Author: Gregory

Every talk you give can help you become better. You’ll most likely just hear positive feedback, because it’s let’s face it, it’s a bit weird to hear strangers give negative feedback when they’ve only hear you speak once.

It is better to just get positive feedback or to get positive and negative? It all depends on speaking experience and what sort of feedback is wanted. Meaningful feedback that includes details I find is always wanted so that the speaker knows exactly what they did well on and what needs work.

Should a speaker give themselves feedback? Yes, because then you can know what you covered in your time, what you felt needed work and what you did well on. Once you have that written down you can stop thinking about your own feedback and start reflecting on all the feedback given.

What you do with the feedback depends on you. You could collect it, trash it, then forget about it as soon as you get it. You could collect it, review it once, then never look at it again. You could also collect as much detail on the feedback as you can, review it multiple times, and use it to improve your next talk.

If you collect that feedback, how do you respond to it? You don’t need to directly respond to the person who gave you the feedback, you need to think about what and how you are going to change your next talk. It can get frustrating when you are trying to get better and it’s taking much longer than you expect or you don’t notice any change. The feedback can help you notice if any changes happen. Speaking isn’t just done in prepared, long talks. It can be done talking to some colleagues, at a meetup, or even explaining it to someone who isn’t normally in that space. There is the saying that the more often you do something, the better you get at it.

What happens if the feedback you get isn’t the feedback you want, or is negative? The first thing to remember is that it’s someone opinion, it’s not everyone’s opinion. If you need to step away after getting that feedback then it’s ok to do so, however, please don’t be mean to the person who gave you that negative feedback. After collecting it, take a moment to review it and try to see why that person thought that way. Was it because you didn’t give enough detail, or they didn’t think you hit the purpose of the talk? Take the time to incorporate some of that feedback into your next talk.

How’s feedback different if you present online versus in-person? When you present online the space in which you see someone is smaller and therefore the feedback is more limited visually to anything above your shoulders unless the speaker is standing up. The huge advantage of presenting in-person is that more space can be used, your entire body and the space of the speaking floor can be used. Does this mean you should always present in-person? I don’t think so, however when you present online you should take advantage of what online provides and remember you have a much smaller space to work with.

Does feedback help? Yes it does, it helps to see other perspective’s, to see what your audience thought because as a speaker you only see one side. It has really helped me to get feedback, to know what I have to work on, and what I do really well on. Without honest feedback I never would have improved as a speaker.

This is post number 92 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

Many websites offer a contact form to contact the person or company behind the website. After submission, what happens to them and can the process be improved?

Most of the time the results are a email. Then responses usually as a reply or separate email. If you use a CRM or prefer another form of communication (rather than email), there is time spent inputting that.

How do you have it automate input, or go to your preferred communication method?

You need the contact form that let’s you do that

With many form’s (with plugins and companies that offer them) you need to find the one that fits your needs. Where do you need it to automate input, where does it need to go on your website, what’s your budget? You may find many that offer what you need or you may find one. This is most likely the longest and most difficult part. Make sure to try it out (either using a trial or free plan) to make sure it does everything you want and is easy to use.

Set it up to do what you want

After a trial, set it up on your website (test page to start), make sure to contact form looks how you want, and goes to where you want it to go. A test must happen, and not only on your website, but also in the system where you want the results to go. See how they look, make sure everything looks how you want it. It may need tweaking in the official integration, or using a third-party integration. Look at the limits for everything you are using, as you don’t want to go past those limits and not get the results.

Make sure everyone knows how to get the results

You could be setting it up for yourself, or a company. You should make sure it’s set up so that everyone knows how to get the results. Send a test message to make sure everyone has the required directions, and what to do after receiving it.

If a new system is in place, reminders are helpful for anyone who doesn’t often check it.

Organize the results

You may want to organize the results so that everyone is aware of the progress. This depends on where the results are going into and what flexibility it offers. Always better to leave notes to remind anyone of the progress and anything else that should be known about that contact.

Don’t be afraid to make changes if needed

After having everything in place for a while, there may be a need to improve or adjust. Make changes that make sense for the most amount of people. Test everything and get questions answered.

