Travel Day and Arrival

Started with the KLM lounge – not a bad way to get started. Snacks, cold beer, great people watching. Followed by an about 9 hour flight directly to CDG. We were in pretty comfy seats, which was also nice, although I didn’t sleep much. But it was nice to be able to stretch out a bit. Our flight was mid-afternoon, which meant when it came time to sleep, I wasn’t very sleepy.

I brought my noise canceling headphones, which helped reduce the overall noise and also let me listen to The Eagles catalogue, start to finish. Well, almost – finished up on the bus to Avignon!

We had a modest wait for the train to Avignon, and then a bit of confusion when getting to the track – not super clear which number we were supposed to line up on

France at Last

Taking our first trip abroad for quite some time – this one was on hold for a longish bit, but we are now on our way to France for 10 days or so in Provence! A little town called Bonnieux.

Unlike most of our trips, we are staying in one spot. That means things are a little easier to pack since we don’t have to worry too much about making a mad dash for a train or but or aeroplane.

We are meeting friends, who have reported variously that “the coffee situation is dire”, and that “the coffee is fine”.

So – home roast to the rescue, provided it makes it thru the security check!

Another Shitty White Religious Man

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that the founder of the nonprofit where I worked has been posthumously been identified as a sexual predator. Ditto for HIS mentor, a discredited Catholic priest.

(You can read all about it at L’Arche USA and their recap of the L’Arche International release. I worked at a local chapter, in Seattle).

I worked there for about 12 years, and cut my teeth on everything from learning about managing teams and individuals, to websites, databases, networks. Many of those co-workers are friends to this day – we worked hard, played hard, laughed a lot, and tried to be better humans.

But agencies take on the culture of their leaders, and he was a lot around when I worked in Seattle, both in person and active in managing a worldwide network. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks thinking of those 12 years and at the risk of indulging in revisionist history (although – what other kind is there?) I’ve been sifting through those 12 years to separate the gold from the dross.

Dross:

Fear and scarcity were abundant. Not enough money, not enough volunteers, not enough adults with developmental disabilities. The irony here is that L’Arche was founded to solve that gap: living in community, experiencing power and choice, working together and supporting one another – the intent of that was to move to abundance, or at the very least an attitude of abundance. That happened some, but there was also a relentless drum beat of shame, not good enough, stay broken.

Gold:

The core members I worked with were fantastic. Not always easy, but I am super grateful for David’s relentless enthusiasm, Carol’s gigantic good nature, Marjorie’s sharp social commentary, Jack’s vast kindness. To mention just a few. To this day, I find myself borrowing one of their turns of phrase to the bewilderment of anyone that didn’t also work there.

Many of my co-workers, especially the ones that found that attitude of abundance. That made all manner of hard work less hard and turned it into a fun, common endeavor.

As for the shitty religious white man and his ilk? Is it the shitty white man that makes the religion bad or is it the bad religion that makes the white man shitty? Or both?

I don’t get it. The list of white, shitty, religious men (you can swap religion for power here, and lose nothing in the equation. You can very rarely swap the man for a woman) is long. Most of them had a good thing – an idea, a hope, a desire to help. And far too many end their career in ignominy (as they should) for taking advantage and harming their communities, particularly women.

I won’t let the behavior of that man change my mind about the gold. But will give him full ownership for the dross.

Settled in at Brooks and Hey There, Covid

It has been a whirlwind at Brooks, and just as I hit the three month mark, hey there, Covid, how you doing?

So, pre-Covid first:

This is really fun! With the exception of my time consulting at Microsoft, this is my largest company to date. So among many other things, that means that we have offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Vancouver, BC, Italy, and others, to name just a few.

And because we make great shoes, we also have a global supply chain that includes all of the stuff that goes into shoes.

Also because we make great shoes, we have big data around bio-mechanics and materials. I’m geeky about bio-mechanics and am WAY out of my league. But here’s a thing that I love about our approach:

Stay in your natural gait path.

That’s right – we don’t make shoes to CHANGE your gait path, we make shoes to help you run happy with the gait path you have. No more finger wagging about pronation or supination or high arch or low arch and all of that. I mean, we care about it when we design shoes, of course. But we aren’t going to FORCE you into a new gait.

