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Introducing: Tales from the Other Side

     Hello to my loyal fans. I hope you all have been having an excellent autumn/summer/spring/2022 since you last stopped by, hoping to find what was instead a mysteriously (and no doubt, frustratingly) absent fresh article from me. Apologies for keeping you waiting. But here it is!

    Still, I hear you. "What", you might be asking, "could be so important that it would be worth pausing on committing to record these written anecdotes that so many of us have come to enjoy?". Well, I'll tell you what - I got a job!


I got a job! I got a job!

    Well, sort of. I got an internship. For several months this summer-through-fall I worked as a member of the Frontend Web Team at the Meal Kit delivery company Blue Apron. I was pretty excited for the opportunity. Not only would it be my first job in tech, but the food industry in general is something I've been an enthusiastic part of for most of my professional life. Not only was I excited to retain some semblance of terra cognita (sic), but I also had a hunch that I would get the chance to meet some like minded people who appreciated the personal, creative and community outlets that cooking offered. (Spoiler alert: I was right. Those encounters were incredibly yummy).

    But, it wasn't all fun and games (and food). I am grateful to say that over the course of my five months there I was professionally and intellectually challenged not only to come up with solutions to problems that seemed new, and even daunting to me - but to meet people for whom the problems were not daunting at all. I was able to witness, and learn from, a crew that had worked in the space so long that to see a problem arise and arc all the way through discussion groups on its perceived difficulty, informal and/or formal reviews on its code (both form and function), and settle into an established part of the code base, was just the rote way things get done. Which, once I was able to adopt the birds eye perspective of logical steps: I guess it is.

    As a newbie, however, there were a few times that things I learned really hit home. Mostly they were  incredibly useful tidbits, but sometimes they were functions that efficiently (and, usually natively) hammered home something I thought I would have to design from scratch. In my next few writings, my hope that you enjoy my sharing with you loyal readers any and all of the tips, tricks, community moments and anecdotes that my time in the Professional World inspired and nurtured in me. 

    On a much simpler note as well: I am so stoked to be writing again!

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