Turning the Page

Submitted by Isabell Schulz on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 21:10

I have been thinking back and forth of how to best put my thoughts down on “paper”.

This week, I had my last day of work with the Drupal Association.
The Drupal Association is undergoing a lot of changes and this is a result of one of them. My position is being moved to Portland, Oregon, where the physical office of the Drupal Association is; and since I am halfway across the world from that place, I was let go.

I started working on DrupalCon Paris in 2009 and it became a heavy workload, which I was happy to do. The result was that I had a little burnout and my brain wouldn’t function for several days. Also, I barely remember the week itself, as I was sick and simply exhausted by the time all you guys flooded the halls. :-)
Nonetheless, I enjoyed working on DrupalCon Paris so much, that I decided to remain involved as a volunteer and as someone, who had done it once, so I can share some experience and knowledge. At that point, it became a bit more personal, as many members of the Drupal community know. - We, volunteers, put a lot of extra effort and time into Drupal and its development, because we care, believe in its success, because we like working with enthusiastic and passionate people and want to make something happen.
The road evidently led me to project-leading DrupalCon Copenhagen. I had the chance to be the link between the Drupal Association and the community. I considered it as part of my vision/understanding to represent the local community and to implement the maximum of their vision.
Everything, that I built until then, I didn’t want to let go. I was lucky to find someone like NodeOne, which offered me 50% of my work time to be dedicated to community efforts with NodeOne’s involvement.

In the meantime, there were a lot of things happening within the DA; staff got hired, among others an events manager and sponsor manager and DrupalCon, starting with DrupalCon Chicago, became more professionally organised, something more like a model for future DrupalCons to be built upon.
The Drupal Association needed more people to help with DrupalCons and I guess it was only a natural move to offer me a job as event coordinator.

I was very enthusiastic and motivated helping to better internal processes and documentation to make life easier for volunteers and to make DrupalCons even better for the community. However, there was little time (and little priority) to focus on long-term improvements. I had to focus on DrupalCon London, which had a higher priority.

I am not going to lie and say that everything was great, whilst working at the Drupal Association. There were misunderstandings, tensions, frustration, mis-communications, more frustration. I quickly realised, that I cannot do all I envisioned to do due to many reasons (no time and too many things, barriers, changes are hard).

Overall, I think, I have (had) a different approach on how to carry things forward. I think I always have considered myself as a representative for community interests and a link between the DA and the community volunteers, trying to implement and execute the conference to fulfil the needs and wishes of both sides. I also believe, that I have a very different approach in how to communicate and share information; I believe it is crucial to be as transparent as can be in an open source community. This makes it harder to manage people to get things done, true.

I guess it was time for me to go and to embrace something new. I am taking some time to reflect on what I want to do, whether it’ll be in Drupal or something entirely different. But just to make it clear: leaving the DA does not necessarily mean, that I’ll leave the Drupal community :-)

Despite what I wrote above (again, there is always good and bad), I learned a tremendous amount about working with other people, communication and processes. I thank the staff at the Drupal Association and DrupalCon volunteers for your knowledge, experience, support and wisdom in this journey.

A wonderful Christmas (or other) time!

3122 reads

25 comments

Best of luck for the future Isabell!

Thank you for all your work, Isabell! We'll miss you!

Letting you go sheds a bad light on the DA. Not retaining people who get the work done is a basic management failure.

Isabell,
No offense, but if you are for transparency, please be more open on why you are no longer with the DA - your post is rather cryptic around the circumstances of your departure.

Thank you for all your support of Drupal over the years!

Anonymous? That's a cryptic name, isn't it? I guess it's necessary if you're an anarchic internet collective.

Thanks for all the work on Drupalcons, Isabell!

Hi,
it says in the blog post, why I was let go. The DA is moving my position to Portland, and I am not in Portland.
How else, can I make it clearer?

Ok, what I wrote above is the official version. Jacob called me two weeks ago to tell me that my position was moved to Portland and that my contract will end. Of course, they could have asked if I was willing to move to the US or discuss another position at the DA, that would work with the time difference. I think that what the DA is looking for is something that simply follows the rules and decisions. I am not that kind of a person. I like to address issues, if there are any, question decisions, if I think that they need to be questioned, do things a little differently, if I believe that it is fairer for everyone involved. I think I stir the pot too much and I think both ends (DA and I) realised that we just don't fit together.

