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Nat Tarnoff Posts

Infinite Canvas 6 With Rachel Nabors

Infinite Canvas 6 With Rachel Nabors

Published on August 3, 2015

Last week I got to be on a podcast. This week I appear on a screencast with Rachel Nabors talking about vestibular disorders in general and how animation may affect a user on your site.

Rachel Nabors

If you don’t know who Rachel is, she is an amazing illustrator, cartoonist, speaker and animator using all those skills to shine a light on the web can be a better place with the right kinds and amounts of animation.

We had a lot of fun recording it, but I need to get a better microphone, sorry for the scratchiness that my beard brings. Also, we had a few problems trying to record it. Running Skype, Camtasia, Quicktime, and all the websites we looked at kept crashing our GPUs.

The screencast is on Youtube, and you should totally subscribe. She hasn’t done one in a while and it could be another while before we see another, so unlike the podcast episode I did, I’m embedding the video here.

Enjoy! Hit us up on Twitter with any questions you may think of.

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I’m on CtrlClickCast Podcast Episode 49Nat Tarnoff

I’m on CtrlClickCast Podcast Episode 49

Published on July 30, 2015

Last fall I met the great hosts of CtrlClickCast at CSSDevConf and they were gracious enough to invite me on the show. I got together with Lea & Emily last week and recorded an episode on Accessibility. It was super fun! I hope to do more podcasts (but I need a better mic!).

The episode is now live! Go listen to it. Really, right now. I’ll wait. It’s about 50 minutes long and Emily and Lea have had the show nominated for the Net Awards recently, it’s a really great show.

Here is a direct link to the full transcript.

I’m not embedding the podcast here because I want you to go to iTunes or Stitcher and subscribe. And after you listen, give a review!

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Animated Gifs in Social Media Streams

Animated Gifs in Social Media Streams

Published on July 27, 2015

Last week I encountered a pseudo 3D animated gif from Doritos that autoplayed while viewing my Twitter feed. This gif was brightly colored, and its “3D” effect triggered a vestibular attack and migraine. As I looked more into the issue, it isn’t just Twitter who does this. It also happens in our Instagram, Vine, Facebook, and Snapchat feeds, just to name a few. Now some of you will tell me, “those channels are meant to work that way.” True, but what if due to advertising, or worse hacking, someone uploaded a gif worse than this Doritos one that autoplayed and triggered a photosensitive epileptic seizure? Who is responsible?

I would say whoever uploaded the gif is certainly responsible, but isn’t the platform as well? Do these really have to autoplay? When it comes to ads, is anyone checking to see if the ads meet certain standards? In radio and television, they don’t turn down ads because they don’t like the content, but if the ad promotes violence, cruelty, causes medical emergencies, or harm to the public, they will refuse to air it. I argue that those similar rules need to apply to the social networks we enjoy as a primary source of content.

I personally want an apology from Doritos for causing me pain. I know it wasn’t done on purpose, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been avoided. Good marketers and user experience professionals need to know the audience and if their audience might have a medical condition that this type of ad would bother, then need to change that ad.

I’m also asking Twitter, Vine, Facebook, Instagram and all other social media platforms to put controls that prevent autoplaying of videos and gifs. The user needs to have control over their experience if movement may trigger physical pain.

And for those of you saying I shouldn’t use the Twitter web interface, why is it there if not to be used? Typically I use my phone, but as a consultant I am on many different machines in a week, some of which can’t have clients installed, and sometimes I’m in buildings where my phone won’t work for security reasons.

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Human Operating Systems

Human Operating Systems

Published on July 21, 2015

When I speak with people about my chronic illness, there is often confusion on it. Many people think, “your pain [or dizziness] is just in your head” and that I can just let it go or ignore it. Yes, my disabilities are invisible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very real. When we meet people who are deaf, we can’t see what is physically wrong with them, but we believe them when they say they can’t hear us. Why don’t we believe people with other disabilities?

While at a meeting recently with a group of parents, we conducted a mindfulness exercise. We meditated on an itch we had on our body. The goal was to sit with the stress an itch can produce and yet not let it bother us. We couldn’t scratch it either. For some parents, the itch went away. Others let it bother them. I enjoyed the sensation, but then I think I have an unfair disadvantage that the group leader knows about and agreed.

One of the parents was curious, and since I’m not exactly shy about speaking of my disabilities, I expanded on it being chronic pain and dizziness. This father blew off my feelings and experience right away saying “It’s all in you head” meaning that I was making it up. I countered that it is in my head, but very real and that if I could wish it away I would in fact to do that.

