I never did, but they assumed I did because I always would talk about Windows and, yeah, they all talked about Apple stuff, right?

ADRIANA: Yeah.

ASH: So there you go.

ADRIANA: And now you're a convert. Yeah, I was telling someone the other day that I went years and years, Windows only. I'm like, Apple, BLECH. And we bought a Mac. It was like a Mac Mini, one of the early Mac Minis, kind of as an experiment, use it as a media server. And I'm like, what is this fresh hell? And then I decided to buy myself a MacBook Pro just for funsies. And I just bought myself this powerful Intel Core i7 machine, which was like, at the time, state of the art. And I ditched my Core i7 machine for the dinkier MacBook because I was like, this thing is just glorious.

ASH: I don't know what they do, but there's some magic behind it.

ADRIANA: There is. I'm also sold because of the Linux-y-ish kernel. Close enough to Linux that I feel like I can do cool shit and I don't know, I cannot get behind Powershell. I don't even want to try. I worked at a Windows shop once and they were like, Powershell this, Powershell that, and I installed Windows subsystem for Linux as like my first thing. And I'm like, I don't ever want to touch Powershell. I'm sorry, Powershell lovers.

ASH: I'm going to be with you on that, Adriana. Let's just stick with the terminal that comes on Mac. It's so much easier than using Powershell.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Okay, next question. What's your favorite programming language?

ASH: Ooh, I just realized that my skills are very out of date, so I'm just going to stick with HTML. That's not even a programming language. HTML and CSS. No, I would say JavaScript because it's elegant. That's the only real programming language I know and my skills are really out of date and I'm learning all the stuff that's in es six. I think that's the latest in JavaScript and it's kind of hard because I've been in the management track for the last, I'm not going to mention how many years, but it's been a long time. And coming back to all this stuff, I'm like, oh my goodness, I really have fallen behind.

ADRIANA: Yeah, it changes, right?

ASH: So let's just say when I was playing around with JavaScript, it was this new fangled thing that you could do animations with when you had HTML with frames. So kind of gives you. I bet people don't even know what frames are nowadays.

ADRIANA: I still remember frames. You were in good company. Yeah, that's probably around the time I looked at JavaScript. I'm like, not for me. Bye bye.

ASH: It was pretty messy, but fun.

ADRIANA: I admire the fact that so many beautiful UI things come out of JavaScript, but I am not one of those people who can make those things happen, and I have made my peace with that.

ASH: I am trying to make my piece with it, but I just keep on going back and trying to learn it and try and think one day I could maybe become a front end developer of some form and create cool apps, but maybe I'll just stick around with infrastructure and deep dive into that. Maybe we should. Maybe I should do that. Yeah.

ADRIANA: I'm a little biased, but I do like the infrastructure.

ASH: Yeah, we're both just a little bit biased.

ADRIANA: Just a tad. Right. Okay, next question. Do you prefer dev or ops?

ASH: Ops. This is a tricky question. I feel like I'm going to fail if I say...

ADRIANA: There are no wrong answers here.

ASH: I like DevOps. That's the right answer, isn't it?

ADRIANA: You know what? A lot of people have given the DevOps answer, so, like I said, no wrong answers. Okay, next question. Controversial one. JSON or YAML?

ASH: Oh, jeez. JSON. Cool. Yeah, let's leave it at that.

ADRIANA: Okay. And on a similarly controversial vein, and you can blame one of my recent guests for bringing this up. Spaces or tabs?

ASH: Um, that's going to be a huge um that you got to clear out, but that's all right. Spaces. Is this a trick question?

ADRIANA: Again, no wrong answers, just personal preference.

ASH: No, actually, I like tabs. I like tabs. I should say tabs.

ADRIANA: I think that's the worst of it. Two more questions. They're not as controversial. Do you prefer to consume content through text or video?

ASH: It depends on my mood on the day, but lately it's been a lot of video.

ADRIANA: All right, cool. And then final question. What is your superpower?

