The dev who saved Christmas

If it was Allison and a chosen select carolers from our company were doing a show, I would show up in support of you. Wow. That's what I would do. But I wouldn't be singing. I'm not doing that.

All of this really makes me want to send you one of those holiday grams where people like knock on your door and sing to you. Like, I might, if that happens in the next—

That I would love.

Just know it's coming.

That I would love.

Okay. Okay. I feel like, I feel like you deserve that. I'm gonna send you one. You're listening to Off the VPN, a show where two work besties get real about working in tech.

Hey, what's up, Allison?

I'm mostly fine, but it, it snowed here last night. Oh, I woke up to snow on the ground.

Wait, really?

Yes.

It's like snow season. I feel like it was 70 degrees last week.

I mean, it, it kind of was, but yes, it's absolutely freezing here and it literally snowed last night.

So did you have to shovel, or was it just like a short layer?

I probably should have cleaned my car off more than I did. I— oh no, I didn't. Yeah, I just did a quick, a quick like sweep with my, my hand, and then just, you know.

Did you, uh, did you wear your ski mask? No, you're shy.

I did not wear my ski mask, but I own a ski mask. And I know I don't shy away from wearing a ski mask when it's below freezing and there's wind chill.

About 5 years ago, pre-pandemic, for context, 5 years ago, pre-pandemic, anyone who used to work with us remembers this. Alison came in the dead of winter when we used to come into the office and she has a full ski mask on and she's like, I'm not going to apologize because it is cold.

I really don't remember that. Yes. Yes. Is that when you knew you wanted to be my, my work bestie, or—

No, this is, this is, we're already at least a year in. Like, this is like 20— end of 2019. It's probably 2019 winter. Yeah.

Wow. That, that's wild. I did that. Would I, would I do that today?

Probably. 1,000%. Yes.

I used to fantasize about bringing my heated blanket to the office and like plugging that shit in below my desk and just—

I would have, 1000%. No one would have stopped me. Yeah, I don't know if it's legal. Actually, I take it back, we would never ever do that. Wait, because it's in our contracts. We would not— no, no, it's in like the building contract. The building, like the building. I think you're not allowed to. So for the record, we would never.

We would never. Oh my gosh, what if it's battery operated?

Is that allowed? I don't know. Maybe that's the— that you finding a loophole.

I mean, that's how important my heated blanket is to me. So I will find loopholes where needed so I could bring that thing around. This is such a tangent, but at one point I had like a whole clothing line designed around like battery-powered heating elements. So that—

wait, why are you sharing this on the pod? We can't— we could go into business. What do you mean? Take it back.

When I started to do the math, like, I think it would be like really expensive to actually like make these things and who was going to buy them other than me. But, but like, I don't know if people are listening and you would buy that, please, please let us know because maybe, maybe we will go into business doing that.

I see. I would buy it.

Okay. Well, we have at least two sellers, uh, purchasers, buyers.

Probably shouldn't be going into Tam of 2. A total Tam of 2.

Tam equals 2. Speaking of being cold and it being winter, this episode is going to be about holidays and just the fun and joy that comes with the tech industry around November, December, January, like a very common topic. Is deploy freezes and co— I think people call them code freezes, but that's not really like, that's not really what's happening. Like no one's like, you cannot write code for the entire month of December. It's more like we're not shipping code to production, but that's a big theme. What else? We have end of year performance reviews. We have incidents are big because especially of code freezes or deploy freezes. Like lots of people are trying to wrap things up before the holidays. Lots of people take off for the holidays and like not a lot of people are around. There's on-call rotations. This is just like a fun time of year to work in tech.

Fun is a, is a chosen word. I think it depends on your industry, right? For some folks, like this is, this is great. You don't have, You know, B2B companies, B2B SaaS companies, this is like Christmas morning, like it all the— every day, because you know, your audience starts to go down, you have less people using your application. If you're someone like Amazon or you're any type of consumer app, this time sucks. It's really not great. Any e-commerce, I feel so bad. All those Black Friday deals and things like that, or just people buying gifts It's like, man, I wouldn't wanna be them these days. I would not. Very complex on-call rotations and things. I'm sure people are going through a lot these days, so shout out to them.

Good on those people. I feel like I was reading some crazy stories about like people just monitoring like whatever sales on Black Friday and then just things start to go wrong and like revenue, everything just like drops to zero if there's like a single bug. And it was just like giving me secondhand stress. Like I was sweating reading these things and I was like, I I am not cut out for that. So good on those people who can deal with that.