Human Computers

This began a discussion that had me communicating in a way that seemed to connect with the other parents. If you have seen my talk, UX of Stairs, you have heard me mention the idea of human hardware and software. We are all really complex computers. We are made up of two main systems that are fairly standard.

The first is our hardware. We are all initially connected with the components needed to grow our biological hardware the same, but due to environmental changes, sometimes that hardware doesn’t develop the way it should. After birth we encounter a gigantic world that too is going to influence our hardware. But for the most part we are born with 5 input systems (5 senses), and two output systems (oral and physical).

We also come with a base operating system. One that turns the hardware on and keeps it running. It can take input and translate it to output. But most importantly it can learn. It can combine the input with algorithms we call emotions and creates a new output that is a subclass that we call art. And art comes in many forms. For some it is a visual output like drawing and painting, others produce auditory output like music or language, and still there is the expansion of the core physical output in the form of dance or sports. With training, anyone can process any input through emotions and produce any of these types of output, but for some it comes more naturally than others.

Once in a while you encounter something in your life that affects your software just as it could affect your hardware. This could be a happy event, or perhaps a traumatic one. This experience alters your input, output, or algorithms in such a way that when you experience it again (or something that reminds you of it), your reaction won’t be the same as someone sitting next to you who hasn’t shared that experience.

For some people, this event can simply be suffering lots of pain. Over time, you develop a tolerance for that pain. Sometimes, you are stubborn, like me, and try to move through it when you can’t make it go away. Additionally, your hardware, nerves in this case, may be more or less sensitive causing the input, not the algorithm, to give you a different tolerance.

My dizziness is a matter of my software being rewritten. The vestibular system is made up of our inner ear system, ocular system, and our sense of spatial awareness. Together these form a kind of internal gyroscope. Thousands of points of data are coming in through these systems every second of every day. Your brain needs to clean that data up and process it.

You subconsciously apply a filter to the incoming data and remove the outliers and extremes. This reduces the data to an average that can be easier to work with. I think this is how my algorithm actually works, except that my filter needs new parameters of what to filter. Right now, it doesn’t filter much. A couple years ago, somehow my settings loaded a new configuration file that turned the filter off completely. Over the last 30 months, I’ve been slowly adding them back in through experience and direct training. This makes sense to me as I have been able to slowly tolerate more experiences.

So what happens when my filter is broken? Imagine you are making coffee in the morning. You have your filter in the pot with the coffee in. As you start to pour the water in it strains through the coffee first, then the paper. But the coffee and the paper can only take so much water at a time. If we pour too fast we begin to see the water backup, the coffee grounds float, and eventually the water/coffee combo flow over the sides of the pot. This is what is going in my head. With too much stimuli or when a filter isn’t working properly, I simply can not digest the data coming in. Something will get lost and a mess follows.

Most of the time this means I experience aphasia. Aphasia comes in two forms, receptive and expressive. Receptive aphasia means I literally won’t know what you are saying or doing (usually words). I won’t recognize the sounds, or that they are in fact words. Any I do catch will not register their meaning. “In one ear, out the other.” is probably the best description of this.

Expressive aphasia is when I’m the one doing the communicating. Typically I stop in the middle of a thought or sentence. I’ll wave my hands wildly and move my mouth, but nothing other than gibberish comes out. I can see the concept right in front of me, but I lack the proper words to express it.

While technically the software is in my head, anyone who has tried to program anything (even a VCR clock), knows that it isn’t always as simple as forgetting the current settings and putting in new ones. With learning systems, we can’t delete those files, otherwise we corrupt the whole system. We must slowly reteach things to overwrite the current configuration. The algorithm will never be the same as the original as it always retains the history of what it previously learned, but with enough training, we can get close to the original. This is my hope.

Humans aren’t copies of each other. We are each unique in our hardware and software. The next time you meet someone whose software isn’t running the same as yours, instead of blowing them off, take a moment and try to understand how and why they process things differently. It will help you empathize and understand them. It will also help you expand your algorithms to make you a better person and technologist.

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On DepressionNat Tarnoff. Nat has a bald head, and a long white beard with a touch of red. They have a black and yellow flannel on with red and black tiger striped glasses.

On Depression

Published on July 7, 2015

Society has many ills. People are fallible and get themselves addicted to unhealthy things all the time. It may be overeating, under-eating, gambling, alcohol, or drugs, but each of these people is dealing with a pain that their particular addiction gives a little bit of relief from. We recognize that these addictions are diseases; we spend millions a year advertising and partaking in various treatments for them. We recognize that people who have these addictions need to take life a day at a time; there is no magic wand for addiction. It is a constant struggle. But many of these addictions are just covering what the real problem is, mental health. As a society we don’t talk about mental illness. We don’t admit that is too is a disease that takes a daily fight and this needs to change.

