 I am Jen Lucas and today I am going to talk to you about 20 different ways that we can sort of Sort of radicalize our ways that we work together Radicalizes and be radical But before I get there I feel like I would miss an opportunity if I did not take this chance to tell you a joke So my friends Why don't the seagulls live by the Bay and they'd be bagels? She's been unlocked. Thank you Can't wait to tell my mom about this anyhoo So going back to why we're here to talk about 20 things that we can do to be better co-workers So I want to tell you that some of the things I'm going to talk about today We might not agree on might be things that you're totally already doing some might be things I will tell you and you'll be like that's not a very smart idea I'm not going to do that some of it just might seem silly, but it's all totally possible So if they are things that you want to integrate into your workflow, hopefully you will take some of these home So rule number one, let's get very very serious We have to be professional Actually, I'm sorry could you excuse me just for like just like one minute just one minute. I'll be right. I'll be right back Oh, I'm sorry I'm sorry. I didn't have time to get this drink before we started How does that make you feel when I say that right? I'm guessing not great What if I said to you? Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't make it here on time for my talk. There was traffic or I had to take a call Sorry, I've locked in my house. Just couldn't make it here. He said I was on at 5 30. So technically I'm early right now My kid was sick It's me. So it would probably be my cat was sick Right, think about how these lines make you feel when I say them to you Have you ever waited for someone at a meeting and instead of them being on time they came in and said something like one of these Have any of you ever said something like one of these Something like one of these more than ten times Right, and if you're in the latter camp, I will say to you that really rule number one is to be professional We have to be on time When I left the stage for one minute, no big deal, right in my head. It's just one minute of time that was passed But when there's a hundred and fifty people waiting for you all of a sudden that one minute is a hundred and fifty minutes That's two and a half hours of lost time You know when you're late to a meeting if it's five minutes, but there's ten people waiting for you That's fifty minutes Now of course, this isn't black and white right this isn't like a oh, you know There's one right answer to this but we have to think about how these sort of excuses sound to other people You might have to had you might have to take a call But what I hear is that it wasn't important enough for you to get in time to the meeting that I wanted to talk to you about things Or there was traffic. Well, maybe that means we have to account for that and leave earlier I had to grab coffee means I'm putting my needs before others and It's not that people don't have good excuses, right life happens, you know your kids sick your cats sick These are like these are things that need attention. We have to pay attention to them There's always going to be things that we just can't plan for life gets crazy And so instead I will say to you that really rule number one is be on time most of the time Because as long as you're on time most of the time then people will gain trust in your commitment and professionalism If you're not a chronically late person the times when life does happen people won't think you're taking advantage of them your co-workers will trust you and Trust is such an important aspect to being someone we want to work with and we gain trust of course By embracing transparency Right, we have to be honest with our clients and our co-workers Email if you're going to be late to that meeting right and email before the meeting starts not after of course, right? If you see your morning is going awry and there's a chance that you might be late Just go ahead and email and plan for the worst and then if you happen to show up on time great But otherwise people are expecting this and not waiting for you Well, we also have to keep in mind though is that we don't want to be overly transparent right If you're a trustable person most likely your co-workers won't need to know the excuses of why you're late Not only will they not need to know they probably don't want to know here's an email that I once received Hey guys because the school's closed Shaq's daycare is also closed the kid was not really named Shaq I just it's like my fictional go-to name for some reason Judy and I are splitting the day so I'll be in a round or before lunchtime I'll responding to or creating as many bugs as I can why Shaq watches some game shows don't hesitate to call or I am or email I'll have my laptop in front of me all morning unless I'm changing a diaper of course Now I don't need to know all this right. I always talk my friend Sarah Wachter-Better who's an editor or a list apart She always says you can cut like 75% of everything you write right so what I really need to know is this Right. Hey, I'll be in around lunchtime responding to or creating don't hesitate to call or I am or email Right and not to say that shorts necessarily better either You know, I don't I don't need to feel like paints more important Just say you're gonna be in an 11 and then I'm not the wiser, you know And it's not to say you have to be completely stark of personality either But it's all about finding that right balance and the right amount of transparency And so speaking of emails and writing we also need to know how to write genuinely to each other We need to balance a line of when to be professional and casual in these situations So here is a piece of feedback on a pull request. Do not decline your own pull request that you're going to update I'm not sure why you would do this as we lose all visual of the updates You've just made just update any changes and recommit to the same branch Seems okay straight straightforward right a little bit blunt But sometimes this can be a little harsh especially remember we're communicating and we're someone's reading this I'm not going to talk to you. Hey, you know, don't