But I've worked in e-commerce. I worked in e-commerce for a short while, and I remember being in one of those meetings where there was something that happened and just the tone being, if something goes down even for a second or there's a bug, they'll be like, do you know how much money we lost? And it's intense. It's not for the weak.

It's not for the weak. Aka it's not for me. So on today's topic, we're going to play a little game. As we all know, cliché holiday season, you either get gifts or you get— you're supposed to fill in the blank, Jasmine.

Coal.

Coal. Good job. Good job. So the game we're going to play—

I had to think about it.

So the game we're going to play is choose your coal. Oh, okay.

All right.

Okay. So first one, a major bug goes live on a holiday, but it's a quick fix. You have to take the call. You're on call, or you come back from New Year's break and face a 4-day incident.

Oh God. I'm, I'm taking the quick fix. I'm taking the quick fix.

Even if it's on the holiday?

Yes. And you know why? Well, for one, I'm like, uh, like major holidays. Yeah, it's annoying or whatever, but I get to be known as the superhero that fixed Christmas, that saved Christmas. I'm the dev who saved Christmas. Oh, I love that. Or Thanksgiving, New Year's, whatever the holiday was. But I feel like Christmas really, really fit the bill. You wouldn't pick that? You'd rather spend 4 days on your— once you come back?

I think it depends on the time. So, and the holiday. So if it's like New Year's Eve and I'm like, do, doing my thing, you know what I mean? And like, I have to be on call and like go fix a major bug. I'm pretty pissed. I'd rather, I think I'd choose the, the 4-day incident after the holiday in that case. But if it's like first thing in the morning, any other holiday quick fix. Yeah, I agree. It, that would be, that would be heroic. That would feel nice to be like, I fixed that. It was a holiday. You're welcome. But yeah, you know, I had to walk away from dinner with my family.

I wouldn't even be eating dinner. We would already eat and I would just, you know, really, really liven it up.

Yeah. Like really milk it. We were opening presents. Okay.

Okay, it's my cat. My cat is the one opening the present.

All right, next one. You have to do a year-end performance review, but your manager hasn't given you feedback.

Okay, I'm getting the performance.

You're getting— you're getting reviewed, but your manager hasn't given you feedback in 6 months. Or there are mandatory end-of-year peer reviews that you have to give and receive, and it's not anonymous.

I don't like that one. Ooh, I don't know. I'd pick peer review.

Okay, why?

Because I think that's more in my control, right? Like, I think that I can be thoughtful. I'm pretty confident in my ability to give feedback. I think it's something I'm good at, especially if I have a moment to be able to like write it down.

Yeah.

And so I think that being able to do that, I can think about how it's being said, make sure it's constructive, but not bad. I think the non-anonymous is fine. Like, I don't mind. I'll tell somebody and give them feedback and then they know it's me. Yeah. I think that the anxiety. Of not knowing what my manager is gonna say at my end of year performance review. Like, I don't know. But then again, yeah, if I had to choose, I, I wouldn't choose that. Yeah, I would rather do the peer review.

I'm, I'm with you on that, especially because it is year end and it's like, this is supposed to be a good, a good holly jolly time. I don't like, don't tell me this now. You ha— you, you didn't give me feedback for 6 months. I don't wanna hear this now. Can this wait? Like, I would also choose the peer review, but it might be good feedback.

What if they're giving you a bonus?

Just tell me after the holiday. It's fine. Because it's like the anxiety around it is like exactly as you said, would even if it's good, I would still be like, what just happened? Okay. Like, I would still go in sweating and leave sweating and be really stressed out about it. So I'm just— yeah, I would rather. And I think peer reviews are good and healthy, especially if they're done right. And like, whatever, I can't control the reviews that people are giving to me aspect of it, but like, I don't know, I kind of want to know. I could take the heat, whatever. I feel like that's good and healthy, even if it's not exactly as I wanted it. That's better to me. Okay, next one. Zoom holiday party with breakout rooms for caroling or no holiday party. Just you get a branded company hoodie mailed to you at your home.

Oh, that's obvious. I'd rather have none. I'd rather— give me the hoodie. Like, at first I was like, eh, breakout. Even if there was no caroling, I would've chose the hoodie.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm showing up. I'm showing up to the Zoom breakout rooms. No, I'm, I'm seeing what, what we can pull off. Are we doing a cappella? Are we, like doing rounds, like how I'm showing up. I'm showing up to that. I don't need another. I don't need another sweatshirt. No, no, no. I'll, I'll, I'll participate. I just feel like that's hilarious. Like you can't miss that opportunity. I don't need another sweatshirt. I have plenty. I'm good. I want to see what we're pulling off in the caroling breakout rooms.