Thanks for making Drupal better! Hope you stick around.

I was a volunteer at DrupalCon Paris, you did a great job organizing us. Will miss you if you leave the community, hopefully I'll get to see you again. All the best for all your future endevours.

Thanks guys!
By the way, you need to replace "anonymous", so I know, who you guys are :-)

I did fill in my name, but somehow, it keeps displaying anonymous ...

hmm...it seems to be a bug then :-( I will have a new site soon I hope where that won't happen anymore. sorry

Hey Isabell, Paris was the last Drupalcon that I attended and I'll remember it as a very well organized event. Thanks for all the great work and good luck with your future plans.

Great work. Well done. :-) It's great to see such passion in someone, and see them act on it. That's the way to do things.

Bon courage for all future endeavours!

Thanks for all the hard work Isabell!

Very sad to see the DA becoming even more USA-centric :-(

All the best for your future ventures.

Thank you for your tremendous efforts and honesty!

All the best,

Anonymous

Hey!
Copenhagen was fun wasnt it ;)

sad to see you leave but i can surely understand it. - cant say that its a good thing that the DA is gonna be more n more US centric - oooh well looks like its gonna be a thing we need to focus on in the future.

cheers ... and i wonder if you not gonna hang around ;)

/mdk

very much so! :-)
We have frontend united to do... ;-)

I said it on the DA's post- but wanted to add here- you're awesome.

I love your way of leadership. You were very organised, and followed up every detail. You were also upbeat and positive when things were tough. And sometimes you had to be tough and I really respect that isn't easy!

I remember one meeting you sounded like you were sitting in a wine cave, I was laughing- I have great memories of the virtual collaboration you coordinated for DrupalCon London. I think you did a great job- I'm not sure about the obsession with co-presence. Nice and all... But I agree with the other posters! This not only makes the association more US centric- but what the heck, could they have picked a more awkward time zone?

Tahiti perhaps ;) and uh, I think you might have considered going there!

I'm rambling! You are awesome, missus ;)

- Heather

Thanks for all your work and dedication! It was truely great to see your involvement the past years, Drupalcons have greatly proffesionalized in organisation and nailing more and more details that have made Drupalcons great for me.

Goodluck in future endavours, it would be great if you can find the time to share your vision on what makes a great Drupalcon.

I can understand that the DA is undergoing a lot of changes, its sad to see that means being US centric. I hope in the future there can be more transperancy around new and leaving employees, its clear there is a lot more to this than written in the DA announcement.

- Bojhan

Thanks for all your work Isabell - dedicated event organizers are a tough thing to find (it's such a hard job!), so I'm sure it's a big loss. Best of luck with whatever is next. - ArianeK

Thank you for all you've done (and do), Isabell. You help make history.

I haven't worked closely with you, but I've occasionally seen up-close glimpses of you organizing DrupalCons. It was very clear that you were completely dedicated to the job. Everybody was better off thanks to your dedication.

Thank you! And good luck with whatever you choose to do next :)

Heh Izzy-pizzy,

Sorry we haven't been in touch enough in the past year or so. Always a pleasure to kick it with you. I've left a lot of jobs with some resentment and anger, etc. Mostly it's because I care so deeply about my work, I am emotionally attached. And then, as much as it looks like the other party has caused the issue, it's often just the case that my frustration arose from my need to move on.

There is no doubt you are one of the main reasons we as a group have been so successful. You are competent, friendly, and most of all, authentic. So many people's lives have dramatically changed as a result of little you!

I'm excited to see you move on to the bigger and better things you are capable of.

-J

Thanks Jacob. Yes, frustrations on both sides led to more tension and frustration. But I also learned a lot because of it :-)

I'm not a techie, but it couldn't be clearer for anybody who knows you not to be struck by your sheer enthusiasm and passion for the work. And when you say, "I like to address issues, if there are any, question decisions, if I think that they need to be questioned, do things a little differently, if I believe that it is fairer for everyone involved. I think I stir the pot too much and I think both ends (DA and I) realised that we just don't fit together," that's exactly what's so admirable in any worker. What it in fact shows is not just simply humaneness about work, but also that you deeply care about the organisation and the people working in it and using the software. It's all too easy to follow orders, and not bother with what everyone else, including users/colleagues, etc, feel.

So, great work, and I'm sure you'll do even more brilliantly in the future.

Bon Courage!