Hi! Welcome to my Person User Manual. Hopefully this document will help you to know how I am as a human being and how I work best π
I like to be called Javi
(pronunciation, he/him/his
). You will see that I usually write Javier
, my full name, but I don't like to be called that way.
I speak πͺπΈ and π¬π§ fluently (and I babble in π«π·).
In a nutshell, I am...
- Shy: It takes some time for me to ramp up with new people and until then I'm usually quiet.
- This never applies in professional conversations/meetings.
- Sociable: Talking and meeting with people makes me feel happy, comfortable and included.
- Playful: I enjoy life (and work) with a healthy dose of light-hearted humour.
- Introverted: Social interactions drain my 'inner battery' and will make me quieter, but don't worry I am fine and still enjoying. I prefer a small amount of people or 1:1 time over big gatherings.
- I need to work beside a window. I'm like a πͺ΄: I need direct sunlight, the lack of it greatly affects my mood. Additionally, views from the windows inspire me and help me think.
- I am most productive with two monitors and with my own keyboard and mouse.
- I highly prefer going to the office as opposed to working remote, but I trully appreciate the possibility of being remote from time to time.
- I work from 9:00 to 18:00 (Β±1h) with one hour for lunch. I am very respectful about that aspect of my work/life balance.
- I am flexible in special ocassions: I can accomodate weirdly scheduled meetings as long as they are ocassional, justified and announced in advance.
I like both sync and async communication, for me they serve different purposes:
- Async
- Leave me a message (I like Slack) with as much context and information that I might need to assist you (https://nohello.net/, although do say 'hello' π).
- Give me a buffer of 1h/2hs to reply, I might be busy.
- I might be outside of working hours (see above). You can still send the message, I'll get back to you as soon as I start working again.
- Sync
- If you need a quick ad-hoc call leave me a message first and we'll work it out.
- If you want more than a quick call, schedule a meeting and send me the calendar invite and we'll work it out. Please include an agenda, I don't like uncertainty.
- Important? Page me!
- For me a good feedback contains: 1) observed behaviour, 2) why do you think it is good/bad, 3) specific example, and if bad 4) actionable advice to correct the situation.
- Be a normal person. Normal people don't say "I want to give you feedback on X", they say "Hey, I wanted to talk about our past meeting...". The former expression makes me tense in advance.
- I might have had a bad day. If you suspect that it might have been the case I would appreciate if you could wait until a better moment if it is bad feedback. If it is good, you might make my day by sharing π
- If not, please share your feedback whenever you are most comfortable. You don't have to wait for 1:1s.
- Trust: Everything I do I do with my best intentions, judgement and energy. I perform my best when there's mutual trust between colleagues.
- Be mindful and respectful of my time: I like to help people, but I also suck at time management. Please only ask for assistance if you really need it.
- [Manager] Clear reporting stream: I'm quite good at self-organizing and I'd love to have a single async way of reporting status.
- Time management: I'm still calibrating on when I should say 'yes' or 'no' to commitments. Explicitly mentioning if my attendance is optional or not would be a great way of helping me with this.
- Getting lost in unimportant details in discussions: If, let's say during a design review meeting, you catch me talking about a detail that doesn't really affect the whole design, please remind me.
- Company/org/project politics: I'm usually oblivious about company politics and I feel lost whenever I find myself in the center of a political decision I didn't know it was political.
- Collaborating with a colleague on the same project.
- Presenting or sharing something I learned.
- Problem solving.
- Parrots π¦, they are super cool.
Template: I based my manual on this template, but I modified it specially the first part.