I would love that you went so you could tell me all about it. You could tell me all about it. I'd be like, Allison, tell me everything. But I don't like— because think about it, even with Zoom, you can't even all sing at the same time because, like, it's not synchronized. Like, the whole thing is going to be a mess. I don't know.

It will be. But that's what makes it fun. That's what makes it fun.

I love that for you. I think you'd have a great time. I think anytime there's, like, weird synergy things, I'm usually like, I really appreciate the teams I've been on because I think that it is now accepted that this is the type of person I am. I don't feel like people try to force that on me.

That's true.

So they're like, we know you're not like a huggy person or you're not like this. And I'm like, you're right. Like, so you're right.

Thank you for noticing. Thank you for understanding who I am.

Doesn't mean I don't like you guys. I just, I have my limitations. Caroling is a, I draw the line. I would show up to the breakouts. I would say hi, do a game, even caroling. I'm out.

Okay, now we know. Not going to suggest that.

I would love to see you carol.

Thank you.

I'd watch your show if it was Allison and a chosen select carolers from our company were doing a show. I would show up in support of you. Wow. That's, that's what I would do. I wouldn't be singing. I'm not doing that.

All of this really makes me want to send you one of those holiday grams where people like knock on your door and sing to you. Like I might, if that happens in the next week.

That I would love. Just know it's coming. That I would love.

Okay. Okay. I feel like, I feel like you deserve that. I'm gonna send you one. Okay.

I'm like, why?

And it's like painfully long. I make them do it for like 20 minutes. I pay for the 30-minute package. You get like 15 songs in there.

Okay.

Last one. CodeDeploy freezes starting December 1st. Or. Okay. CEO presenting at the year-end review doing a TikTok dance trend.

These are cool. This seems like gifts.

You like it? Okay. CodeDeploy freezes starting December 1st, but you haven't shipped a big project that you've been working on yet.

I'll just deal with it next year.

Damn that. Oh my gosh. No, I would hate to have that hanging over me.

I mean, what am I going to do? Like you just said, I don't have a job for like a month.

No, that you, you still, you still have to work. You're just not shipping to production.

All right, I'll just deal with that in January. I don't know. I haven't, I can't like imagine. Maybe I'm, maybe tell me more about why you, what you would do because I think I need to think more on this code because in my head, yeah, like the only time I've done freezes for like a week or two. So it's like you just kind of don't really push anything like that's, and usually it's around the holiday. I can't imagine like you say. Don't push anything for a month, what am I going to have, like 50 branches up that I just merge all in succession in January? That doesn't make sense.

I will— I was reading about some places where they do it around Thanksgiving and then also around Christmas and New Year's, but there's like the time in between that like people are still scared to just do anything because that's only like, what, 3 more weeks? So it's effectively like an entire month of just like not pushing code to production. People are still writing code, testing their code, pushing to staging. But yeah, maybe you have like 5 branches and like things stacking up and piling up for when you come back.

That's dangerous.

I totally agree. I, I don't, I see what you're saying. That's cool. Yeah.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. That's kind of horrible cuz you're just stacking things up. I'm thinking freeze, like nobody's gonna do nothing. I was like, sure, I'll do that. But yeah, no, that's not how this works. These are gifts.

CEO TikTok dance challenge.

Oh, then I, yeah.

That's a gift. What if it's—

I think that's, I think it's hilarious. I would say it would be like very cringy, but it would live in my brain forever. Like, I think it would just be fun. Like, I like things like that where I could just be like, wow, that really happened. And then just— keep moving on.

I get extreme secondhand embarrassment. Like, I would have to leave the room. I would be out of there so fast the second the music started. Be like, uh-oh, oh, gotta take a phone call. I, I couldn't sit through it. But I mean, unless if it was like really good, it was like really good. I just—

maybe sometimes you just gotta watch these things and just be like, wow, they just—

they really thought they should do that.

This is a canon event.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

But no, I will feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong. I feel uncomfortable about like, wow.

So your coal is the code deploy freezing.

Yeah. I, I, I would say I'm not going to choose that. I'd rather choose the TikTok dance. I just got to like wince for, you know, what are TikToks like at most, like a minute. It's fine.

What if they do like 5 of them in a row? All the trends.

I'm with it.

No, you're there. You'll get some—

Honestly, I probably helped them prepare for it.

5, 6, 7, 8.

Okay. What would you pick?

No, no, no. My call is the Code de Play freezing. Absolutely.

You would rather pick that?

No, that's my call.

I thought you have to choose your call.

Oh, wait, you're right. Oh, yeah.

Who came up with this game?