ASH: What is my superpower?

ADRIANA: Yeah.

ASH: As of late, it's being infinitely patient. People just get mind blown by how patient I am with things. They get frustrated. I'm like, it's cool. Just hang around. We'll wait for 3 hours for the DMV guy to sort things out for us.

ADRIANA: I really like that. I wish I had patience like that. I get impatient waiting in line. If it's like three people deep, I'm like, come on, move. So, yeah, hats off to you for your patience. I think we all need a little more patience and a little more zenness. I think especially as we get older, I think we realize, why are we getting so worked up over this crap?

ASH: Funnily enough, from what I've heard, the older we get, the less patient we become.

ADRIANA: Oh, no. It means it's going to get worse for me.

ASH: If you consciously practice meditating and being present and all these kinds of things.

ADRIANA: I have tried. I've tried the mindfulness thing, and my mind always wanders. I don't know how people manage. Hats off to people who can do that. I feel like I start thinking about all the things that I need to do while I'm doing this mindfulness exercise, and then I'm like, shit, I got to get out my phone and write this down.

ASH: I'm going to just go a little bit off tangent for a second. And I have a tip for that. I am one of those people as well. If you got me to sit still and try and meditate or just be mindful, et cetera, et cetera. I cannot do it. But then I found if I just did beginners yoga for a while, it's a lot easier to get into that meditative state. So that's my...

ADRIANA: That is true.

ASH: ...pro/amateur, very much amateur tip, actually, for people.

ADRIANA: That is a really good tip, because yoga is the one time where I can chill more because I'm so caught up trying to stay, trying to do the poses and trying to do the breathing. And I always do the opposite of what they say. When they say breathe out, I have the urge to breathe in and vice versa. It keeps my mind occupied, though.

ASH: Kind of guilty of doing the same thing. So you're in good company or bad company? I'm still not sure.

ADRIANA: Although I am told that yoga is like a very personal practice, and how you do it is how you do it. So maybe we're doing all right.

ASH: Yeah, I'm completely with you on that.

ADRIANA: Awesome. All right, well, now that we've done our meditative, contemplative, philosophical segment, let's get into the meaty bits. So we were chatting earlier about just being in the corporate world, because that's something that you and I both have in common. Careers, long careers in the corporate world. So why don't you share actually, how you got your start in the corporate world and how it's been?

ASH: So I started off as a system admin way back. So remember, we're talking about HTML with frames. Kind of gives you a reference point as to when we're talking about that. And then it just was a transition into...I did a degree in research science. It was a research science oriented degree. So the company I was working at was handling the computer systems for said, hey, do this degree, we'll get you a management job, and then sky's the limit. So I thought, okay, let's try this out. And I did it.

And they were right. Got on the management track, started off managing one place, then a few sites, and then became director of operations. So I finished up last year as a director of operations, responsible for people, finance, property and technology. That's kind of a useful thing to know. Technology was important because it was increasingly become a part of a healthcare environment, which is where I was based. And it was difficult, and that's where I got into thinking about reliability and essentially operational stuff after a long time and just really just dug into that. But that's why it's the thing for me now, because I think that was the most interesting part of my work. For me.

ADRIANA: Like, dealing with the reliability of the systems.

ASH: Dealing with pretty much any of the software operation side of things. And reliability was a problem for us. Software reliability was a problem. So I made it a priority area, started blogging on it, and even after finishing up I just continued on it while I retrained to see if I can become a ninja JavaScript developer one day.

ADRIANA: Awesome. So what would you see is the biggest leap? Is it a leap? What's the biggest difference in going from a manager to a director in terms of job responsibilities, the way you think?

ASH: So that's probably the first taste of seniority in terms of you thinking you're a senior manager, which I always had people tell me, "Oh, you're the senior manager in the company." Which is right, but that also means the entire C-suite is kind of looking down on you and telling you what to do more so than ever before, which was always fun. But then you're also getting managed up. I'm sure you've heard of people trying to learning about managing up, so managing their managers. So I had a lot of people trying to do that with me, which was always fun to navigate. So you're dealing with both ends in terms of responsibilities. It's more broad. For me it was just covering a lot, covering a lot of areas that I didn't have an interest in, but it just came under my purview. Once again, technology was the most interesting part.