Trigger Warning – I say some things some folks won’t like

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, “Depression is hell”. Depression is a deep dark cavern that makes it hard to see the good happening around you. It can be all consuming and weigh you down like an anchor. We look for the light, but too often we can’t see it. But everyone experiences their depression a little differently. I want to describe my depression, because I’ve experienced a lot of it, and it gets reflected in everything I do in one way or another. I can’t speak to all mental health issues, I can only speak to mine. Hopefully by sharing, you will learn what I deal with. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can’t. What matters though is that you take me seriously, as well as all others with mental health issues. Respect them and don’t judge them.

Emotional Heart vs. Rational Mind

I tend to think of myself as a rational person. I have a degree in philosophy and enjoy a hearty debate. I excel in logic problems and write code for a living. I work well through puzzles, yet I am at the same time quite emotional. Every moment of every day I have to make a decision on whether to listen to my emotional heart or my rational mind and they are usually in conflict.

The Cycles of My Depression

The Good

When things are good, like when I fall in love, it becomes very hard to discern between my heart and mind. They want the same thing. My heart is a solid rocket booster burning furiously in just a few moments, while my mind is the long lasting candle you are glad you packed for the tornado kit. I have to choose, and usually fail, to slow things down and take one step at a time. Since both heart and mind want the same thing, the heart usually wins and I get consumed in the flames. Typically, this means something else gets ignored. My health, house, family, or friends are the most likely culprits. If I could follow my mind a little more, I could have it all.

The Bad

When things are bad, and they usually are bad, it is a lot easier to see, but harder to follow the right path. The dark thoughts range from worry about money, weather, or health to unidentifiable panic and self-harm. Very few of these thoughts deserve any merit. Most are nonsensical to begin with and can be quickly forgotten when I’m healthy. A few, like worries about money, are legitimate concerns exaggerated by my unhealthy thoughts. When carefully examined, they are easily dealt with. And while I say I can forget, reason, or ignore things, what often happens is I clench onto them like a kraken around a whale. It’s this grasping and holding that turns into the depressive spiral. I get tunnel vision and only see this one problem, ignorant to all the good in my surroundings.

I tend to be a hypochondriac, which sucks, but sucks even more when you have actual health problems without solutions and cures from doctors. I also get really lonely. I have a full house, two kids and three cats, and lots of people who care about me, but that doesn’t change the fact I get lonely. In the flick of a switch, I can feel like the last person on the planet, while having a conversation with someone sitting right in front of me. Working from home and only interacting with people in a digital realm doesn’t make this easier, but my physical health precludes me from working in an office every day.

The Ugly

I think about suicide a lot. I have since I was a kid. I’ve tried to take my life several times in the past. I plan not to do it again. This is a very important statement. It isn’t that I don’t plan to kill myself, but I specifically plan NOT to commit suicide. I have no desire to die. I want to live, watch my kids grow up, travel the world, help people build better technology, and make beautiful art. I want to climb mountains, hang out with my brother, sister-in-law, nice and nephews, maybe even relearn to surf. It doesn’t matter though. Every day, sometimes every hour, sometimes every minute, I have a thought of suicide. When I’m having a bad day, especially if I’m in a lot of pain, I am in a constant struggle of having a suicidal thought and letting it go. Medication only takes the edge off so that I win these battles more than lose.

How I navigate the day

I use meditation as a practice to learn to let go thoughts. Focus on the breathing. When a thought comes in on something other than my breath, acknowledge it and let it go. This takes focused effort. When I’m depressed they don’t just go away. My heart requires justification before it lets go. This means half my time and mental energy is spent debating my inner self, just to keep moving forward. Think about that. Think about how much time you spend on solving a problem and then try to solve that same problem if every other second you had to argue with someone about a completely pointless and random thing. It becomes really hard to get into a flow space for solving hard problems with this going on.

Meditation for me, and while I know a lot of folks who have had it work for them, it will not work for everyone. I still get into a funk periodically, but most days are better now. I know I can ride out the dark times, but many people with depression can’t.

“Just Get Over It”

Depression isn’t something to “just get over” for most people. Don’t say this to anyone. It shows a clear lack of understanding of what they are going through and a lack of compassion for them as an individual.