Has your efficiency improved? It most likely has after a period of time. It’s all part of the learning process and finding the right tools for your needs.

This is post number 91 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

I’ve been working as a customer service agent for what has felt like forever, but in reality it’s been less than one year and there are many things I’ve learned so far and that I wish customers knew.

This can apply to anyone who works in any sort of customer service. And if you are someone who is contacting customer service then please remember these things and your experience will be a lot better.

Be nice to those who do customer service

Don’t be mean or yell at someone just because they are trying to help you. It’s understandable to get frustrated but don’t take it out on the customer service person helping you.

Have patience

Submit a ticket (or do whatever you need to do in order to contact customer service) then have patience while someone understands your issue and works on a solution. Sometimes a solution or answer can come quickly, other times it may take a ton longer.

Been a couple of weeks and not heard anything, ask

I know I said to be patience earlier but customer service agent may forget about you, so a gentle reminder asking about progress is nice to have (both for you and the service service agent).

Providing step by step is helpful

Sometimes knowing step by step of what you are doing is helpful for the customer service. That way they can see how you are doing it, it can be done written, screenshots, or even video.

Make sure to still include enough written (or vocal if you are talking on the phone) that the customer service agent can still help you without having to open the screenshots or video.

Asked to fill in a form for something? Then do it

The company you are contacting may have certain procedures and rules in place to ensure things are seen by the right people, and may ask you to fill in a form to get that to them. Please fill in that form, don’t complain to the customer service person who gave you that form. You also most likely don’t need to tell them when you have filled it in.

Don’t respond after the ticket is closed, unless you still need help

Tickets can be opened and closed. The person working in customer service may think you no longer need help and close your ticket. If you don’t need any more help related to that then you don’t need to say thanks or anything like that (even thought it’s appreciated, instead talk about the positive experience with someone or on social media).

If you feel you still need help, then you are welcome to re-open it and continue to get help.

Need help on a specific thing then provide a link

The customer service person can help you a lot faster with a problem if you provide a link to the specific thing you are having a problem with. That way they can directly go to the problem and start working, rather then having to find it the specific thing then work on a solution.

Issue on your website? Provide a admin login

If the issue is having on your website then provide the customer service with a admin login to it. That way the customer service person can start right away on solving it.

And make sure the customer service person won’t be blocked in any way if they try to login. Because that’s just more time waiting for you to get back to them.

You are welcome to ask for clarification or questions

There is no shame in asking the customer service agent for clarification on something they said, or something that the company has put out. The job of customer service is to help you make the best use of their product for your needs.

In general, treat the customer service person like they are a person, and has a job, and they will help you.

This is post number 89 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

If you have seen those 10+ minute YouTube videos about a topic then you have watched a video essay. The definition of a video essay (according to StudioBinder) is a video of any length that talks about a specific topic, theme, person or thesis.

Usually these videos are posted on YouTube but they can also be posted anywhere that allows videos. The creator of these video essays usually publishes the video then they move onto the next topic / video, but more creators should think about making a blog post with their essay.

The blog post is most likely already written out since it has to be written it out for the video. Some creators may not have written out anything but for most people it sounds better if they can write it out and edit it before recording. Instead of keeping that written content on the computer, or deleting it, publish it for everyone to read.

It can help to improve the writing of the creator. The creator can notice how often a word is used, or any spelling errors. If the creator accepts, they can have readers also point out any errors so the creator can get better with writing which will improve their video as well.

Having a blog post helps the creator to be more visible. Someone may not search for a video or may not want to watch a video, and by having a blog post the creator can get more people interested in their content.

While a blog post has tons of text, it also have pictures and video included. One good example of this is Orlando Parkstop. The creator may have to learn how to format the text by including italics and paragraphs to make it more readable.

If the creator doesn’t have a website where would they post this blog post? It all depends on where their community is, or where the community around the topic is. It could be a YouTube community post, on Reddit, or many other places that allow you to blog.

