User Guide

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Availability: 0000 – 1800 Pacific Time

Working hours: TBD

Channels:

  1. Slack
  2. DM on twitter: https://twitter.com/nosekbk

Personality

  • I’m very straightforward which can be a blessing and a curse. If I made you feel bad I didn’t mean it.
  • Dark type of humour
  • Extrovert!
  • A lot of the times I talk more than I was asked to, and tend to over-explain what I want to say in a fear of miscommunication.
  • I believe there are no strangers, just friends I haven’t met yet. I usually trust people on the spot, and let them slowly lose that trust with their actions.
  • I am never offended by anything.
  • Whatever I do, I am doing to help others. If you feel like I’m doing something behind someone’s back, please reach out. I’ll be very transparent about why and how I’m doing it.

What I value

Given word. If you promise something - deliver it. Whether it’s a scheduled meeting, or anything else. If something cannot be done or delivered on a promised time, just let me know - be honest. I cannot stand when people break their given words and not say what happened and why. I don’t care if you reach out to me 1 minute before the deadline – if you do that I am grateful for honesty.

Honesty and transparency. If you have something to say - say it. You can’t offend me by your words or actions because I know my value. If you feel like I messed up - tell me that directly. Be straightforward about the problem, and don’t sugarcoat the message.

Passion. If you’re not passionate about what you do you’re not giving 100% of yourself, and the end-product does not have a part of your soul.

Openness. If you need someone to tell about your successes and failures, please feel free to reach out ot me. I am more than happy to help, even if the help is to just listening.

Priorities

  • Family. My beautiful daughter and wife. My friends.
  • Myself. My well being. My successes and failures. My improvements and downfalls.
  • Work. Only if the above are taken care of I can do 100% at work.

Other info

I’ve recently stumbled across the youtube channel called Yes Theory (https://www.youtube.com/user/PracProcrastination). Watching the videos I realised a lot of the times I’m saying “no” to a lot of the things in a fear of something standing between me and that goal. I stopped traveling, I stopped being curious about the world around me, I stopped meeting new people or maintaining friendships. I said “no” to many things that used to define me.

Back in 2006 I had an accident which, ultimately, led me to being banned from most of the sports I loved - downhill biking, MTB Street, rollerblades or skateboard in the local skate park, aikido (3rd Kyu), swimming, snowboarding, and more. That also put a huge fear in my head of water. I was training to get a life guard licence, and now I barely get into the swimming pool. It took me 6 months to get used to a swimming pool before Mexico Retreat, but I’m still in fear of getting into the lake, river, sea, or ocean.

That event changed me a little bit, and made the transition to a settled husband and father much easier, but also put me behind the desk. My long-life dream was to visit every country in the world before my last breath – I’m 28 and I’m stuck at 12/195 countries (~6%). Now I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish it, but I know I’ll do my best to support my daughter to visit different countries, and learn about those cultures.

Circling back to the Yes Theory channel. I want to be more open to saying “yes” more often. Not everything can be done now that I have a family I have to take care of, but I’d like to really live my life with my family, not just stay a dreamer in a city in Poland.

What I am currently working on

  • Automation. I used to chime in a lot of the times in Webflow Codebase by creating small fixes and things like that. It’s a little late for me to jump on a React train, but when I was introduced to automation tests and had someone showing me the approach I should take, I really kicked in with automation. I can easily say I loved it!
  • Work / life / health balance. I need to protect my time more and be sure I’m staying healthy and happy.
  • QA Meetups. I’m attending and giving talks at local qa meetups. I want more people to be aware of what quality is, what do we - testers - do at work, and why our work is important.
  • Myself. I never want to stop improving. I want to be more aware of cultural differences and how to avoid those being a problem in communication. I want to be more aware of my own health. I want to be more positive, faster but without losing quality of my work, and say “yes” more often. I want to obtain manager skills not to manage people, but to understand how to manage different situations in a professional way.