Depression is a daily struggle. Some of us have the upper hand on our depression right now, but I can assure that many will eventually slip, needing more understanding, and maybe some help some time in the future. Others are in the heat of the battle and are losing. They can’t break the cycle of bad thoughts. They need understanding, patience, and when they ask for it, help. You can’t force someone into accepting help, so don’t even try. No matter what you do, if they aren’t ready for it, it won’t stick. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call for help if they are hurting themselves or others. There is emergency help and long term help. If a person is a threat, emergency services need to be brought in, no questions.

How You can Help

One in five people struggle with mental illness every year. Twenty percent. More people suffer with mental illness than smoke cigarettes. This isn’t some small group we can cast out. These are your neighbors, friends, lovers, parents, cousins and children. Break the stigma and taboo. Talk about it openly and acknowledge that it is a disease that people struggle with daily. More people have mental health issues than breast cancer every year, yet we talk about it less and spend less money fighting it. It is up to you to be compassionate, patient, offer an ear when you can, but always give someone suffering from mental health the same respect as anyone else.

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Imposter Syndrome SucksNat Tarnoff. Nat has a bald head, and a long white beard with a touch of red. They have a black and yellow flannel on with red and black tiger striped glasses.

Imposter Syndrome Sucks

Published on June 10, 2015

But we do it to ourselves. I battle imposter syndrome every day. In fact I made a distinct decision back in 2009 to “fake it until I make it”. I got fired for poor performance (I was severely depressed at the time which affected my work). While out of work in a down economy, I specifically put on a new outward face that would pretend to be someone I’m not to land a job.

The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel – Steven Furtick

I didn’t lie about my skills or abilities. I was actually quite humble about them. I didn’t lie about my background or education. It just wasn’t in my nature. What I did was pretend I was outgoing. I pretended I had something to talk about. I pretended I was interested in other people.

And it worked. I got a new job. I established myself as someone who cared about my team, and thus became a leader. I got on stage and presented my ideas to people. I taught others what I knew. Over the last six years I have turned that decision to fake it into quite a successful career. I’ve been invited to talk at conferences throughout the United States and even in Scotland. I’ve gotten to meet and work with some of my industry heroes. I get to hang out in Slack channels and tweet with people whose knowledge I built my career on (and they know who I am!). Something else happened, something I didn’t expect, I actually enjoy these things, have the skills, and I am interested in people.

But everyday, every time I try to do something, I feel it creeping in the back of my brain, “You don’t belong here. You don’t deserve it. You didn’t write a book. You don’t blog enough. They’re humoring you.” Its the voice of my lack of confidence. I was shy and bullied a lot when I was growing up. It is embedded in my psyche that I am insignificant.

I have a rational brain though. I can look at my history and see the success I achieved at other jobs, popularity in my blog posts, and the fact I keep getting invited to join groups of experts or to talk. I am skilled. I am successful. Yet the imposter syndrome still nags. I know I am not alone in this.

We need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Look inside and figure out what makes you happy and do it. I really like speaking and meeting others, so I’m trying to do more of it (need a speaker? Email me.). I like writing, so I’m working on a bunch of tutorials that could become a book with the right editor. I’m asking you to do the same, no, I’m begging you to find what you love.

Success is not what society tells us. You don’t need to own a home (I want to sell mine), or a fancy car. You don’t need millions in the bank. You just need to do what makes you happy.

I like to make art (but I’m way out of practice), I’d like to learn the guitar again, I want to travel the world, and I want to teach others (not just tech stuff either). So over the next two years I’m going to be focusing on setting up my life to do these things. Why two years you ask? Well, I have two kids in high school, I want to let them graduate before I sell the house and start traveling. Will you decide what makes you happy and try to set yourself up for that life?

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How to Negotiate

How to Negotiate

Published on April 14, 2015

Negotiating is a tricky subject. Talking money seems to still be a taboo in polite society. Subsequently, we often over pay for things or get underpaid for the work we do. A friend asked about having a conference session on negotiating. I began working on a talk, but I’m not sure it is ready yet. This article is an attempt to get my thoughts out there so a discussion can be had to help me flesh out the talk.

Why should I write about negotiation? I’m not sure I should, but I’ve had some pretty good luck doing it. I’ve bought 2 cars at my asking price and one well below the dealer’s listed price. On several occasions I’ve negotiated significant pay increases with my employer or raised my salary by taking a new job. Not everything I do will work for everyone, but I hope it helps you improve you outcomes when you next negotiate.

Know Your Role

The first thing we need to do is know which side of the negotiating table we are standing on, because after all, we want to make sure we play our best hand regardless of our role.

If you walk onto a car lot looking for a new vehicle, its pretty clear which side you are on. You are the buyer. However, some people forget what side they are on when it comes to negotiating a job. In this case, you are the seller.