That’s good science. As a runner it also makes ALL Brooks shoes open to me, because while some of our shoes are built for “feel” (that feeling of being in contact with the earth and feeling the spring” and some for “float” (that cushy feeling) all of our shoes keep you in your path. Suffice it to say that I am at high risk of spending a disproportionate amount of my wages on shoes of all types!

One of the other things I love is that I am learning all about the supply chain (which is in the news in a big way just now) and what that means for tech. So I’m learning about ERP systems, Order Management Systems, Warehouse Management Systems – and the tools we use to pull all of that data together to make great shoes and savvy business choices.

So the good news about Covid is that none of those things are changing: we’re going to keep making great shoes and we’re going to keep at it with our work. The harder news is figuring out what that means until there is a new normal. So like most, we’re working from home, focusing on the health of our team, and looking for ways to contribute to our community of runners and partners. Like donating 10k shoes to health workers.

I have 10 years of work from home under my belt, so the transition from walking to the office to walking to my home office was super easy. I’m glad that I had 3 months to learn faces and names and work with people in the office, too – but also know that I can grow relationships without being cheek to jowl, and right now, cheek to jowl is only good if it is it is bacon in the proximity of my jowl!

(I had to look up jowl, just there, by the way).

So we are working from home, and as a company, learning how to be good at it. We were well positioned with our tech, too – so I grabbed my laptop the last day in the office and didn’t miss a beat. Okay, I take that back: I gave away my wireless headset, and I do miss pacing around the room whilst on a call. Now I have to stick close to the microphone!

All up – I feel lucky. Lucky to have a job with Brooks, to be in tech, to have a safe place to shelter, and a passion for running, which I can still do for sanity.

Be safe and be well, and be in touch, people!

One month at Brooks Running!

Okay – so – not quite a full month! The end of year holiday season means that although I’ve been at Brooks for a month, I’m really just three weeks in. I’m happy to report that I am still delighted with this transition. Here are some of the things I am enjoying and learning!

1. What a view! The 5th floor is where we have our cafeteria (called the “Beastro” named after one of our most well-loved shoes) with a terrific view of Lake Union. And the food is good, too!
2. People run throughout the day. It’s great to see us voting with our feet in this regard; seeing someone in the elevator or stairwell on the way out or back for a run brings a smile
3. Run Happy is a real thing – everyone gets to define their own run – far, short, fast, slow – I love that being a runner means you get to define your run
4. Oh, Microsoft Office suite, I am SO glad to see you here!
5. We make great gear for runners. Terrific if you want a pair for walking or whatever – but our focus is on making the best running shoe.. I love that clarity – it means we aren’t chasing fashion, or court shoes or basketball shoes. We make shoes for runners.
6. I like walking to work! After 10 plus years of working from home – it’s nice to walk there and back, and to use the walk back to put my work day aside
7. Super fun to be on the path of learning a bunch of stuff that I don’t know. My overall skill set is a great match for the work, but I am a firm believer that the more I understand the details of the work, the better I will be at my job. So I am learning all about Third Party Logistics, Free Trade Zones, ERP software, shoe and apparel design, and much, much more
8. I get a discount on shoes! That makes it even easier for me to recycle my shoes (we have a recycle station at the office for those) and make sure that my shoes aren’t overused
9. Ditto for apparel – I’m loving the running vest for added warmth on cold days
10. People laugh a lot at work – a great sign of a culture that I am excited about!

Happy new year, all!

Week Two at Brooks!

Week two is just in the rear view mirror – a combination of learning more about my team and attending two full days of orientation.

Orientation was fantastic – I heard from the CEO, every VP, every program area. So everything from how shoes are designed and made, to the testing lab right here in our building, to our marketing plan, and a lot more.

During the session our CEO led, he was talking about our core belief that a run can change your day for the better. And a series of runs, perhaps can change your life. And enough of all of that – maybe even the world. The best part is that only you get to define your run – how far, at what speed and all of that. As an aside (we were talking about tariffs) I heard him say under his breath “the whole world could really use a good run right now.”