No, choosing my call is the dance. Is the dance. Okay, you're right, all right, you're right. Who, who came up with this game?

I don't know.

I don't know. What are the rules? Okay, so I have a story for you on the topic of end-of-year performance reviews. My boss's boss requested that I provide feedback for my boss for the end-of-year performance review. So this is a skip-level performance review, basically. Okay, first sentence: I can't stand my boss.

How do I perform?

Just coming in really hot. Really, really, really great opening line there.

I already see where the problem is. Yeah, I see where this is going.

See where this is going to.

Okay.

I can't stand my boss. How do I professionally let their boss know? That they suck while maintaining balanced-sounding feedback? I am a manager myself and I can normally provide balanced feedback, but I can't stand my boss and I'm finding it very difficult. The boss's boss is remote, so they don't see the day-to-day, but they do know that I'm not a fan of my boss. I feel like I've said boss like 70 times already. Okay, here's some details. My boss is not at all clear with expectations but gets upset when things aren't done in a way they expect. I do not fear speaking up, so I've literally stated, "You need to make your expectations clear from the beginning." I've literally had this person say to me, "I'm really disappointed X thing isn't happening or being done," to which I replied, "You really need to make those expectations clear because we had no idea that this is what you wanted." And honestly, this example was something really, really, like really insignificant, but a big deal was made of it until I said that. My boss admitted that I was right, but the behavior hasn't stopped. So that's just where it ends. This person is supposed to have a skip-level conversation and review their own boss, but they can't stand their boss and they're struggling.

Did they say if this is like, is this like a written feedback that they're gonna send or is this for a literal skip level meeting? Like, are they gonna talk to the, the skip level manager, director, whoever this is? Because they said they're a manager, so they must be like a VP director of direct— I don't know.

It could be any of those things. Yeah. That's a good point. I don't know. They actually don't specify if they're giving that feedback verbally or if it's written.

There's a few thoughts here. I think that my biggest thing is it's, it's good that this person says what they're thinking. That's already like a good sign that they can deliver feedback. I think that when you are in a situation such as this, it's really easy for your emotions to cloud the message. And so in order for it to be effective, I think that breaking down those individual things into something actionable and to making the impact of their behavior clear. So, and providing examples, I think helps to clarify things for the skip-level manager because they want to know. So if they're your manager, they need to They're their manager. So they need to know, how can I coach this person to improve? And also, what do I need to look out for to manage their performance and to ensure that they're improving? So they're saying this thing isn't getting better. So what do you think this manager needs to know so that they can gauge their performance on that measure of like ensuring they're setting clear expectations and that they are— I mean, that sucks. Imagine continuously doing your job and your manager is just like, 'Oh, well, this isn't what I wanted,' or this— that would— I, I'd be pissed too. I wouldn't like my manager either. So I think that you could provide some advice of what you think would be good ways to do this. But I think making clear what is the pattern and just really work on describing what's happening and the impact versus your emotions toward it, which I know can be very hard. I think you can add that, but I think really focus on clearing that up, and then you could talk about Honestly, this makes it very difficult to work with them. I think that's okay to say. It's okay to say to their face, in my opinion. But I think as long as you're level-headed and you can try to clarify things, like, that would be my, my best, best way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because it's definitely clear there's a lot of emotion here and there should be. To your point, that's a very frustrating working environment to be in where it's like you're constantly being told you're not meeting expectations. But yeah, sticking to specific examples and like observed behavior stuff that's objective, like facts, basically things that happened is really useful. I think one thing that people always fear in these situations with especially like skip-level type reviews is retaliation. So even like on this post, there were some people responding to this author saying like, it's a trap. This is all going to be shared with your manager. Like, don't do it. And to that I say, like, don't give feedback that you wouldn't be willing to say to somebody's face. It's a trap sounds like, I don't know, that's a super toxic mentality, I think, where like, how are you ever going to give anybody feedback or try and improve if like you're constantly worried that like all of this information is going to be used against you. So like, be prepared to have a conversation with that person as well. And it sounds like this author did try and address some of the stuff directly to their manager, and it's still happening, which sucks, obviously. But I think, yeah, you should also always prepare yourself for potentially having that conversation with the individual you're giving feedback about. Don't write anything that you wouldn't be comfortable saying to their face.