Your goods are the skills you bring to the job and the work you promise.

The person with the money is always the buyer.

The person with the money isn’t always going to be the person with the power. In a car negotiation, the dealer has the power. In a job negotiation, the employer has the power. Every situation is different, but you need to tip the scales of power in your direction.

Plan for Negotiation

Do your research. Spend time before you head into the negotiation getting to know the product, person or company you will be working with. If it is a car, spend time on the auto websites learning the features and values on the models you might like to buy. Look up the company on GlassDoor and other job review sites to get a feel for what its like to work there. These are things most folks think of, but there is more work to do.

Research the dealership. See if anyone has posted online (Yelp has reviews on dealerships) on their experience negotiating and buying. If they mention a salesperson, look deeper into that individual. They may be a good person to ask for or avoid when you head in.

When applying for a job, research the position, but not just what the company posts. Look at the details of the job and find other roles with other companies and similar responsibilities. Namely, look to see the salary ranges they post. Check out industry websites. AIGA conducts an annual survey of the design industry calculate average salaries. Combine this with your skill set to find a fair wage for your efforts.

At one point in my career, I realized I was doing a lot more work than the company recognized with my salary. I did my research and discovered I was actually doing the jobs of 5 people making at least what I was making if not far more. It was definitely time to ask for a raise or find another job.

Be Realistic

The trick to negotiating is to make everyone feel like they got a great deal. If you can’t make the other party feel like they did well in the deal, the deal won’t go through. This is why we prepare.

My position where I wore five hats is a great example. The jobs I was doing have salary ranges from $55,000 to $120,000. In theory I should be able to add them all up and that should be my salary. But that isn’t realistic. So I needed to find a realistic number.

Goal Versus Base

Your base, or limit, is either the bottom as a seller or the top as a buyer for your negotiation. This is the point where if the number crosses it, you need to get out of the discussion. Otherwise you will be getting paid less, or spending more than you can really afford. Never cross your limits.

Your goal is your ideal number. The goal is what you get if your negotiation goes perfectly.

My base for that position was pretty easy to figure out. My current salary paid my bills, allowed me to buy a home, and I was able to save. But what was my value? I brought a lot to the table. To fill my shoes, the company would need to spend over 5x what I was making. But asking for that wasn’t realistic. I knew what my boss made. I knew what his boss made. My salary was already 85% of the range the company had for my role. I looked into what the industry standard was in the area, as well as in major metro areas like New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. It was realistic based on this research for me to make 40% more than I was.

Knowing I was severely underpaid and that my boss didn’t make what I should be, I looked for a new job with the goal of getting a 40% increase. Of course I could take less if I wanted and the position was right.

The goal is not your asking amount.

This goal number is halfway between your limit and the asking number. So how do we make sure our negotiation comes out in our favor? We go in with the right number, one which the other party will try to talk us off of but yet, will leave us with our goal.

20% Rule

This is not some sort of special secret sauce rule of great negotiators. This is my rule. It works for me, it may not work for you. But it will provide you with a how I think (which has worked out well for me) and allow you to structure your negotiation to suit you.

If I am the buyer, once I know my limit, I cut it by 20%. This is the number I use to start my negotiation with. Depending on how much I like the object I am buying, I’ll give on that 20% until I get it or hit my limit. This gives me room to work on the deal and make both parties feel good about it.

If I’m the seller, I ask 20% higher than my goal number.

When I decided to find that new job, I wanted to make that 40% increase. So I asked for more money than the 40% increase. I expected the new employer to offer a lower amount. I expected that I would say that wasn’t enough and we would both alter our numbers to meet in the middle. I asked for a number that was actually 73% higher than what I was currently making. This wasn’t the first time either. I previously had asked for a 50% increase over my previous salary.

Walk Away

If you are unwilling to walk away when you hit your limit, then you will not be happy about the negotiation’s outcome. In fact, to make sure both parties are happy, you need to be willing away to walk away sooner than your limit.

I’ve walked on deals several times. One deal I actually walked four times. In all those cases, the other party came back with another offer. An offer that I was able to accept and feel good about it.

I know what you’re thinking, “I need this job. How can I walk away from a job offer that’s less than what I deserve?” You’ve been working hard, or maybe you are unemployed, the prospect of getting an offer in hand and walking away from it is pretty scary. But if you aren’t willing to walk, you never had any power and didn’t really show up to negotiate. So the best thing is to look for a job when you already have one (this is easier said than done).

