Micky is out of town.
The house is too quiet. The bed is too big. There’s no one to make laugh once the babies sleep, and when they sun rises the wrong person is cuddling their morning awake. Even the Chinese food leaves a longing for more.
There’s just too much space.
We’re an extremely email happy culture at TokBox. We have automated emails, out of office emails, working from home emails, and then just a bunch of emails about getting things done.
As I’ve been drowning in email lately, I started to notice a pattern that I really don’t like.
In an effort to move through the deluge of communication coming my way, I very quickly, and often curtly, reply to emails or start new email threads. I don’t stop to do any level of thanking, appreciation, or even common courtesy.
As email is such a large part of our culture, it would be as if I came up to someone’s desk, didn’t notice their hair was dyed blue, and left without saying as much. I don’t like that. And so I’m going to change it.
I’m going to do two things differently:
I don’t know how it’s going to go as I love sending and receiving email, but we’ll see soon. Very soon 🙂
Amelia was desperate to go swimming today. Micky wanted to see the curtains. So we looked up some public pool times and headed down to Bayshore.
The lady at the front desk of the MLK Jr Rec Center was incredibly nice. Great smile.
We got in, and the babies were definitely intimated. Lots of loud kids. The water was too cold for them. But we hopped in, and toughed it out for 35 minutes.
We took a steaming hot shower afterwards because the water was really cold.
And then hit up the playground.
I think it’s so great that the city of SF has public pools we can go to for $8. It’s definitely going to be part of our weekend play book.
But the best part was how Amelia wanted it, and how much she enjoys the pool, swimming, and just being physically active in general.
Long may it last 🙂
The babies have fallen in love with playing hide and seek. Except… there’s no mystery to how they play 🙂
The game usually goes something like this
Amelia and Luka go into bed time delay mode by suggesting a rousing game of hide-and-seek. Amelia usually says something along the lines of, “Mummy, Luka, Mummy, Luka you be a dinosaur. Me and daddy hide in daddy’s bed.”
So let’s break it down… a successful game of hide-and-seek seems to involve
That is, unless you’re Luka. You see if you’re Luka then you can’t wait, and you pull the covers down, pop out of the bed, and yell, “Mummy. I here!” over and over again until you’re discovered. And then you squeal in delight anyway.
What will those goofballs think of next to not have to go to bed. I can only imagine 🙂
The Friday evening pizza date.
Before Micky and I got married, had kids, and officially became adults, we used to head over to Cavallaho Point on a Friday afternoon, watch the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge, and have fancy appetizers and drinks.
You stop doing that when there’s bedtime, and books, and bath time, and dinner to worry about.
But it doesn’t mean that we should stop all traditions… and we’ve almost accidentally fallen into one that I love…
Friday night pizza with the kids.
It’s only been 2 weeks, so it’s not quite a thing yet (:-)), but for the last two weeks we’ve picked the kids up from school, taken the kids to pizza, and just vegged out enjoyed each other’s company. I love it.
Last week we went to The Pizza Place, and then sat on the beach (Amelia’s idea by the way). What the kids didn’t eat we fed to the sea gulls (which they thought was the funniest thing ever). Amelia stood there shouting, “Hey! Seagull. Eat that pizza!”
Tonight, we went to Bambino’s with the wonderful Erin there to take care of us. The kids were civilized. The food there is always great (though I didn’t eat because of Ramadan).
I love our new mini-tradition, and I hope we can keep it going. It’s a really great one!
I always tell people that I have 3 babies:
And all three have had an amazing year. They’ve gone from needing epic hand holding to having a village around them that makes them better than I could alone.
At work, the hardest part has been learning to trust that others can love the product as much as I do. The team I’ve built makes me feel so confident in the wider set of problems that we’re solving. And now, as they develop their own ideas, I’m really seeing what OpenTok will be. It’s really amazing.
This past week at swimming class my other two babies surprised me so much. Luka is getting so damn confident. Amelia did the older class by herself, and she was just amazing!! And the whole time all I want is to hold them back, and feel like I’m on control and can help them.
But as I said to my team at TokBox, my challenge this quarter is learning to let go. I guess it’s destiny that it all has to happen at once 🙁
Well it finally happened.
@monvural ahem, your thoughts?
— Berkawittz (@berkawittz) July 12, 2014
I got called out for stopping the daily posts. And so they’ll come back, and they’ll come back with a vengeance!
Tonight though will just be a shout out to Berko who’s got me back on track.
I started at TokBox six years ago today.
It’s been an amazing journey to say the least. I interviewed with 20 companies my 5th year of college. I got a ton of first round interviews because I’d worked my ass off to build a killer internship resume. I just couldn’t close the door though on a bunch of companies (Mint, Facebook, Apple, Google to say the least).
But TokBox took a chance on me.
It all started with Timmy Wenzel who did my pre-screen interview. Turns out he had no idea what he was asking, but damn did he have me fooled. I came out to SF, interviewed with Ron, Nick, Kundan, I think Jason. It was scary. I wore a tie, and they all made fun of me. None of them are TokBox-ers today 🙁
I got my offer letter, and asked Timmy for more money. He said no. I took the job offer. Just asking Timmy for more money scared the shit out of me, but my dad said I had to do it. Timmy later told me if I’d asked again he would have said yes. I couldn’t though. His hair was too perfect.
There is genuinely only one other job I think I would have considered, and that was to go work for Steve Jernigan. I didn’t believe in the product Part of me thinks I should have just followed Eishay wherever he went. The road would look so different had I done that. I’d be a much, much better engineer though
Over the years the faces changed (a lot). Micky joined that November. I chased her the following January. Ian came the following May. Deidre came and left in that window. I think she was just 2 years too early. She and I just couldn’t convince folks quickly enough that the API was a legitimate thing.
It’s felt like three different roles. I exploded as an engineer under Yang. I exploded as a PM under David. And now only God knows what I’m doing under Scott. But all three of those experiences are A+.
In this epic state of nostalgia I think about all the things we could have done differently. What if we’d killed the load time llama, and just converted to an HTML based site? What if we’d hired that CTO guy? What if we’d handled the pivot differently from a company organization point of view? What if I’d left when everyone else was seeming to go?
The horizon for a VC-backed platform company is very different from a consumer-app company. We lost on that big time. And yet, Telefonica is allowing us to do great and big things. Silver linings abound.
I’m most proud that Janine and I convinced Ian to pivot. The technology was always meant to be a platform play (even if I had no chance of being the engineer to make it really happen). I told Ian once, “You’ve got me and Janine. That’s all you need to make this thing happen”. I was almost right.
I’m most sad about how many people we churned through along the way. I’ve never worked anywhere else, and so I don’t know if it’s typical to have such a “death” toll. It was a steep emotional cost to say the least.
This week Ian’s back. The vibe in the office is full of energy. The opportunities in front of us are so clear, so full of potential. The time coming up looks so much more full of potential than the time passed.
And I think that’s a sign that after 6 years… I did something right. Something to be proud of.
It’s been 4 really long days filled with airports, airplanes, meetings, and now I’m heading home.
Last night was an amazing night with Louise and Lizzie’s crews.
It made me want to see mine even more.
On FaceTime tonight, the babies gave me big kisses. She can speak so well now, and she expresses emotion so boldly. He’s just so darn handsome I can’t take my eyes off of him.
It’s almost worth waking them up when I land and getting a big kiss out of them both. Almost… 🙂
All I have left to do is nail down the keys, glue the board to the base, and hook up the battery.
It’s so close!