ADRIANA: It is the fun stuff.

ASH: Do you want me to deep dive a little bit more into the responsibilities?

ADRIANA: Yeah, actually I want to go back to what you were saying earlier about managing up, and if you could explain that to folks in our audience who aren't necessarily familiar with the term, because I think that's kind of an interesting thing, because you're right that there's a lot of advice given to folks in management positions or even individual contributors manage up. So what does that mean?

ASH: So I cannot give a textbook definition on this. I'm really going to give my perspective on how people are trying to do it with me. You can tell that people were getting advice from somewhere else, maybe someone who was telling them exactly to manage up, or they were just naturally good at it, and they would essentially try and guide decision making toward a favorable outcome for them.

ADRIANA: Right.

ASH: And essentially something that would position them as someone who is a valuable individual contributor, which is not a bad thing, but sometimes actually a lot of times it came at the expense of their team, which is when things go wrong in managing up. So managing up is not a bad thing necessarily, but it can eventually turn into a, "Hey, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me" kind of thing. And then trying to just steer the director or steer your boss towards what essentially only, it seems like you're the only person who can do it. I think that's not so much of a thing in tech, but people are learning managing up, and I hope they do it the right way.

ADRIANA: Yeah, because I guess if it comes off, then you kind of feel like you're being used, right?

ASH: Yeah, about nine times out of ten, it definitely felt like that.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Because I can definitely see the benefits of managing up because sometimes your direct reports might have certain insights that you might not have, so they bring certain issues to the forefront and so you have that visibility. But then when you're being blatantly used so that they can work on their agenda, then that feels a little bit ickier, I would say.

ASH: Yeah. And I guess that's one piece of advice I'd give to a manager who realizes they're being managed up on. Actually create barriers to it. Like, don't block people, but actually have systems or mental systems or mental models in place to say, hey, look, I need to rationally process whatever's coming into me because a lot of times we don't realize it. We're so busy. We've got teams to manage, we've got reviews to do, we've dealing with our bosses ourselves. We get caught up in all of this, and it's not easy to think things through. So that's one thing I'd say to people. Maybe we can go back to that whole, you got to meditate regularly or maybe just slow down and think about things.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I definitely agree. For me, I tend to be, unfortunately, at times impulsive, especially when it comes to getting emails or slack messages or whatever, that tend to get me riled up. And one thing that I did learn in the last several years was to don't be tempted to respond right away. Sit back, let it soak, and then respond, and you'll do so with a much, much clearer head.

ASH: I love the snooze function on Gmail. Everything that's snoozed for a week later.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. It does you a great service rather than hinder. So I definitely appreciate those features, like realizing that not everything is something that you have to address right away. Not everything is an emergency, is very liberating.

ASH: Absolutely. And I think that can seg us on to another thing that I think even individual contributors can benefit from, in that you have to manage your cognitive load, you have to be aware of it. It's something you have to consciously deal with. It's not something that's just going to happen naturally. That app that says it's going to reduce your mental burden, it's not going to do that automatically. You have to be involved in it, too.

ADRIANA: Yeah, and that's a huge takeaway. Only you can help you. It sounds super cliché, but it is absolutely true. Until you take the reins and start putting in, like, guardrails in your own life, people, things, circumstances are going to take advantage of you. And then that leads to burnout.