Before I started working for the five hat company, I actually walked away from the offer. I had been working as a contractor with them for about nine months. They wanted to bring me on full time. The offer they made was was 20% below what I was making as a contractor (thank you overtime!). If I had not accepted the offer, there was no guarantee of a job. They could cancel the contract and I’d be unemployed. Still, I said no. The HR person was shocked. The hiring manager was shocked. When I explained how much of a cut I was taking and that the number they offered was low for the industry (with data to back that up) they went back to see what they could do.

I got an offer that was 5% higher and took the job.

Don’t Show Excitement

The more excitement you show, the more they know they hooked you. Keep calm, work on your poker face, be cordial but unimpressed. To hold the power, you need to get them to be more excited than you. I work hard to hold onto a facade of malaise and disinterest in all my negotiations. If you get excited, you lose the power.

Dress for the Deal You Want

If you are interviewing for a job, dress one level better than them until you hit the business suit mark. Never wear a ball gown or tuxedo to an interview. Of course, this is also dependent on who is doing the pursuing.

Most of the time I’ll wear a jacket and tie to an interview. What kind of tie and whether I wear jeans or slacks is determined by the company I’m headed to. For the five hat company I worked for, it was dress slacks & a conservative tie. For a startup, it was jeans and a tie with skulls & crossbones on it. However, in a recent “interview” I actually wore a flannel and jeans. The way that relationship began, I had all the power. Showing up in a flannel demonstrated that I had the power. I was listening, but I didn’t need the job, so this was going to be on my terms.

When I’m the buyer, I dress down. Way down. I get as frumpy and disheveled as I can. This gives a false impression to the seller. One that throws off their pricing model and when we can do that, we gain the upper hand.

Practice

If you are new to negotiating, you will need to practice. Study up on your topic and work with a friend or family member. You take your role and put your helper on the other side. Ask them to play hardball. Remember, we want to ruffle feathers, but maintain a calm experience. Talk it through, role play, and do it until you feel confident you can do it in the real situation.

Conclusion

You are probably wondering what happened during that negotiation for the new job with the 73% increase in pay. I didn’t get the deal I should have.

At the time I was talking to three different companies. All of them I asked for the same salary. One didn’t work out because of my not being willing to relocate. But I did get offers from the other two. I got great offers, both of which would hit the goal I was seeking.

But one was better than the other. I took that job, but I ended up leaving money on the table. I misjudged the market and my skills (I’m not perfect and this isn’t a science). When I asked for the larger amount, they paid it to me. They didn’t negotiate. I could have asked for more and maybe gotten it. I certainly would have had a negotiation. I got extremely lucky, but then again I’ve had lots of luck like this.

I once bought a car for 20% under my limit. I walked from the deal 4 times all well holding firm to my asking price and was even in the car driving off the lot when the salesperson came running up to tell me I got the deal.

Hopefully my tips and techniques will help you win that next negotiation.

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Managing Chronic Illness While WorkingNat Tarnoff in a purple baseball cap and flannel. Nat has a long sugar and cinnamon beard. They are wearing tiger striped glasses.

Managing Chronic Illness While Working

Published on April 13, 2015

Shortly after I developed my vestibular disorder, I began working remote, from home. Even before that, my employer accommodated me by letting me work from home if I ever had a really bad vertigo day. For the last two years, all my work has been remote, until this month. I’ve now figured out that I have a way of working that best meets my productivity and health needs and when I don’t get to work like that I get cranky, frustrated, and highly inefficient.

For the last five weeks I have been consulting on a project in Minnesota. This has required me traveling to the Twin Cities and staying in AirBNBs during the week and coming home on weekends to be with my kids. This particular client felt they needed me onsite to teach their team in the ways of front-end development and user experience in addition to providing a design solution. Not realizing I had a way of working that worked best for me, I gladly obliged. What I didn’t see coming is someone micromanaging everything I do and how that would make me feel.

When I work remote, I typically work 50 to 60 hours a week and it doesn’t bother me. In fact I enjoy it. But these hours are never worked in a typical “9 to 5” fashion. I try not to get up with an alarm, when I get a headache or vertigo I take a rest or a walk, I work in three or four hour sprints and do get through two or three of these a day. Some days I need to work six hours. Others I can work twelve or even sixteen hours. When I need to go see a doctor (which happens quite a bit) or take care of my family, I do it and put the hours in later.

they often ask me, “How do you do it every day?”

During this contract though, my client has insisted that I work not only onsite, but 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. No more. I can’t work 10 hours if I’m in the zone. I can’t leave early or mid day and take a nap if I need one. I’ve also been asked to do 4 months worth of work in under two. If I could work my way, even while in the Twin Cities, I could probably accomplish this extreme goal. But since I’m limited to billing 40 hours a week, I keep having to adjust timelines and that makes me feel horrid.

