working with me

Working with a new coworker is like taking a walk in an unknown city. You aren't sure what to expect. You don't know if you will like it. You're not even sure if the local culture will align with yours. To make it easier and more enjoyable for my new colleagues, I thought I could write a bit about who I am.

I'm an intense and passionate person, and I love what I do for a living. Because of that, I can come up as impatient, but I'm a firm believer that nearly nothing is truly urgent in life. I'm quite laid back, so no stress, seriously! I'm someone assertive, transparent and an extrovert. It definitely translates in the way I'm interacting with others. I'm colorful and I like to politely tease people, but my goal is never to offend anyone, so please let me know if I do. I have no tolerance for sexism, racism, transphobia, ageism, ableism or anything around those lines. French is my first language, but I consider myself bilingual.

Nowadays, people say that everyone has ADHD, but I believe it's a spectrum. I'm at the far right of it (read, intense as it negatively affects my life). It's more complex than that, but part of it means that my focus is grabbed by anything my mind or my eyes fancy at the time. There are a lot more disruptive symptoms, but I learned to cope with most so you shouldn't see any impact on my work. Thus, I get bored easily, so it's why I need challenges to be happy and thrive.

I learned to be good with work life balance, and I'm working in ET/EDT when I'm not traveling. It means that I'm not checking my emails or Slack during the evenings or weekends when I'm not at an event (so should you). I also use the pomodoro technique, which means that I focus on tasks 25 minutes at the time and don't constantly check Slack. I avoid notifications as much as possible, but don't worry, I always get back to everyone in a timely manner. I overuse emojis, Slack reactions and share mostly everything on Twitter. I'm quite vocal about injustices there & I have no tolerance for stupid people—I'm too old for that shit!

I will fight the status quo if I believe we can have a bigger impact or be more efficient. With that said, I'm a big fan of the "disagree and commit" approach. I value feedback a lot, so please, don't be shy: anything is up for discussion. I manage developer relations (or my work as an IC) as a lean startup. Try things, fail fast if needed, and learn along the process. Lastly, since it's a recurrent question, you can write my name in two ways: Fred or when writing with my last name, Frédéric Harper. As for how to call me, I prefer when people just call me Fred. My pronouns are "he” and "him”.

Lastly, I'm a crazy cat man, a huge The Office US fan and I love shitposting on Twitter. Anyway, I could write a lot more about myself, but the goal is to give a somewhat a quick high-level intro on who I am and how I work. I felt that those points were important as they can have a positive (or negative) impact on our new work relationship. In the end, I get shit done and I hope we'll have fun together!