How delightful! And a great match for me as a person, a worker, and a runner. So the good start continues!

On the work front, I am deep in the weeds of logistics. It has been a long time since any of my project management work included physical things in my project plan. But since we design and make and sell shoes – I am learning all about customs, factories, dye, material and shipping. And shipping. And shipping! It’s fun – my brain is exercising new muscle.

Meanwhile, I inherited a terrific team – lots of enthusiasm, they all know their way around the art and science of our work. I probably need a few more, which reminds me of how my team started at Exponent Partners (small, great, growing).

Things slow a bit thru the end of the year, but in January – off to the races!

New Job!

I started a new job this week; after five and a half years working at Exponent Partners, I’ve joined Brooks Running.

Image by Doug Scott

Exponent was fantastic – I was lucky to start with a small but excellent team, and a new but fantastic product and over those five years, we delivered upwards of 100 projects to the nonprofit community. Along the way, my team grew both in size and expertise and working with my team was an absolute highlight of those five years.

However, Exponent was the third job in a row working in professional services, which meant our success was directly tied to our capacity to bill customers every 15 minutes. When the chance to work at Brooks arrived, I jumped. I’m just 5 days in and super delighted already. Some of the things that are new include:

• I have to get dressed everyday; after working from home for 10 years, this is no small adjustment! Hello, dress shoes, see you later, house slippers.
• I get to walk to work – my office is less than a mile from my house. I’ve walked different routes each day to see if I like any more than the other. Here in Seattle, that means ups and downs and since I’d like to arrive at work without being sweaty – finding the right way to the office is going to be fun.
• I don’t have to fill out a time card in 15 minute increments! This is an incredible change both in my time tracking, but also in how I spend my day. The huge benefit is being able to chat with someone over lunch, after a meeting, during an adhoc meeting. It’s only been 5 days, but because there is grace in everyone’s calendar – I already feel like I’m getting to understand how our company works, our culture, and so on.
• Running is a part of that culture; lots of people coming and going for runs throughout the day. I have to figure out how to work that into my schedule. A mile each way is too little to run for a commute.
• Our financial performance is super important; but we don’t track it in 15 minute increments, or quarterly. This creates space for long term thinking and planning which I am enjoying a lot.
• We are a Microsoft shop! Whoo hoo! Outlook, I have missed you! Excel, you have never looked so good, particularly your pivot tables and the capacity to indent within a cell. Powerpoint – how nice that I don’t have to edit your HTML.

Stuff I am excited to learn

As you may imagine – lots to learn. There isn’t anything in general that makes me nervous – I’m on the IT team and our projects broadly fall into infrastrcutre, data networking, managing our digital presence, and the important wrap around tools to assess, measure, report, and so on. But there are entire areas where those tools are applied that are going to be super fun:

• Logistics, logistics, logistics! How does a pair of shoes (looking at you, Levitate 3) make it from design to a factory to a distribution center and then on to a shop or your house? Ask me again in 6 months and I’ll tell you all about it.
• Bigger data than I’ve ever worked with and thus a dedicated analytics team. Also very exciting.
• Enterprise Resource Planning. I haven’t worked at this scale before, so am super exited
• Shoe and clothing design. I don’t think any of my projects will fall into this area, but I’d like to know since, well -we make and sell running shoes!

It’s going to be a fun learning curve!

Days 24 and 25: Final relax days in Brisbane

Back to our friends house for a perfect ending to our trip. Lots of sleeping in and home cooked food and laughter. And cards. And a giant dog named Shinto!

Day 22 and 23: More Gold Coast and travel to Brisbane

A perfectly lazy day. Long beach walk, breakfast and coffee and then a nature preserve fillers by a terrific dinner at Helennica!

Day 22: Exploring the Gold Coast

Lazy morning followed by meeting one of Puja’s former school friends for coffee.

And then (wait for it!) another gorgeous beach walk, a beer, and then (for me, at least) a long swim in the Pacific. The sweep tide was super strong and the waves not super catchable, especially staying within the safety zone where the lifeguards were watching. But awesome to be in the ocean and even better that I did not meet a great white!