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A Rather Peculiar Journey

Harry Roberts
February 10, 2016

A Rather Peculiar Journey

Slides from my crowdsourced Webstock ’16 talk.

Harry Roberts

February 10, 2016
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  1. A Rather Peculiar Journey
    Harry Roberts – Webstock ’16 – Wellington, NZ

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  2. About Me

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  3. About Me
    Hi. I’m Harry.
    I’m a Consultant Front-end Architect from the UK.
    I travel the world helping teams write better quality UI code.
    I didn’t realise this needed to be a non-technical talk…

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  4. Crowdsourcing
    a Talk

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  21. Crowdsourcing a Talk
    Work/Life Balance
    Travel
    Hobbies
    Cocktails
    The Development Community
    Moths
    Chumbawamba

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  22. Please let me take
    you on a rather
    peculiar journey…

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  23. Work/Life Balance

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  24. Work/Life Balance
    Everybody wants it.
    But it’s really not that simple.
    Especially when we’re connected all the time.
    When most of your life is work, it’s even harder.

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  25. The truth is,
    I haven’t.

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  26. Work/Life Balance
    I don’t have any routines.
    I don’t have any consistency.
    I spend weeks at a time away from friends and family.
    I seldom get weekends.
    My schedule is offset from everyone else’s.

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  27. I have a ‘bad
    work/life balance’.

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  28. But I kinda like that.

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  29. Work Work
    Life Life

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  30. Work Work Work Work
    Life Life Life

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  31. Life and work,
    not life vs. work.

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  33. Work/Life Balance
    My work and life constantly intermingle with each other.
    I create life wherever my work is.
    I’m an optimist—I look at things as positively as possible.
    I see my life as a constant vacation punctuated with work that I love.

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  34. Life When Traveling

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  35. Life When Traveling
    I’m grateful every day that I get to travel for work.
    Especially in an industry that is design to avoid it.
    But travel sucks.

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  36. Being in new places
    is amazing—getting
    to them isn’t.

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  37. Traveling For Work
    Travel is expensive, inefficient, and seldom enjoyable.
    It means huge stretches of time away from loved ones.
    It puts immense strain on friend- and relationships.
    But… it comes with the territory.
    How can we make it suck less?

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  39. Travel Pro-Tips

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  44. Hobbies

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  45. Hobbies
    One of the key aspects to a good work/life balance.
    The best hobbies contrast and complement your work.
    Hobbies that don’t tie you to a location are very handy.
    Hobbies are good for your outlook.

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  46. “I stopped caring about programming
    the moment I started getting paid to do it.”

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  47. Give a s**t about
    something that
    doesn’t pay you.

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  48. The Best Hobbies
    Provide an escape.
    A complete departure.
    A chance to do something your work doesn’t provide.

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  49. Find a hobby that
    contrasts your work.

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  50. Take your hobbies
    with you.

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  51. Adapting
    I’ve had lots of hobbies of the years.
    Some are just not at all suited to travel.
    The best ones are ones that can be taken anywhere.
    Even if you’re thousands of miles from home, it’s nice to have ‘your thing’.

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  52. Cocktails

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  54. Such a stark
    contrast to
    development.

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  55. Cocktails
    Steeped in hundreds of years of history.
    No truly right or wrong way.
    All about taste—very subjective.
    Deals with actual, physical things.
    A break from the fast pace.
    A chance to indulge, to make, to craft…

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  56. Code is not Craft

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  57. — csswizardry.com/2013/11/the-problems-with-crafting-code
    “Craft is, by its very nature, slow, meticulous,
    bespoke, indulgent, self-serving, and inefficient.
    Code should be none of these things.”

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  58. Code is not Craft
    ‘Craft’ implies one-off, labour intensive.
    Subtle imperfections.
    I don’t want crafted code—I want engineered code!
    Fast, testable, reproducable, consistent, unambiguous.
    I have a hobby which is an escape from that.

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  59. Making cocktails
    gives me an excuse
    to craft things.

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  61. The Last Word

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  64. — wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_(liqueur)
    “The exact recipes for all forms of Chartreuse remain
    trade secrets and are known at any given time only to
    the two monks who prepare the herbal mixture.”

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  66. 1920
    Invented at
    Detroit Athletic Club
    1951
    Published in
    Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up!

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  67. How cool is that?!

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  68. But imagine if this
    happened on
    the Web.

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  69. We often take the
    availability and
    openness of
    information for granted.

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  70. Cocktails are a time
    for indulgence.

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  71. The Web is a time
    for responsibility.

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  73. How did I even get
    into cocktails?

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  75. The Community

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  78. The internet isn’t
    about React, or Gulp,
    or Sass—it’s about
    the people.

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  79. I rely on the
    community for
    so much more
    than code.

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  80. The development
    community is
    amazing…

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  81. Embrace it.

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  86. Meeting strangers
    from the internet
    is amazing*.
    * Your mileage may vary. I accept no responsibility for any disasters.

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  87. The internet is ‘what
    we do’, but it means
    so much more to so
    many of us.

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  88. Meeting People
    If you’re going to a new place, try and meet strangers from there.
    If you see someone new is visiting your city, be that stranger for them.
    If you have to travel for work, this is almost mandatory—it keeps you sane.

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  89. Moths

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  93. +
    =
    GIBSON

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  94. +
    =
    SOME MOTH

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  97. Shaken or Stirred?

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  98. — Harry Craddock
    “Shake the shaker as hard as you can.
    Don’t just rock it—you are trying to wake it up,
    not send it to sleep.”

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  100. Shaken or Stirred?
    Shake
    Citrus or fruit juice
    Eggs, milk, or cream
    Stir
    All translucent liquids
    Alcohol-only cocktails

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  101. Even the best
    advice goes
    out of date…

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  102. Be prepared to
    leave old ideas
    behind.

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  103. Chumbawamba

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  109. Crowdsourcing a Talk
    Work/Life Balance
    Travel
    Hobbies
    Cocktails
    The Development Community
    Moths
    Chumbawamba
    DONE

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  110. Takeaways

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  111. Takeaways
    Work/life balance is hard—just do your best.
    Hobbies are super important—remove yourself from work.
    Openness is what sets this industry apart—don’t take it for granted.
    The web is more than just ones and zeroes—it’s about people.
    Only shake drinks with juice or dairy in them—stir everything else.
    Even the best advice has a time limit—know when to use new information.

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  112. Thank You.

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  113. Thank You.
    People of Twitter.
    Dunstan Bruce of Chumbawamba.
    All of you, for indulging me.

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  114. Thank You.
    Harry Roberts
    [email protected]
    @csswizardry

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