ASH: Exactly. Just like what SREs do in putting out guardrails. They set around guardrails for developers to not cause P0, P1 high severity incidents. It's very important that you create guardrails around your work as well so that you don't fall out and then you get stuck and you start creating symptoms of burnout.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Now, one thing that I wanted to circle back on is, I think you'd mentioned, when you're talking about role as a director, you're kind of under the microscope of the C-suite. And I used to always think the higher up you got in your career, the more influence, and I guess the more freedom you had. But then I was at a position myself where, I was at a company where they were, like, grooming me to be a director. And my boss at the time, he said, the higher up you move, the more you can't just think about what you want. You have to also think about what the company wants, which is very fair. I mean, companies got to make money and all that. But then for me, that was kind of a turn off. I'm like, yeah, no, I don't think I want to pursue this. What's your point of view? What's your experience with that?

ASH: For me, it was a little simpler because we were in the healthcare space, so we had boundaries. You have very strict boundaries around how far you can take it in terms of the company wants something commercially. But then that always gets compared to what is ethical, which is not a boundary, that 99% of companies, they don't have it, because they don't have this regulated boundary and even regulated industries. It's not as much of an equation involving, are we doing the right thing by our customers, necessarily. It's an important thing to consider, especially as things get more competitive. And now I'm probably going to talk about another topic that it won't make sense to a lot of your listeners. ESG is now a big thing. So environment, sustainability, governance.

So governance is a big part in how a company is treated or looked at by investors, by the public in general. So you need to get that right. And if you don't, that is asking for trouble. So we always had boundaries for, yeah, the company wants this, but then we have to do the right thing by the customer or the client, the patient, et cetera.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Which I guess in some ways that makes it easier. Right. Because you are bound by doing right by the patient rather than. It's not just a big old corporate interest.

ASH: Yeah, exactly. In some ways it made it easier. In some ways it was difficult, but we could go on about that for a while.

ADRIANA: Fair enough. Fair enough. Now, I think you mentioned when you were talking about your role as a director, you also mentioned, obviously reliability was an aspect like the technology side of things. But then there's other aspects too, right? Because you have to be concerned with budgeting and whatnot. Talk about some of these aspects, the non techie aspects of the job. And were they something that you enjoyed?

ASH: Looking at balance sheets is never fun. Especially when you have to...

ADRIANA: Yeah, I have to agree with you.

ASH: Especially when you have to look at it with, what do they say? Fine tooth and comb. Fine toothed comb or something like that.

ADRIANA: Yeah, fine tooth comb. Yeah.

ASH: There were a lot of old school sayings in my space, as you can imagine. We need to look at this with a fine comb or whatever they used to say. But, yeah, it was a lot of things that would really not interest people who are just interested in being individual contributors, even people who want to be managers and just be people managers. There's a lot of other stuff that you have to do. So yeah. Dealing with P&Ls, dealing with paperwork, reading through contracts. Actually reading through contracts.

ADRIANA: Right. Which is not fun on a good day.

ASH: Yeah. Like the lawyer actually wants you to pay attention. They don't want you to just be there and sign at the end, generally.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Which makes sense. Especially if you're responsible for the purchase of some massive system or whatever. You definitely want to make sure that it's not just a stamp of approval.

ASH: Right, exactly. Oh, we had stamps, by the way, like actual physical stamps that you actually jam into an ink pad.

ADRIANA: Fun.

ASH: Real old school, right?

ADRIANA: That is very old school. For me personally, I would find like, that is a very stressful burden to carry. How did you feel about that? Did you feel stressed and also in awe of like, "Oh, I just made this decision."

ASH: The funny thing is that when you're there, when I was there, I never felt that that's not what my cognitive process was. But obviously it was there somewhere in the background because now I'm going, wow, I was really highly strung. And even friends I see, I've seen months later, after just finishing up, they're like, oh, wow, is this you? You're like relaxed. And I'm saying, wait, I wasn't relaxed before for all this time? And they're like, oh, no, you were good. You were good, like backtracking.

ADRIANA: Yeah. So I guess it speaks to the intensity of that kind of role. That actually has always been a bit of a turn off for me as well, is like the intensity. Work is intense normally. And then I think when you get to higher up positions, the responsibilities are so big, Lofty.

ASH: Yeah. I'd say to people, don't get attracted by an increase in salary because if that's what you're doing it for, jeez, that's all I can say about that.

ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. What made you decide? Okay, I'm done with this directorship thing for a change.

ASH: About three years ago, a certain global event occurred, and it made a lot of people reassess what they were doing that I had been thinking about it for a while. Is this what I want to do? Is this the path I want to take? Ongoing. And even though I've dated myself with saying HTML had frames, I still feel like I'm relatively young to make a shift into something else. And I love the tech space, which is why I'm trying to get deeper into programming. And I think the stars just aligned. It was the right time and I just did it last year.

ADRIANA: Awesome. And so what are you doing now? You've mentioned that you're getting deeper into programming, so right now, are you on an exploratory phase? What's life been like since you decided, "I'm done with this?"

ASH: It's been a bit of both. So I've continued on with srepath.com, which is about site reliability engineering, and had you on, and that was a very popular episode. People loved, they loved your insights about OpenTelemetry because that's a hot topic in this space. I mean, in terms of platform engineering, DevOps, SRE, everyone's talking about it right now. And other than that, studying JavaScript again a very long time after I last touched it. But it's been fun learning about all kinds of aspects of a programming language. Again, after having been so knee deep in non technical, technical stuff, I don't know how to explain that. Yeah, it's been exhilarating, actually. Yeah, it's fun to learn.

ADRIANA: It's the techie in you.

ASH: Yeah, exactly. And I'm so glad I got a MacBook for this because I don't think I would have enjoyed, I would not have enjoyed doing this on a Powersh-...on a Windows...no.

ADRIANA: Yeah. I have to agree with you. I think it makes for a much more pleasurable development experience.

ASH: 100%.

ADRIANA: So are you happy then, with your decision to have made the exit from corporate life onto the more creative sphere of software?

ASH: So far, so good. That's all I can say about it. Because it's definitely not as consistent, it's not as predictable. Income is definitely one of those things that's very unpredictable, but that's fine. I think it's one of those things that you have to do. Like, I have been a manager since the age of 22.

ADRIANA: Oh my God. That is very early on.

ASH: Wow. Yeah. So for me, actually, for most of my adult life, having only done that, it is like, I need to do this.

ADRIANA: Yeah. I think it's so cool that you've made this transition, this pivot, because it is so scary to make such a major pivot no matter what stage you are in your life, but especially if you've been doing one thing for such a long period of time, can be absolutely terrifying. And you don't know, if we knew what the future held, we'd all be rich. But so many unknowns, right? With making a huge career leap. But I think also knowing deep in your heart that it's time for a change is such a great motivation to change.

ASH: And I definitely knew that. So the stars aligned, as I said before, and just had to do it.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. Hats off to you. I think it's so cool when folks just move out of their comfort zone into following a passion onto greener pastures, knowing that there's something else out there that could possibly make you happier. And it sounds like it has made you happier, which is cool.

ASH: Oh, absolutely. It has made me appreciate, though, what it is like to be an early career... Well, I still haven't got a career in this next sphere. Right. But it's made me think more about what it's like to be an early career or even pre career person getting into a space, it's like so many things you got to learn so many ways you got to organize yourself. And I feel like, I'm very organized now because that's all, that's my expertise, my area of managing myself, managing my ability to do inordinate amounts of work in shorter and shorter periods of time. And that's a skill that a lot of people don't have because early career professionals are generally 18 to 25.

ADRIANA: Yeah.

ASH: So that's something that I am exploring as well, to see, can I share some insights with them to help them develop their technical skills faster and also take on some soft skills, which is so important in the workplace.

ADRIANA: Yeah, and that's the thing. We should never, ever underestimate the importance of the soft skills. I know it's so easy to get, if you're a technical person, get caught up in the technology, and that's going to help you coast through your career, but it's totally not. I mean, we scoff at the idea of having to take English in school, but sorry to say, but communication is such an important aspect of the software industry, and if you're unable to communicate effectively, then you might as well just be a crappy coder because it's not going to get you super far, unfortunately.