This is post number 86 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

Martin Luther King Jr. has been quoted in saying ““Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”

We have a ME FIRST culture, where we want to be served before someone else, and we don’t care about anyone around us except our family and our close friends. Think about the last time you stood in a line, you most likely didn’t let someone go ahead of you. Think about the last time you donated to a charity, did you do that because you want to, or because you felt forced to?

Why do we do this? Because each of us have so many things going that we don’t tend to think about someone we don’t know. And because all of us are conditioned to be distracted on our phones or by another means that we don’t get time to think and be quiet.

How can you start doing something for others? One example is when you see someone in a grocery store trying to reach something, instead of walking right pass them, ask them how you can help. They may not want your help, and that’s perfectly ok, at least you offered help. If they ask you to do something, and you can do it, do it without expecting something in return. And don’t do it just to tell others you did it.

I mentioned a bit about charities early, and everyone has their own feelings and thoughts about certain charities, and that’s ok. Go help a local charity in some way, it doesn’t have to be just with your money, it can also be with your time, or you can also help do a fundraiser for that charity. Ask them how you can help them, and see if you can find a way to help.

In a pandemic, charities may not want you inside their facility, and there usually isn’t many people out and about. How do you do something for someone else then? Sometimes you may find opportunities, for example in early 2021 in the capital of Canada there were protesters, a few of them harassed staff at a homeless shelter to give them food. This made national news across Canada and a few weeks after it happened the charity said on social media they had gotten around $75,000 in donations from people around the world.

People saw the opportunity to help a charity that was struggling a bit and without being prompted by the charity or anyone else, they decided to give a bit of their money. That is doing something for others.

A number of years ago I heard about something called pay it forward.

There is a book that was turned into a movie with the same title. It’s all about doing a favor or helping someone and instead of paying you back, tell them to pay it forward to three other people. Why? Because people expect to be paid for the help they give and by telling them to pay it forward, it shows that you care about helping someone.

How can you pay it forward? For starters, small businesses have been struggling during the pandemic and while you may not be able to afford spending money there, telling others about that business can help them. It could be done through social media, or any other way.

Many of us are on a computer right now and we can get it to help with scientific projects like cancer research without spending the time or money ourselves. You may asking yourself how? The researchers decides what needs to be researched, then each computer takes a very small portion of that research, finds the result and sends it back to the researches. There are many of these projects out there, some of which are geared towards specific things. The most well known ones are folding@home, rosetta@home, and world community grid.

What are you doing for others? It could be helping someone in a grocery store, giving to a charity, paying it forward, promoting a small and local business, or helping out with scientific projects. These may not take a ton of your time or money but they are just a handful of things you can to help someone.

This is post number 85 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

Simple, simply, just to, easy, quick, straightforward, idiot-proof, clear-cut, are all words that can be said without too much thought because you may think the task at hand is easy.

What you may think is easy, isn’t for someone else. Someone may have no clue how to do that.

You also have to think about who your target audience is, is it someone who is an absolute beginner or someone who is an expert.

Where is this being read, if it’s an help document you want to be as step by step, plain as possible. That way anyone can read and understand it. If it’s an blog post that is considered an expert then tweak the wording so they can understand it in their own language.

One big note about target audience, you may have a different idea of who your target audience is, then who they actually are or who is actually reading it. An example is if you are trying to level up your programming knowledge and you want to learn a new programming language which you have to install on your computer. The readme instructions are written for someone who already knows how to install and needs a refresher. They aren’t written for someone who is brand new to it. Consider writing multiple versions so that just about anyone can do it and provide ways for someone to get in touch and be willing to work with someone who has no clue.

How do we stop saying easy? I’m not sure, but I do know we have to remember that what’s easy for you isn’t easy for someone else.

This is post number 84 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

When you have a website and you look inside the dns entries you may see multiple lines but for most websites all those entries are the same company. Most people don’t change them unless they want to move their dns to another provider, or they want to have multiple dns providers. But why do some sites do that but others don’t?

Many sites don’t do it because it’s different.

It does take time to find the right second dns provider and set up both dns providers.

This is because some dns providers don’t support having a second dns, or don’t want to be the second dns. So this requires research and looking around at multiple companies to see what they offer. The reason I know it’s difficult is because I ran into difficulties setting it up for this website.

