jobthomas

[jobthomas]

Montagu & Plettenberg Bay

Right before the end of my parental leave in October, we went on a holiday. We stayed in Guano Caves in Montagu. The pool was very legit, and our kids loved the animals on the grounds. Then, we continued to Plett, and stayed at the holiday home of a colleague. We’ve been to Plett several times and keep going back because of the great beach, and the many things to do there. This time we visited…

[jobthomas]

Change my mind

On social media, “change my mind” is often posted alongside a provocative opinion, but ironically, it’s rarely meant to invite real dialogue. In leadership, however, the ability to genuinely change your mind—and to build shared understanding along the way—is critical. Why is that? This idea resonates with the philosopher Hannah Arendt. Although I encountered her work in academic settings, I…

[jobthomas]

Why I share my own performance reviews

A few years ago, I started sharing the feedback I get about my performance with my team. Some people are taken aback by that at first, but ultimately, it helps us as a group of leaders. If you’re a senior leader, you should consider sharing the feedback you get. Here’s why I think it matters. Reset expectations At Automattic, we tend to use three main categories: not meeting expectations,…

[jobthomas]

Bum sweets

Our Easter weekend was pretty horrible: all four of us were sick somehow. Yesterday morning, we took our kids to the GP. When going over the medicine we had used, Kim burst out laughing. She couldn’t remember the English word “suppo”. I straight away knew why she was laughing. That is because in Flanders, we informally call a suppo a “poepsnoep”—literally translated as a “sweetie for your bum”,…

[jobthomas]

Summer holidays

During last year’s summer holidays, we had a 1mo baby, so we didn’t travel much at all. In the most recent summer, we changed that. We celebrated our anniversary at Skilpadvlei in Stellenbosch. Then, we spent a few days in Oudtshoorn where we soaked in the dry heat, and had the most wonderful time in Wilderness at the Ebb & Flow rest camp, before concluding with a few days in Diemersfontein…

[jobthomas]

Google Calendar's appointments

For ages, it was a nightmare to easily set up appointments, and you’d have to rely on services like Calendly to do so. However, recently, Google Calendar started offering a bookable appointment schedule. I’ve started using that in my work context as well, but it’s available to any free Google Calendar user. You can easily: Change the appointment duration Set a schedule and add…

[jobthomas]

Why your airport Wi-Fi may not work

Over the past few years, being able to connect to airport Wi-Fi seemed to be luck of the draw. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. The most frustrating was that I could never have the modal window to sign in to the Wi-Fi network. So what was the solution? I found that using custom DNS settings—I use Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1—were the cause of the problem. Deleting those while I am…

[jobthomas]

Orval's remembrance

In Belgium, when you order an abbey beer, tradition takes over. The waiter carefully finds the right glass, placing both bottle and glass with the label facing to you. Then, with a precision most Belgians will learn at some point throughout their life, pours the beer, forming a perfect collar that curves just over the edge of the glass. About a finger of beer remains in the bottle—holding the…

[jobthomas]

My 2024 in books

I consider myself a fairly avid reader, but parenting an infant for most of 2024 resulted in me being in a constant state of tiredness. In the first part, I barely read because I simply couldn’t concentrate on books, especially in the evening when normally is my prime reading time. After returning to South Africa in August after a few months abroad, I found myself suddenly finding renewed energy…

[jobthomas]

Moving to Twenty Twenty-Five

Every year, WordPress releases a new theme. Most years, I try to update my site to use this theme. I find this a great way to explore WordPress—the software I work with professionally on a daily basis—from a user perspective. The Twenty Twenty-Two theme was the first one to introduce full site editing, as I talked about here, and so much has changed since then. Here is an overview of what I…

[jobthomas]

2024 Running goals

In my 2023 running recap, I hinted at doing my first marathon. Our son had just been born, and I had no clue what was going to be possible, so I didn’t want to commit to anything just yet. All running goals: 2022 • 2023 • 2024 My first marathon While this t-shirt was handed out before the race started, I only allowed myself to wear it after finishing. At the beginning of this year, I…

[jobthomas]

Luca & Nijntje

Since Mila’s second birthday, I’ve started having fun with fondant to make cake toppers for her birthdays. At the end of November, we celebrated Luca’s first year on earth, so I guess it’s now two cake toppers per year. Luca is obsessed with a night light we have of Nijntje (Miffy), so it was an easy decision to make that into a cake topper. This was by far the fastest one I’ve ever done.…

[jobthomas]

Using AI to apply as Happiness Engineer

Since I posted that we’re hiring in Woo Happiness, my LinkedIn inbox has been flooded with people seeking advice on how to apply, wanting to share their résumé with me, and asking why they didn’t make it through to a next round. While I understand these questions, they ironically also often pose a red flag for me: we want people to work autonomously, to read procedures carefully and follow them,…

[jobthomas]

Switching to Colemak

Shortly after WooThemes was acquired by Automattic, we went on “Grand Meetup”, the annual company-wide in-person meeting. There, I heard Matt talk about “Dvorak” for the first time: an alternative keyboard layout that was designed for both speed and comfort of writing. Rubber keyboard layovers were up for grabs and I tested it for a few weeks, much to my frustration—I switched back to QWERTY.…

[jobthomas]

Ventimiglia & Monaco

Next to spending time with my family in Belgium and France, we also wanted to have some time as a small family unit. We drove to the first town in Italy: Ventimiglia. There, we mostly spent time at the beach. Mila and I also explored the old town together. Since neither of us had been to Monaco, and it was only half an hour drive away, we also had a super short visit to what is basically an…

[jobthomas]

Paris

On the way back from Italy, we needed to go via Paris for an admin issue. During the 2024 Olympics … We were prepared for the worst, but it was actually the calmest we’d ever seen the city. It seemed that unless everyone avoided the city if they weren’t planning to see the Olympics. After the admin was done, we ventured towards the Eifel Tower, and even saw an Olympic race walking event. Here…

[jobthomas]

Mâcon & Pierrelongue

A few months ago, we were in Europe for a bit. We spent about a month in Ypres, but my favourite part was a camping trip with my parents, and two of my siblings and their families. Because of the long drive and not knowing how Luca would handle it, we stopped in Mâcon, a city about 6h into our journey. Here are some pics. Unlike last time, I took few pics of the actual camping. With Luca still…