PASS Summit Memories Blog Series – Day 2 – Discovering I Had Value

Continuing my series on PASS Summit memories, today I want to share with you some time spent with Buck Woody, before he showed me what “liquid sex” was all about. (If you want to know more about liquid sex, stop and ask myself or Buck at the Summit this year, we would love to show you what we are talking about. Oh, you’ll need some money, but only a few dollars.)

Discovering I Had Value

The year is 2009 and Buck Woody (blog | @buckwoody) asks if he can spend a few minutes talking with me after lunch. I have no idea what he wants with me but I agree because hey, it’s Buck Woody, and I am dying to know if that is his real name (I still don’t know). We find a private place to have a chat. It is after lunch and sessions are going to start up in about fifteen minutes. I figured Buck and I would talk for about ten minutes. I was off by about two hours or so.

That Summit was my sixth. The previous five Summits I had never missed a session. Never. I believed that it was my responsibility to attend every possible session. Buck changed that. When I told him that I was late for the sessions he politely told me how he found that there is a lot of value to be found outside of the session rooms as well as inside. Now, it could have been the liquid sex affecting my better judgment, but I listened to his advice and stayed there, talking to Buck. And what were we talking about?

Me, mostly. Buck wanted to know more about me. He asked me things like “What’s a good day for you? You come home from work, you kiss your dog and pet your wife or whatever it is you like to do, and you say ‘what a great day’. Tell me what things have to happen to you at work in order for you to feel that it was a great day.”

I forget at what point I started to understand why Buck was talking to me but the conversation was therapeutic to say the least. Some time later I came to realize that my current position was similar to what I wrote about earlier. But it was the conversation with Buck that made me start to see that I had value. I certainly didn’t feel valued in my current role, I felt more like a punching bag. But Buck made me understand what things in my life that made me feel good (writing, teaching, having people say ‘thank you’, having people listen to my recommendations, … all things my current job was not providing me to any measurable degree). And Buck also made me understand that other companies may be interested in having me work for them. We talked about a lot of things that day, we bonded a bit, and later that night Buck was borrowing clothes from my hotel room. True story.

By the way, I found myself switching jobs and working for Confio Software within six months. I love working for Confio. And I love working with everyone at Confio. They let me be who I want to be. Sure, it’s not always unicorns and rainbows with me being the only remote employee but even from 1800 miles way they give me the support that I never got from people I would sit right next to all day.

And I would have never thought it was possible to have a dream job like this, except for Buck, and for he and I being at the PASS Summit together in 2009.

Thanks Buck.