Taking part in HubSpot’s World Certification Week yesterday and seeing all my coworkers’ posts about it on Slack and LinkedIn made me realize something… I really need to get our patio furniture reassembled for the season so I can work outdoors. The weather is too good now not to.

One of the things I’m tasked with checking on websites is the user experience (UX). Think of it as asking “Would the user enjoy or find this website easy to use?” If yes, great. If no, can I think of something that might make it better?

We just booked our second trip of the year... well, it's mostly booked. 

Something happened to me today that has never happened in my 22 years as a working professional… I got a promotion!

In my professional life, I am a manual website quality assurance engineer. What does that mean? I take websites that developers build and use non-automated methods to try to break them or make them do things they’re not supposed to do. And when I find things they shouldn’t do, I send bug reports to developers to fix them.

I’m currently In the market for a new external/primary monitor  to attach to my laptop when I’m working from home. A second screen is the only way to go in the QA world!

So I finally started this last night…

This screen grab was shared by a coworker of mine from the Forbes Influential CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) list of the year. I'm just gonna leave this out there for you...

Back when I was changing jobs, I was contacted by a training and professional development agency asking if I would be interested in taking courses to improve my marketability to potential employers. I hesitantly said yes because I've received requests like this before from some pretty dodgy characters. 

I dunno how many of you are full-time remote workers or temporary remotes during the pandemic or have already returned to an office or maybe you never left.

One pandemic trapping I never fell into was the whole idea of working in your pajamas. Rolling out of bed and going to my computer to work just never seemed like a good idea to me. 

I've kinda hit a strange place in my reading right now. For the last couple of weeks, I've been without an audiobook to which I want to listen.

Almost any time I log into LinkedIn, I see information about new followers and conversations related to accounts for my employer. 

I dunno if y’all have noticed but I’ve been dropping a few hints here and there about a change in how things are happening around here. 

I was scrolling through my Photos app and found this little gem of Nathan on one of my last days at work with the City of Naperville in 2017. 

Hey all, I need a little help. I’m looking for a good app for taking and keeping notes. But I have some caveats. 

Two weeks ago, our IT Dude from work came by my house to take my MacBook Pro. My battery was going bad and it wouldn’t hold a charge even when plugged in (Zoom drains a battery faster than it can recharge apparently). 

I decided to work from the library again today. Just a chance to get out of the house and get some fresh air on the balcony. 

I typically work Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. This does not account for sometimes starting early or working late or having a late night or weekend deployment. Take out an hour for lunch and I work an eight-hour day.

Yup. Another late night deployment. 

I'm on a midnight site deployment for work and, aside from my laptop and other collateral to get stuff done, this is what's in front of me.

Three years and two days ago marked my exit from public sector employment after 11 years in municipal government. Tomorrow marks my third anniversary at what I hope is my forever job. I can only hope they feel the same way about me. 

Man, I’m really terrible at keeping up with these COVID Diary posts, aren't I? My goal was to get through 19 of them, for obvious reasons. At the rate things are going, I may still make that goal... even at a post every two months. Ugh. 

A little light reading this weekend...

A little while ago, a friend asked me if I was still skilled in the art of website design. This person, I'm certain, was looking for help in the day and age of Coronavirus cutbacks... she had lost her job and I'm guessing she was either looking to start an online consultancy in her field of expertise or just a site for self marketing.

Okay, so I may have missed updating this for week 3... and week 4, for that matter. But let’s be honest, there wasn’t all that much to update on the ol’ Social Distancing Bingo board.

A week or so ago, I saw some headline on the web touting how you can use old tech and gadgets to make for a better work-from-home experience. Despite suspecting it was clickbait, I clicked on it. I couldn’t help myself. 

Here are my week two additions to the Social Distancing Bingo board. I’m using a darker orange to denote week two.

My buddy, Blaine, posted this to Instagram yesterday.

It’s certainly been an interesting week, hasn’t it? That’s not to take away from the previous couple of months, of course. But this week marks the official declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic worldwide and a national emergency in the United States.

Sometimes, vacation just sucks. And, no, I don’t mean (just) the obvious “when it comes to an end” bit. 

I had a tough week at work. Nothing bad, just busier than normal and I wasn’t feeling good about the work I did. 

This was shared with me by one of our developers at work. It’s pretty accurate. And, yes, I’m in quality assurance (tester).

My professional life revolves around quality assurance with websites, in case you were ever wondering. As I say to laypeople who don't understand what that means, "I do what I can to break a website, but not like a hacker would."

I've only ever had one Bloody Mary in my life. That was in October 2001 on one of the four flights to and from our honeymoon. I don't recall which flight. I do recall that I hated it.