Many websites also don’t do this because it only helps someone who is visiting your website for the first time.

After someone goes to your site for the first time the dns results get stored (they get stored with the dns provider your visitor is using). But it can be very helpful for a website who gets lot people coming to their site for the first time.

Most website owners (or companies) don’t think about their dns provider going down and don’t want to think about or cost of, setting up a second dns provider.

Now why should you use multiple dns providers?

Because you don’t want to rely on one company for everything that is related to your website.

When that one company goes down then the entire website is down with no way to reach it. Moving the dns to another company lessen the chance of the entire website being down.

One dns provider may be better than the other.

For example, your website host may have servers that handle their dns but they also process your website and every other website on the server, and by adding a second dns provider you can make it faster for someone to get to your website.

How is it faster?

Say you decided to use Hurricane Electric’s DNS, they have tons of servers around the world and they make sure they have processing power and tons of bandwidth for your dns. Especially if you choose a company that already has many websites using it for their dns, it will make a ton faster to find where your server is and tell your visitors. Because the entry will be stored in the server that serves dns.

Does location matter?

Location does matter, because you could have a new visitor to your site from the other side of the world and if all your dns records are stored in your country then they almost have to go to the other side of the world just to get your dns records then bring them back which will add time. But if your dns provider has a location in the same country then it will make it faster for them to see your website. Usually the more locations the better, but you want locations that are spread across the world, not just in highly populated areas.

You may also want to use multiple dns providers because it provides a challenge for you. You get to learn more about your dns providers, what dns company you should use for a secondary, how to set up a secondary dns.

There is a major reason why most people don’t do this, because they don’t think their dns provider will never go down.

Dyn, Akkamai, Amazon, Cloudflare have all been down at one point. Every company will experience an outage at one time, no company can guarantee 100% uptime, and even 99.99% uptime is down around 52 minutes per year. A secondary dns will keep your website up as long as the hosting is still up.

What company should you use for the secondary dns?

You want to look for a company that offers secondary dns (some companies call it backup dns), along with their pricing, and any other features you want. You should also make sure that the company you are currently using as your dns let’s you have a secondary dns, as some don’t (also known as having a slave dns). If you don’t know what company to choose then you can do a search for secondary website dns (or also known as backup or slave dns) and you’ll find a list of different companies.

After you setup your secondary dns it will take time before the world knows about that secondary dns. Some website professionals say it’s because of propagation, which is technically incorrect. You are waiting for the dns entries to expire. Within dns there is a ttl (time to live) which tells every dns provider how long to hold the results before requesting a new one. When that expires it goes to the company you use for dns and requests the list again. It also won’t be complete within 48 hours since each company can decide on their own how long to hold the results for. Instead of rewriting what Julia Evans has wrote about this I would encourage you to read her post on this on her website.

Now with your second dns provider set up, people to your website will appreciate how much faster it is. While they may not directly thank you, they most likely will notice it.

This is post number 83 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

There is a huge debate on physical books vs eBooks, there are positives and negatives to both and I’ll leave links to some at the end of this post but once I started using eBooks, I read more than when I read with physical books.

It is easier for me to get eBooks, I go online, search for the book and buy it, than I have it. I don’t have to drive out to the local bookstore, either look through the shelves or ask a staff member where a specific book (or the genre) is, then pay for it, then get back home and start reading it.

eBooks take up less space on a bookshelf than a physical book, which means I can store more eBooks than can fit in my bookshelf. If you have physical books then you have a limited bookshelf size before you have to swap out books in order to keep reading other books.

eBooks are also lighter, no need anymore to lug around multiple books that range in weight, you can fit thousands of books on an e-reader and the weight doesn’t change based on how many books you have.

Both eBooks and physical books let you highlight and create notes. The major difference is that with eBooks you can remove the highlights at anytime (unlike physical books where you will either have to destroy the sticky note or get a new book), and being able to edit or remove notes without running out of physical space.

Wonder what a word means? If you are reading a physical book you will have to stop reading and go find the definition. On many e-readers you can select the word and the definition will come up.