I completely agree. Like, don't say anything out of pocket. And I think, yeah, that's what I mean. You're going to maintain professionalism. And that's why I say, like, write it without emotion first in an objective way. And then your emotions are important as well. Like, how you're feeling at work is important. So I think it's okay to share that. But I think what I found works for me is, like, writing the objectivity and then, like, layering in that afterwards. Like, here's the thing, here's how that makes me feel. Like, like separating them all into buckets is, is the best way to, again, like make sure your message is clear. I think that's really what you wanna focus on and think about who your audience is here. One thing I will say is that, you know, I think when it comes to these things, I like that you brought up, there's a lot of fear, retaliation, things like that. A lot of times I think where management gets it wrong, where even just ICs get it wrong, is that these things only happen, like feedback only happens at these critical points. And if you are only trying to receive feedback at these and taking it seriously during those critical points, you don't have enough trust in the bank to get real feedback. And so I think it's really important, and maybe this is a part of the feedback, is that whether it's with the skip-level manager, but also the manager as well, that they are consistently looking for signal on how they can be better leaders, just as much as they do, just as much as like, you know, we, we'd made the joke about the, like, you know, your manager hasn't given you feedback in 6 months. It is so important to touch base, especially as managers. It's like your number one job to make sure everybody's doing everything and, or is performing well and doing, and is doing okay in their gig. And you know what I mean? Like that this is one of your number one job. And so taking it very seriously. Seriously that you're giving and receiving feedback, I think is really important to good quality leadership. So, I think it'll make it a lot easier going forward if it's not so random to talk to your skip-level manager. If you're doing it like a couple times a year or it's something normal, or you, they reach out and talk to you. And I know skip levels, they have a ton of folks, so it's hard, but making an intentional effort to that this is not out of the blue and, oh my God, I'm scared, big scary manager person.

That's a really good point. There's a lot of unknowns and lack of trust potentially when you are just doing year-end reviews. And yeah, Skip Level comes to you and it's like, hey, I want to know how your manager is doing. Like, I don't know you. Like, what? How do I even begin? Like, so besides the fact that this person doesn't really know how to give feedback about their boss, it's like also who they're giving the feedback to. That is another just like unknown, scary factor in all of this potentially. But yeah, I definitely don't love the end of year performance review as a cycle. You should be giving feedback continuously. I think that the industry, at least tech industry, is moving more towards that. But I definitely, yeah, for people out there, at least wait till January.

Like, can we not do it in December?

That's what I'm saying. Like, don't ruin my holly jolly mood. If it's bad news, if it's good news, then fine, whatever we can meet. End of year performance reviews are out. Definitely. Let's not, let's not be doing that in 2025.

Absolutely not. No, no, no, no, no.

Caroling Zoom rooms. Yes.

Yeah. I think we could, you know what? Yeah, you can have it. You can have it.

Thank you.

I will, I will show up as an attendee. I will be an audience member. I will be the one listening to the caroling on mute.

Tell me you wouldn't sing along a little bit. Like, a little bit.

I wouldn't.

All right, well, I'm glad we cleared that up. I hope this person had a good, I don't know, performance review with the skip level. Who knows what happened? I wish them the best. That's the sad thing about all of these is like we don't, we never know the outcome.

I know.

And so I just, I'm like, hopefully I've tried reaching out to some folks.

I hope one day, maybe in 2025, we'll, we'll be able to get some of these, these people who entered, uh, entered these stories to, to talk to us on the pod. I put some feelers out. We'll see. Good luck if you're an engineer or tech adjacent, uh, you know, good luck with, uh, your code freezes. I hope you don't get any, any, uh, escape defects during inappropriate times. And to those of you who are not, which we have some folks who are not tech adjacent who listen, also hope you have whatever industry that is, the spreadsheets or Q4 data that's not in the spreadsheets. This is a real example.

Is there like, wait, as in the data disappears?

I have friends in finance and I don't know what they're talking about 90% of the time, but something about data not being there in spreadsheets and yellow boxes. That's also scary too. Yeah.

I really love though, when we try to talk about other industries, I feel like that's where our talents really shine. Like on a previous episode where I was like, yeah, what do lawyers do? Go to court.

Go to court.

And this is why.

Read briefs.

Yeah, read briefs. This is why we stick to talking about the industry that we are in. All right. Well, I hope you have a holly jolly weekend and thanks. And I hope that my caroling elves show up to your door at a really inopportune time when you're like in the middle of fucking dinner.

I will be sick that day. I will be sick that day.

No, I'm paying for that. You're opening the door. That's actually a good question. What happens if you're not available?

They just keep coming back.

It's like, it's like FedEx. They have like different windows of time that they try every day to get the signature.

We missed you. Stop coming. This is harassment.

Paid, paid for by, by me, by yours truly. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. If I actually send them though, like. I need you to take a video.

I'll have no choice.

All right.

Well, see ya.

Bye.

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