028: Primary Caregiving

May 1st, 2019 ยท 39 mins 30 secs

About this Episode

Parent Driven Development

Episode 028: Primary Caregiving

00:17 Introducing Guest, Nick Gauthier! Becoming a Full-time Parent

Nick is currently the CTO and Co-founder at Nomics. Before co-founding Nomics, Nick created MeetSpace, a video conferencing application for distributed teams. Before that, Nick worked at Codeship on the Codeship Pro Continuous Delivery platform, as well as various other web application consulting projects in Ruby on Rails, Go, and JavaScript.

03:55 Being a Full-Time Parent as a Man

  • "Aww, you're babysitting!" ๐Ÿ™„
  • Experiences with "Mommy and Me" groups and Meetups.
  • Feeling instrusive in Mom spaces.
  • Breaking into a "Mommy Group".

08:17 Partner Dynamics and Making Decisions

  • Getting the scoop and being thankful to not have other parents' problems.
  • Liking vs not liking the baby phase.

11:07 Changes as Baby Grows

  • Transitioning to a nanny but still working from home.
  • When going to work is a "vacation" or an "escape".
  • Fielding distractions.

17:11 How Having a Child Has Changed the Way Nick Works

  • Working with other parents.
  • Context switching and protecting time.
  • Asynchronous communication.

24:16 Communication Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

  • Any communication, the normal expected turnaround time is 24 hours; unless in text is says urgent.
  • Cell phone calls are last resort, but must be answered.
  • Everything is "Do Not Disturb".
  • Keep communcation very close to or 100% on topic.

29:06 Team Relationship Building + Watercooler Talk

  • Optional "huddles" with no agenda. Explicit watercooler time.
  • Company retreats.

31:21 Genius / Fail Moments

  • Nick's daughter announced "Oh yeah! Get some beer!" in the middle of the store. (#Fail) But, she is mastering potty training with M&Ms as rewards! (#Genius)
  • Chris: M&M inflation. (#Fail) "Scream Parade" on the other hand... (#Genius)
  • Allison: Flow picture charts for the morning on what her son needs to do to leave the house ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป. (#Genius)

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Panel

Josh Puetz
Chris Sexton
Allison McMillan