Want to read without turning on any lights while it’s dark? e-readers can do that as long as you have a charge (some of the devices will last multiple weeks on a single charge, as always it depends on how long you read and what your brightness level is).

With physical books the text size is the only size there is (you may be able to get a large print book but then you have to buy another book and it may not be available), with eBooks you can change the text size to any size you want (limited to the size of the screen).

There are always disadvantages to owning something digital, you don’t “own” the eBook but there are ways to remove it if you where to look online (some authors and publishers do release their books drm free, however if a book does contain drm there are ways to remove it, none of which I’m explicitly telling you how to do so, I’m simply providing information surrounding it).

Some authors of physical books do take the time to make their physical book special, one such book is The Every by Dave Eggers, who is releasing the book with at least 32 different covers. The hardcover of the book is also only available from independent bookstores. Other authors do take extra time with their eBook by providing annotations in-line (as opposed to having them at the end of the chapter or end of the book). Most authors don’t take the time to do anything special for their different editions, but when they do it’s a nice touch and it encourages readers to buy their book.

Extra reading regarding this:

Ebooks are an abomination – Ira Bogost for The Atlantic

How libraries acquire books – Rob Hart for LitReactor

Publisher worry as Ebooks fly off libraries virtual shelves – Aarian Marshall for Wired

The rise of e-reading – Pew Research Center

Your E-Book Is Reading You – Alexandra Alter for The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

This is post number 82 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

Disclosure: I have talked with Marissa through Twitter a number of times, and I’m subscribed to her email newsletter. She did not ask me personally to write a review, but she does ask at the end of the eBook to leave a review.

Marissa Goldberg is a remote work advocate (or in her words “revolutionizing how we live by changing how we work”) and after tweeting many times about Slack on Twitter she decided to publish an eBook with her Slack tips. If you want to skip my review and get the eBook for yourself you can get it on Gumroad.

You should get it if you use Slack in your workplace. A majority of the tips that are included can be useful in any workplace.

You will have to change how your coworkers interact with you on Slack, and that may be hard for some people and some workplaces but as Marissa says in the eBook “so it doesn’t take over your work (and your life)”.

Every tips is numbered with a nice big heading which makes it easy for you to find the tips that are best for you.

With each tip there is either a picture or text on how to do that tip yourself which makes it very useful.

The guide is visually easy to read, and having it as a PDF makes it so you can zoom in and out as needed.

Overall, it’s a great guide for anyone who uses Slack (or any other instant messaging tool). I do hope Marissa makes more of these in the future as I’m sure she can do a similar one on email or social media.

You can get the guide yourself on Gumroad and if you wish to financially support Marissa you either do so through Gumroad (by paying for the guide) or her tip jar.

This is post number 81 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

I don’t endorse pirating anything, this is my view point and what movie studio companies can do to stop slow or stop their movies from being on piracy websites.

Thanks to Hollywood Movies Flood Piracy Sites Hours After Release – The Wall Street Journal for the inspiration for this. If you get a paywall while reading, you can read it in full on archive.today.

Hours after a Hollywood movie is released, piracy sites have the movie. When these movies used to be just in theatres, the piracy sites would have low-quality recorded on a camera versions. High quality copies usually wouldn’t be available until the movie is available on blu-ray a couple of months later.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, it caused theatres to shut down and all movies to be released online. This made it easier for piracy sites to have the best quality possible, available minutes after the movie is released.

The movie studios of course don’t like this and are trying to do whatever they can to stop their movies from being on piracy sites.

Instead of issuing DMCA takedown notices and making the movie more exclusive, there are other things they can to get more people to watch their movies the legal way.

Many people pirate movies because it isn’t available where they live in the world, and don’t want to wait until it comes out in their region of the world (if ever).

In the past the argument was because physical media was extensive and jet freight was very expensive.

Now the argument is because of copyright or exclusivity. A movie may not yet, have the rights to use a certain song in a certain part of the world. And until that agreement is signed by both parties, the movie studio would either need to mute the song used, or would need to choose another song which would require another agreement. A movie may also have an exclusivity to either a certain country or a certain streaming service, this is worked out by each party, and includes for how long.

