Work archive

I travelled to Turin, Italy for WordCamp Europe 2024 with Gaz last month. This was the first time we’d spent any meaningful amount of time together since our separation – not counting hourly taekwon-do lessons – and so I thought was going to be interesting. Turns out it was fairly uneventful, insomuch that it was very much like travelling adventures of old; apparently good friends can separate and stay good friends. Huh!

Anyway, potential relationship awkwardness aside, we did a pretty good job of balancing work-related nerdery with obligatory parties and tourism.

We managed to explore La Pista Fiat 500, the old Fiat 500 test track on the top of the Lingotto building. What was the Fiat factory is now a hotel, shopping centre and more; the roof now home to a large garden (I do love a garden) and collection of art weaving its way round the track which is still used to test electric vehicles.

We also visited the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile (national museum of the automobile), Museo Nazionale del Cinema (national museum of cinema), the Orto Botanico dell’Università di Torino (botanic gardens at the University of Torino), Museo Egizio (Egyptian museum), and the Shroud of Turin.

Whilst at the conference we actually spent most of our time chatting to people (and drinking prosecco) instead of attending talks. It was really great making new acquaintences but I’ll be honest, this was mostly because there wasn’t anything in the schedule that particularly stood out to me. The only exception was Siobhan McKeown and Dee Teal’s panel on Fixing the ladder: getting more women into leadership at WordPress businesses & even that, whilst enjoyable, felt far more targeted at mega-businesses than little teeny weeny agencies like mine. (It may seem silly attending a talk on getting women in leadership when I am literally a woman in leadership, but I’m keen to see my juniors eventually rise through the ranks too.)

I finally got to eat pizza in Italy, one of my 40 things before I’m forty challenges, although it wasn’t quite the pizza nor location I had in mind. Guess I’ll just have to go back before the big four-oh. Such a hardship. 😇

I came away from the trip inspired, but not in the way you might think. Whilst chatting to new people, Gaz and I met Florian Ziegler, introduced via Mark Howells-Mead, and got to hear about Florian’s daily photo blog. Another one of my 40TBIF challenge’s is to take part in the 365 project – a year-long photo journal – but I keep putting off starting it because a) it feels weird not starting on January 1st, and b) posting something like that to another platform. I came away wanting to start now & do it here… and although I obviously haven’t (yet) I can see it happening soon. My photography might not be as beautiful as Florian’s but taking regular photos is so meaningful to me and it would be a shame not to record that somewhere. So I guess… watch this space?

Just over a year ago today I blogged that a change is as good as a rest as I confirmed that I’d be taking on a part time role with a local agency in addition to running my own business. My logic felt sound: supplementing my own income while I expanded Ultimately Better so that… read full entry »

I made my first “proper” hire at Ultimately Better last month. Well, proper in the sense that I wasn’t just offering a salaried position to a long-standing freelancer; proper in the sense that I had to write a job spec, advertise, interview and make Big Important Decisions. I find the whole process of hiring someone… read full entry »

I’m currently sat in business class on a flight heading to Athens where I’ll be attending WordCamp Europe in a couple of days. We’re directly above the Swiss Alps and while I eat my complimentary breakfast and sip my fancy coffee I’m struck by the raw beauty of the landscape below; seemingly perfect undisturbed snow… read full entry »

I have successfully rendered myself a liar this week. After calling myself “basically unemployable” back in 2018, I started a new part-time position with Source Design this week. Super stressed Jem who couldn’t possibly contemplate a 9-5 way back in 2018 is now super chilled out handling a senior dev position for one firm, managing… read full entry »

I know it’s customary to write up ‘year in review’ style posts at the end of the actual year in question, but I think I’m only just getting over 2020 enough to write about it. How do you put into perspective a year that has simultaneously seen the lows of a loss of a parent,… read full entry »

It doesn’t feel right to title the next post in this ‘series’ as Tales from Lockdown, but it doesn’t exactly feel like normality is restored, so Tales from Limbo it is. In the last post from waaaay back in May (er, how did we get to October?) I was a little bit worried that more… read full entry »

After my last lockdown post the Easter holidays drew to a close and we settled back into the homeschool routine. However, the kids seemed to be finding it more difficult to concentrate, and I was more shouty as a consequence. It didn’t feel like we were getting much done, and although I don’t normally do… read full entry »

Each year I try to make small improvements to my life, my work, my fitness, my well-being etc. Small incremental improvements are much easier to maintain in the long term than large overhauls (although I’m no stranger to those either!) 2019 has been mostly about making grown up decisions to improve my financial standing &… read full entry »

I’ve been stressed again lately. The ups and downs of hormones, the DOOM of summer holidays, the move, the kids, the usual shit. When I get stressed I start to ponder what I’m doing with my life and whether I should get a proper job. Unfortunately, I’m basically unemployable; there’s no way I could go… read full entry »