When I speak to people about my migraines and vertigo, they often ask me, “How do you do it every day?” I honestly don’t know. I’m the kind of person that if I do absolutely nothing all day, I feel horrible and unproductive. So despite having health issues that probably should leave me in bed, I get up and work. I do something. I don’t get a choice. In the past, before my vestibular disorder, I would work and work and work, eventually crashing because I didn’t maintain a healthy balance. Since I developed the vestibular disorder, I’ve learned to manage each moment and day a little better. Yes, there are days, weeks even, when I will over do it and I pay for it in the end. I’m left incapacitated for an entire day or several. I’ve spent weekends in bed because I didn’t manage my work load in a week.

And I can feel it coming now. I see the crash on the horizon and I don’t know how to stop it, because I’m in a contract I can’t terminate in which I’m being micromanaged and trying to fit my health needs around someone else’s idea of work, rather than fitting work around my health.

As managers, employers, and coworkers it is important that when someone with chronic illness is working with you, it is important to talk with them to find out what they need to be the best at their jobs. For some, it will be working from home on a slightly odd schedule. For others it will be having the right equipment in the office. But for all of us, if we have the right tools, environment, schedule, and understanding to work our way we will be reliable and produce quality work. When we are forced to prioritize work over taking care of ourselves, we will not achieve the goals we set out with you.

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Optimizing Working Remote

Optimizing Working Remote

Published on March 13, 2015

For the last eighteen months, I have been working remotely from my home in Wisconsin for a startup located in San Francisco. This has been one of the greatest adventures I have had in my life; learning a tremendous amount about the world of startups, better coding practices, how to make a remote environment work, and about myself. Today I want to share what I feel are best practices for myself & the teams I’m on working with to get the most out of being remote.

We live in the information age. The majority of our work is dealing with information and finances. The average worker goes into an office and works on a computer located in that office. However, there is nothing about that office that requires the person be co-located with all the other employees. This is especially relevant in the world of creatives.

Designers, programmers, UXers, and writers are in a particular advantage of not needing to be co-located. The tools that have sprung up in the last few years allows them to collaborate real time from thousands of miles away. Meetings can be held and accomplished with cheap (if not free) video and audio conferencing, unlike a decade ago when it cost tens of thousands of dollars for a quality, yet unreliable rig from Cisco.

Recent studies actually show the trend in “Open Office” plans are actually harmful to productivity, primarily in creatives. Most of them need to get in a zone to produce their best work. The lack of office doors, intrusion of email and IM, and chaos of noise consistently pokes holes in a person’s ability to achieve this zone. Working remotely can actually remove these distractions and introduce more zone times, thus more productivity. So how can you make this work?

1. Commitment

There has to be a commitment, not just on the immediate team, but from the executives on down to having successful remote employees. No matter how dedicated a manager is to having the truly best players regardless of location, if someone up the chain isn’t 100% behind the idea of remote workers, they will poison the whole thing.

It will likely start slow and unnoticed, but it does slowly creep its way in.

2. Communication

Since you are working from home, it becomes harder to look over your shoulder, across the aisle or walk around the corner to ask a question. The people just aren’t that close. Communication needs to find a channel where people can talk, not just one-to-one in IM, but in a team setting. Barriers need to be sought out to lower the friction of a quick check with a coworker to solve a problem.

This starts with a quality group chat application. It could be as simple as using IRC on Freenode, or using tools like Slack, FlowDock, and HipChat. These permit the one-to-one communication, but are really built to replace the shouting over desks that happens in the office.

When using your chat application, each team member needs to communicate with the rest of the team when they are available. There will be times when you need to log off chat, be it to get lunch, take a meeting, run an errand, but most likely to create a zone state. Instead of just dropping off or logging out, send a message first. Let your team know you are dropping off, why, and how long you expect to be. Greet them in the morning and say goodnight before you leave for the night.

This little courtesy will go a long way. The better you are at it, the more time you can take to be in the zone. If you have hours that you work the best during, block those out on your calendar & show yourself as busy. When those roll around, log off and focus.

Whenever possible, step up the communication from text to voice or better yet video. Daily standups or check-ins should be over video. Any meeting as well. Find a tool where you can screen share, like Hangouts, Slack, HipChat, or Webex. Whenever the discussion is not just social and more than a few quick volleys of text questions and answers, jump into a video chat. Let people see your face. Share screens and collaborate on the project, paid programming, design critiques, or joint editing all bond the team players and actually produce better results faster than passing them back and forth in email.