Many movie studios not only produce movies, they have their own streaming services, or at least a license with one. For the studios this will give them close to 100% rather than 75%-ish of the cost. But viewers will have to pay for another streaming service. Why pay for yet another streaming service that they will probably only watch a couple of movies on, when they can use piracy sites to get it for free.

If a movie is available on a streaming service then the viewer will have to pay the monthly cost, and most likely an additional “premium” cost to watch a specific new movie. When Mulan was released on Disney’s streaming service, they not only required a monthly subscription, you had to pay an additional $30 to watch the movie. There are people who will pay any price to watch the latest movie, but there are also people who can’t afford to. Of course companies are going to have a “premium price” to their movies if they can because that 100% goes to the company.

Want to watch a movie in a language that isn’t an official language where you live? Learning how to read English or another language and find the best way to do so is by reading the subtitles? Theatres or streaming services don’t make it easy to do either of those. Why?

Because it costs the company money and few people would use it that it isn’t worth it to them. This is a big reason why piracy exists. When the movie is available on piracy sites usually isn’t just one language, there are several. Subtitles are available, if you want them, not just in your official language but likely in many other languages.

In one example, a movie could have six different audio languages and ten different language available through subtitles, all available in one download. The people who use these don’t need to wait for the official version from the movie studio to be available, there are people who volunteer to get these out quickly. Movie studio’s either take their time getting these out, or don’t put them out at all because it isn’t worth it to them.

Some viewers care a ton about quality, and some don’t. If you are one of those people who do and you notice you have to pay more to watch the highest quality, it may be on purpose. That’s right, some streaming services may charge you a higher cost in order to watch the highest quality they have. They want to get as much money as they can from you.

Even if you don’t care about quality you may notice in the lower quality that the video looks really bad or affects your mood, that’s because they want you to upgrade and pay them more. Some viewers may have no problem watching the lowest quality, and some will no problem paying more. There will be viewers who don’t like that they are already paying for something, and they have to pay more just to watch a higher quality. Movie studios and streaming services should provide the highest quality available at the same price, and allow someone to change the quality if they need or want to.

Movie studios, make a movie more available to viewers, in a how they want and quality way. People will pay for it. Some people will pay much more than the cost of a theatre ticket for this.

This is post number 79 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

Disclosure: At the time of publishing, the company I have signed a contract with uses the paid version of Loom. Everything said here is my own thoughts and opinions and do not reflect any company that I have worked for (past, present, or future).

Loom makes it easy to record a video that includes your screen and your face, after recording stores it on their website and you can share the link with anyone.

Yes you can do this other ways, like recording on your phone, or using a software like OBS (open broadcaster software). Loom makes it easy for the average person to record and make public a video, without any editing or exporting.

There are some things I love and hate about Loom.

Loom has made it easy for someone to record a video and share it with the world. You click record, say what you want to say, show what you want to show, stop recording, then share the link. No editing, no exporting you have to do.

No editing means that if you say something wrong or don’t show something when you actually want to show it, it means that you to have do the entire recording all over again. This could be good or bad, depending on the way you look at it, and if you can do it all in one take. I like the ability to edit so I can remove segments as I need.

One big thing I don’t like about Loom is that your face in the video is in the bottom left, which I think is a horrible position as the controls for playing the video cover half your face when they are showing. At the time of writing I haven’t seen an option to change this.

Loom has raised a ton of money from investors, at the time of writing their total funding amount (according to Crunchbase) is $203.6 million. Which is a ton of money and their investors hope for all that money back at some point. How is Loom going to make that money? Since the company is currently private it’s hard to say how much they currently make and how they make it, but if I had to guess they have three options: paid plans, selling the company to another company, or putting the company on the stock market.

Loom won’t be around forever, nothing ever is if they stay the same. A major problem I see with Loom is when it no longer exists you won’t have those videos anymore. For some videos, that won’t matter but there will be some videos that you want to keep and then you will have to re-record them using some other way. Loom doesn’t keep the recording on your computer, forcing you to always rely on Loom and not being able to take the recordings and put them somewhere else.

