Tag: WordPress

All Roads Lead to nickmomrik.com

Nick Momrik1 Comment

I’ve wanted to get more use out of nickmomrik.com for a long time. Last week I decided to combine a bunch of domains and redirect them all here. The content from mtdewvirus.com, primaryrough.com, 2holecards.com, and docardtricks.com should all be available with the old URLs being redirected.

I’ve moved from a self-hosted WordPress.org install to WordPress.com. I removed all the spammy ad links, ditched all of the plugins, and used CSS customizations with the Moo-Point skin for Sandbox as the design. I wanted to show what you can do with CSS. I’m showing different widgets for different areas of the site, made my own footer (which isn’t working in all browsers yet), and have more tweaks planned. It’s a work in progress.

An Automattic 6+ Months

Nick Momrik5 Comments

Leaving my old job at SVSU to work for Automattic has been great. I haven’t had a single regret with my decision.

The company has changed a lot in the short time I’ve been there. The number of Automatticians has grown from less than 20 to over 30. We acquired BuddyPress and IntenseDebate. One of our main projects, WordPress.com contintues to see incredible growth, so we decided to provide 24/7 support.

My title is Happiness Engineer, which isn’t an ordinary job title. So what do I do on a daily basis? I provide support to WordPress.com users and people running the self-hosted version of WordPress. I work with our VIP hosting clients, such as Fox News, CNN, NFL, NY Times, and many others. We review their theme, plugins, and any content they want to import from a previous blog. I fix some of the minor bugs and theme issues on WordPress.com and submit patches to WordPress.org if the bug is a problem there as well. I train all new employees who are required to provide support for their first 3 weeks. In general, I try to do whatever I can to make our users happy.

The problems and questions from users are always changing. Everyday is different and comes with new challenges. This keeps work interesting. I can honestly say I’ve never been bored.

When I started working for Automattic, it took some time getting used to working from home, keeping track of all of our internal information, and doing all communication with my coworkers online. Once you get in the swing of things, you’d be surprised how well online communication works for a virtual company. Would I like to have more face to face contact with the people I work with? Of course. Would I like to go back to a 9-5 office job? Not a chance.

Believe it or not, I’ve only met 4 of the people I work with and I had just met 2 of them a couple of weeks ago at Blog World. Next week most of the company will be getting together in Breckenridge, CO for a week long offsite. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and putting a face to the online personalities I’ve come to know.

I came out to Toronto this weekend to attend my first WordCamp and had a great time. Interacting with people who share the same enthusiasm and passion for WordPress makes work more rewarding.

My life has had some exciting changes in the last 6 months with the new job. I’m looking forward to what the next 6 months bring.