ASH: So one of the projects I'm doing right now is called The Odin Project, and that's about essentially learning how to use GitHub and HTML and CSS and everything from scratch. And I'm following it to the t. I am not skipping any steps. That is the worst thing you can do to say, hey, I already know this, I can skip it.

ADRIANA: So true.

ASH: People do it so often. I used to do it so often.

ADRIANA: Oh my God, so guilty of it.

ASH: I think we all are. So following that, I have learned that it's so important to take every step. And also there was one aspect of Project Odin I wanted to mention, but it'll come to me later, hopefully.

ADRIANA: Okay. Now, having spent just circling back on the corporate aspect of a chunk of your career, what would you say was for someone who's been in the corporate life for so long, how would you describe it? What are some of the ups and the downs?

ASH: So the ups would definitely be power, which you don't realize you have until much later, and then you have to realize that you have to exercise it judiciously. I didn't say that. Right. Judicious. Okay. That's one of my fail words. People used to say it so often in my space. Like judiciously. Yes.

ADRIANA: There you go.

ASH: Finally. Got it. Yeah, got there eventually. So that's one of the things it's like when you are in this space it's a strong structure. It's very different to how people like to think in tech teams, where it's a more flatter structure. You can talk about problems generally. You can talk about problems more readily. I oversaw a few tech teams over the years, and generally they would just express their opinions to me as is.

And that was quite refreshing because I was so used to people sugar coating things, and people, oh, my God. Wanting to put their best foot forward, for example, that it just was refreshing to work in that kind of environment, whereas there's a lot of formality in a more rigid corporate structure. I would say, yeah, I did at times find it stifling, but then it's just one of the things, once you're in the system, you just got to keep rolling. You just keep moving. It's like a routine. You get that morning coffee. You have that coffee at 11:00 a.m. You have that coffee at 2:00 p.m..

I cut out coffee. After that, I realized how it became a part of life, how you're actually just in that system, going through that routine of a rigid structure. Obviously, you have to have some structure in tech work, but there's definitely a lot more in a more formal environment.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I definitely agree. I think for me, the most jarring thing was, first of all, in corporate world, they do not like you swearing. I got in trouble for swearing. Oh, my God, I got into so much trouble for swearing. And I'm like, really? So I very much appreciate being in a workplace where I can swear freely because I am a swearer. So that was number one for me. Number two was like, you must respect the hierarchy. None of this.

Like, you can't go to your skip level manager for a thing. You must resolve it with your direct manager. And, oh, my God, I got in shit for insubordination. I'm like, I just want to get stuff done. I don't care who I have to go through. I just want to do my job and do right by the company. That was definitely something that I got burned on in my career, which lesson learned for the corporate world. Do not do that.

ASH: Sometimes doing the right thing is not doing the right thing in that environment.

ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. That is a great way of putting it, which makes it very difficult to navigate that kind of environment if your mind isn't compatible with that mindset of working. And I don't think mine was. So, yeah, that's one of the reasons why I'm not in a big, stuffy corporate environment anymore.

ASH: Absolutely. I don't want to knock it completely as either myself because there are some people who thrive in that environment and it works really well for them. It didn't work for me, but I still did it, if it makes any sense.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I feel you. I mean, same thing. I was in a large corporate environment for a chunk of my career and then I discovered like, wait, there's other stuff out there? What are you talking about? But I totally agree with you. It works for some people. Different strokes for different folks. People are successful in their own different ways and it's cool to see how different people thrive in different environments. Definitely not for though.

ASH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Thank you so much Ash, for geeking out with us today, y'all. Don't forget to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media.

ASH: Peace out and geek out.

ADRIANA: Geeking Out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Villela. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter, Hannah Maxwell, who incidentally, designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials by going to bento.me/geekingout. Hey there, Geeking Out fans. We're taking a two week break as I prepare for KubeCon in Paris. We'll be back with a brand new episode on Tuesday, April 2nd. Until then, peace out and geek out.