Loom is being used more, which of course Loom (the company) will consider to be great, many companies are either forcing employee’s to use it or aren’t providing alternatives.

I don’t want to be forced to use Loom, not just because of the negative things I think about Loom, but also because I find it easier to communicate my thoughts through writing rather than video. That is why I blog rather than do YouTube videos.

What alternatives are there to Loom?

There is recording a video using another software, like OBS (that I previously mentioned) which does require some more technical skills and more time because it can be edited and uploaded. You then have the video file and can upload it to anywhere, including social media platforms.

There is writing, it doesn’t have to be long, it can be a couple of sentences, you can include screenshots if you need to show something off. You can post that writing anywhere you want.

Which one should you use? Any one that best suits you and you feel comfortable doing. Don’t let anyone else decide which the one you should use.

To close, I don’t like Loom because it doesn’t allow for any editing (which some people like about it), it doesn’t give you the video file, and it’s something more companies are forcing upon it’s employees. Use whatever method and tools you communicating with the best, not the ones that someone else is telling you to use because it’s better for them.

This is post number 78 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

When looking at job postings there are many that offer a salary, and some offer stock in the company. It may be tempting to pick the company that offers stock options as you could be rich later. Here’s why I don’t, and why I don’t want any stock in a company that I’m working at.

The salary most likely will be lower because of the stock options, the salary is right now what pays the bills.

Those stock options may vary based on many different factors. Which means they may advertise one thing but end up something completely different.

When you get these stock options depends on the company. Some give them to you on day one, and in some you need to work a certain length of time before you get it.

What happens to those stock options after you leave the company (or get fired)? Some companies do let you keep the stock. But in most cases you will have to give them back to the company (which means it’s completely useless to you). Some companies do pay you for the return of that stock. It does give you an little extra money but it may not be what it’s worth when the company goes public.

Having stock means you are more likely to put in more time at work, because you feel the pay off will be worth it later. But are you willing to risk burn-out? Are you willing to work all those hours and it not pay off? It isn’t something I want at this point in my life.

At one point the company will go public or sell to another company. What happens to the stock you own? Your stock will either become stock at that other company, or you will get an actual stock on the stock market. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on what you want the future to be. Depending on how many shares and the type you have will depend on if you get a vote or even a say on the future of the company. Is that something you want? Do you want to have to keep track of the price of the stock and sell and buy at the right time?

For all these reasons, I don’t want stock at any company I currently or have worked for. I don’t want that extra risk and it won’t pay off in the long run.

Do you agree, disagree or have other thoughts for or against? Let me know through Twitter, Mastodon, or email.

This is post number 77 as part of 100 Days To Offload.

How do companies make money? They sell a product, service or their time. How do social media companies make money? By selling your information for advertising.

What if a social media company doesn’t tell you how they make money? That should raise suspicion, yet I don’t see anyone publicly raising suspicion about Polywork (if you know someone who is doing this please let me know).

Polywork recently raised $13 million from investors. While that is great for them to be able to use that money and do more (including getting more users), it got me thinking about how they plan to make money and are going to be able to pay back their investors.

Investors always look to get their money back, it could be by the company going public (also known as an IPO), the company having enough money to buy out their investors, or numerous other ways.

If the investors don’t get their money back then they could do many things to the company, including firing the founders, or changing the company in numerous ways. If the company fails then the investors take that as a loss and move onto the next company.

Yes there are some early investors who stay on the company for the long-term, but those are the exception.

How does Polywork plan to make a profit? I reached out to Polywork through their support email and through Twitter DM for their response, and after giving them 17 business days they didn’t respond. Which most likely means that they have no idea, which isn’t a good long-term idea.

I’ve deleted my Polywork account because they don’t see how they are going to make a profit, which I don’t agree with. I also don’t need to be on more social media profiles.

As for what am I going to do with everything I posted on there? I’ve created a highlights page here on my website where you can go and see any awesome highlights that have happened in my life.

This is post number 76 as part of 100 Days To Offload.