A collection of images from day one of the RoadStackRV tour. More coming your way soon, so stay tuned here, and to RoadStackRV.org for more updates. You can follow us on twitter @RoadStackRV and tag #RSRV.
RoadStackRV – Departure
You’ve heard it before, but let me reiterate: Rackspace is a very different kind of company. It’s the sort of place that when a team decides to pile into an RV and drive across the country on a road trip, leaders smile and say “Cool. Go for it.”
This morning began the first leg of the RoadStackRV tour, a sort-of hacker version of On the Road. Seven Rackers (including yours truly) headed out from Castle this morning with the intention of crossing the American west in a mobile home, arrive in San Francisco and spend a week partying with developers and thought leaders at the OpenStack design summit and conference.
The RV isn’t fancy, just a standard vehicle made extraordinary by the people driving it and the idea it represents. The trip is chance to get face to face with customers and developers that are changing cloud computing forever. It’s a crazy idea, but it’s full of heart and purpose. Then again, so is OpenStack.
The trip has already been very “Rackspace.” There’s a Wilson Electronics cell signal booster duct taped to the side of the RV, and (after a quick stop at the electronics store) three engineers are unboxing and building a mobile wi-fi spot. Meanwhile we’ve got some phones tethered and there has already been talk of hacking the RV’s radio.
You can continue to follow us here for more blogs, pictures and videos. And keep an eye out on twitter for @RoadStackRV (#RSRV). Stay tuned for more updates on the geekiest road trip in America!
Is Remote Working?
The question is not whether or not working remote is actual work, but more so, is it working out for me?
Again, the thoughts contained here are not based on anything except my own experience. So if you decide to take a job working from home and it does not work out, you cannot blame me.
If you want the short answer, then yes, I think it is working for me. Not to say I wasn’t worried, especially after spending three weeks down at the Castle. Spend a few days working with a mall full of fellow Rackers, and you will quickly understand why so many people want to work for Rackspace. Work there for a few weeks knowing that you will be working from over 200 miles away from your co-workers, and you will start to doubt whether or not the whole remote idea is worth it.
Starting out, I most likely expected things to be different than what they are. I thought it would be hard to keep my office door closed, but thanks to my great wife and awesome son, that is not the case. I thought it would be hard to stay focused, but thanks to the amount of work that needs to be done and the volume of work, that definitely has not been an issue. Quite the opposite, in fact. I thought that if I was out of site, I would be out of mind, at least as far as my co-workers are concerned. Again, not the case. In fact, the thoughtfulness of my co-workers has probably been one of the best experiences. I mean, how many times have you had a pizza just show up on your doorstep because some guys 200 miles away didn’t want you to feel left out? Probably not many.
Some of this is getting into the things I want to talk about in the next post, but they were worth mentioning.
Here is the deal: if you are reading this post because you are thinking about working remotely, there are definitely some things to consider, at least with regards to you personally.
How is your work ethic?
If you are a slacker, or if it is hard to stay focused, then working remotely may not be the best option.
Are you going to make an effort?
I am not talking about making an effort at work, but more so, are you going to make an effort to be part of the team, no matter how far away you are? We have all heard the saying that a team is only as good as its weakest link, and the key to working remotely is to make sure that you are not the weakest link. You have to be an asset, otherwise, why would the company let you work remote?
Can you close the door?
This doesn’t even have to be a physical door. But are you going to be able to put aside the distractions that come in to play working from home. On one hand it is easier to concentrate because you don’t have the water cooler chats, but on the other, it can be just as hard to avoid playing with your son, even though he is in the next room. You have to be able to distinguish between the time to work, and the time to play. And so does your family. (L & W: y’all are aweseome!)
Are you visible?
You are going to have to make sure that people know what you are doing. Even if you are the most humble of individuals, you have to step up in some way. Put your neck out there a bit, and then follow through. Make sure everyone knows that you are there, and that you are adding value. Again, if you add no value, then is there any reason to have you on board?
Hopefully these questions will give you something to consider, or provide a little bit of insight. One of the hardest things to overcome when it involves working remotely are misconceptions, and not just your own, but those of others. At RIP a fellow newbie asked from where I was going to be working, and when I told him “From home.” he chuckled and said “Good luck.” Not exactly the best of encouragment, but it is telling. My experiences may not translate over to yours, and vice versa. The truth is that you may not be able to know if you can work remotely until you try it, but you have got to be honest with yourself and with your company. If it’s not working, then you probably need to do something about it.
What’s in a Name? AUSTIN EDITION
You may remember a while back we brought you a series of stories about unique team names that Rackers give themselves. Well, today we’re back with more tales of “What’s in Name?” but this time it’s all about Austin Teams!
Red Dwarf
When we started with our project, we knew the name had to be related to the stars in some way or shape. We were building something that bolted on top of nova, the openstack compute product. We originally went with blue dwarf, and found out its a “hypothetical class of star” (as reported by the always true wikipedia), so that was not necessarily fitting, and some could even say had a negative connotation. So we decided to change the name to avoid the “hypothetical-ness” of the product we were building. At the same time we wanted to pay homage to a awesome british from the early 90s. Hence the decision to name it red dwarf. and to throw in a toaster, cuz who doesnt like toasters?
Team LEAF:
The first shift linux teams in austin used to be called:
LEAF – Linux Emerging Austin Firstshift
Our symbol was the fern leaf or aya:
The AYA or fern is an African Adinkra symbol of endurance and resourcefulness. The fern is a hardy plant that can grow in difficult places. “An individual who wears this symbol suggests that he has endured many adversities and outlasted much difficulty.”
The Flying Toasters:
What is a Flying Toaster?
The Flying section of our team name comes from an homage paid to the Windows OS. If we roll time back to the early days of Windows, we will remember a screensaver which displayed animated images of flying toasters traveling across the screen to prevent image burns on the monitor. While we could have pulled the full name of our team from this screensaver alone, we chose to have a wicked-badical double meaning in our name, which will be explained as follows:
A Cylon was the robotic enemy of the human race in a science fiction series named Battlestar Galactica. Due to the fictional war between the robots and humans, a creative nickname was assigned to the Cylons by the human military. That nickname, Toasters, was a symbolic representation of how the humans were superior to the Cylons because the Cylons were just machines. This section of our team name harkens to the reality that machines would win any type of war against the puny human race and we all know it, deep down inside. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
There you have it. We are the Flying Toasters, we are fierce, and we also heart Windows so much!!!
Work Hard, Volunteer Hard
As an 8-year Racker, it has been a privilege to work for a company that shares the same ideals I’ve had all my life – to have the opportunity to make a difference in the world. It doesn’t matter how big or small but know that your difference impacted someone. The Girls, Inc. Science Festival was just that event:
60 Rackers.
+ 4 Hours.
+ 90 degrees (a norm in SA in March and yes, my face got burnt!)
= 2,300 Smiles.
As a title sponsor, 60 Rackers were front and center, taking time out of their Saturday, teaching kids about the Cloud and understanding the inner workings of a server and laptop. It was amazing to watch their little faces (some older ones too!) light up when they were able to answer questions. We even had some of our smaller visitors play with HexBugs exposing them to robotics.
At several points in the day, little girls asked what we do where we replied, “I’m a geek at Rackspace and it is pretty cool!” After a second, they would look up and say, “I wanna be just like you.”
The sunburn didn’t bother me much after that…
Be the change you want to see in the world. Rack Gives Back is a pretty neat step forward.
* This post comes to RackerTalent courtesy of Jessica Guajardo, better known around Rackspace as Jecca.*
Meet The Bloggers