3. Social Inclusion

A hard thing to deal with as a remote worker is the lack of water cooler talk. The average worker spends 40 plus hours a week at work and an additional 10 commuting. If you sleep 8 hours a night, then you family and social time is reduced to 62 hours, and half of those are your weekend. If you’re like me, they get consumed running errands and doing work around the house. There isn’t much time to see friends or family.

This is why having social relationships with your workmates is important. With the amount of time we spend in work, we need to get along and share experiences. As a remote worker though, you are often working at home, alone. Having a communication with the team that is less formal than the rest of your meetings builds this bond. Set up an “Off Topic” room in chat where people can be themselves and let loose with the gifs, YouTube videos, and jokes.

One of the more successful teams I’ve worked with would do daily standups via Hangout, but every Friday after standup they would have a “Show & Tell”. One team member would put together a presentation, preferably not related to work, and share with the team. This gave everyone a chance to really get to know who they are and what they enjoy. I learned how to make a roux, how to grow hops and even a bit about hockey.

If your team is split remote and in the office, make sure to only throw team events that can be shared by everyone. This doesn’t mean you can’t go out and have dinner or get drinks after work to celebrate, but make sure to create an event where the remote teams are able to participate.

Needs some ideas of how to include remote workers in a celebration event? Try some of these:

  • Send them a meal! Call up a local restaurant they like, order their favorite dish and have it delivered when the rest of the team is having lunch. Make sure to put them up on video chat in the meeting room so everyone can talk.
  • Movie night! Find a campy or favorite movie on Netflix & set up an audio chat. Have everyone on the call start the movie at the same time and enjoy a little MST3K action with team by snarking, sharing trivia, or playing games based on the flick.
  • Game night! There are ways to play a variety of games online or over video. Great examples are Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons (checkout Roll20), Pictionary (Using Scoot & Doodle), or Trivial Pursuit.
  • Cooking lessons! Get a volunteer to teach how they make their favorite recipe. Send out the list of ingredients a few days before hand so all the participants can get them, then teach from the kitchen while everyone cooks. Rotate out the chef so everyone can be the teacher.
  • Book club! Pick a book, set a time, get some wine and discuss over video. I participated in a remote sci-fi book club that met monthly to discuss the book. We had dozens of folks turning up on the chat. I’ve also done a tech book club, where we would read a couple of chapters a week and discuss how to implement these in our own work.

4. Eliminate Distractions

Now that we eliminated the problems of going remote and staying in tune with the team, there are two things prevent remote workers from being productive at home. Good remote workers know how to limit distractions. They also know how to balance their time. When the you don’t have to leave the building, it becomes easy to get drawn back into work.

Set a routine up. Every morning I get up with my kids, get them out the door to school and feed the cats. Then I shower. Sure, I could work in my PJs, or even without pants, but by showering, I’m setting a stake in the ground saying, “My day starts now.”

I’m not good at taking breaks. So I started using the Pomodoro technique. I set a timer for 25 minutes. During that time I work. No Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. I’ll mute chat and email. When the 25 minutes are up, I’ll take a ten minute break to do some stretching, get a drink or food, head to the restroom. When I come back, I start another 25 minutes. Every few work slots I dedicate to catching up on chat, email, or any other communications I need.

I also have an alarm set to remind me to eat lunch. If I get in a flow, or worse and have a bunch of meetings in a row, I forget to eat. Taking care of yourself first is the most important thing when working remote. I have another alarm set to end my day. Yes, occasionally I run over, but I try to keep my work day under 10 hours. When I hit that, I shut down anything work related, help my family with dinner prep, and enjoy a nice evening with them.

If you have a problem staying off social media, set filters on your hosts file or your router that prevent you from going to those sites during work hours.

Remember you are working. Don’t do house chores unless you are on your 10 minute break. And if you have little kids or pets, get a door and close it.

One more thing I try to do daily is go out for a walk. It’s hard in the Wisconsin winter, especially for someone who is already unstable, but getting out for 20-30 minutes can really refresh you brain and your body.

Last piece of advice I have for remote workers, find an excuse to leave the house for at least an hour every couple of days. It’s best if you can meet with friends. Just don’t let yourself become accidentally agoraphobic.

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A Word on Color

A Word on Color

Published on March 2, 2015

Over the weekend, there has been a lot of buzz about ‘the dress’ and whether it is blue and black, or white and gold. The reality of the dress is that due to white balance in the camera, lighting conditions and the fact that everybody perceives color a little differently the true color of the dress can not be known from that single photo. But it is this last piece I want to talk about today.

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