decline your own pull request You're just gonna update it people are reading this and sometimes they can take this very personally One of the things that can really help is using contractions. So instead of do not don't it softens up your language Also starting a message with firm instructions like this can be really harsh Other thing is try to avoid the word just Just sort of implies that there's really not much effort involved in changing this where many people there can be effort involved You know start off with something lighter a little bit of a why for a request and it always really helps to include the word please I'm very very underrated word When you're starting to write introductory emails, it's also really important to think about what you say, you know Hey, I used to work for happy Coggin. This was a letter we got Hey Coggers, I hear you're looking for a stand-up front-end guy in Austin. I'm that guy I breathe code ask my poor wife and have recently been looking for a proper home with cool projects that keep me hungry Now I was the director of front-end development and in charge of hiring at this point And I will tell you right away that I was not specifically looking for a guy And I was also not looking for marriage jokes and introductory emails You know, we just have to be a little bit careful about this line of casualness that we're putting here Hello, I'm a friend and what a web-end engineer. I live in Salt Lake City and wanting to relocate my family to Austin Do you have any positions available for my skill set? Also, make sure you're doing homework before you cold-call and email people right we always have to put in the effort for this If you're the instigator of communication do your homework and research before you reach out to people You know the feedback I would have had for this person was that feedback is one word But again, I just went ahead and waited and kept that to myself And I'm not saying this is easy right putting this in it's it's really hard work But the thing is you can tell when people are just faking it, right? Like did you even did you even try? Get a little bit of spell check in there like I know it's hard spell check doesn't pick up everything Come on a little bit of effort long way, right? Remember, this is how we're starting our future relationships with the people that we work with Speaking of impressions Fashion mate is something that we can often overlook when it comes to our professional situations, right? But what we wear to conferences work-related events interviews are really important You know do research about what a company is like I've had people that have shown up in ripped jeans and t-shirts and people that have shown up in suits for interviews And neither one fit the culture and both affected hiring decisions Also figure out what you're gonna wear to stakeholder meetings or to client meetings You know I used to ask if I should cover my tattoos when I'd go to client meetings now, of course Instinctively I want to be like, you know, if you don't like my tattoos, right? Your problem But the thing is that that's true on my time. There's times when we have to consider things like this When I had client meetings with the Holocaust Museum, I would dress differently than when I had client meetings with MTV People have varying opinions and respecting that in professional setting can really help set the precedents for our working relationships Also about fashion. Oh Man, I have seen so many people drop donuts on themselves before client meetings It's uncanny, right? So always pack a backup outfit or at least a stain stick I know someone who takes off their shirt before they brush their teeth in the morning because you know How is it that that glob of toothpaste always ends up right on your shirt, right? What is the deal of toothpaste? Sorry I had to One time I was traveling for a client meeting and I had my outfit and I just do not care for ironing Right ironing is like the worst So I do that thing where you like hang your outfit in the shower and you'll be like steam will take care of that, right? professional and So I hang it on the little the rod and I'm like, okay, cool I turn on the shower and I turn back around and I didn't realize that the shower Was right at the wall instead of down and my there's my dress soaked and I was like This is terrible had a backup outfit though because I'm clumsy and spill stuff on myself all the time So, you know, it's ready be prepared We also besides fashion we have to be mindful of our language and professional settings How many of you have HR at your jobs? It's like a mix, right? It's it's an interesting field that we have in here I ask a lot of people Usually I get like a 50% answer on this right lots of tech companies don't have HR And so in those situations, it's really up to us to self-censor and consider the feelings of others How many of you have ever felt uncomfortable at work because of something someone said? stinks You know, but it's it's hard. We have to be mindful of our words You know, not everyone loves cussing. It's just you know, it but it's not just that it goes beyond that too There's subtle language choices that we make that can make people very uncomfortable Calling co-workers girls instead of women is something that can really alienate those around you Also We have to stop calling interfaces sexy I Was talking again my friend Sarah about this and she was telling you about this tweet Someone said where if you're ever confused about this try replacing the word sexy with the word erotic And then see if you would still call the whole page that right, right? And so you play this thesaurus game if you're ever unclear about what language to use would you ever describe an interface as one of these right You can't and it's tough because we don't think about these things But once you start the sourcing it you start like really thinking like oh Actually the word I want to use for this Maybe maybe slick Maybe that's the word we're looking for on this, you know, it's tough, you know, these things aren't easy Another thing that is really important is never I always we when discussing your team's work is never like oh I wrote the code for this. I made sure it got shipped on time. We wrote the code for this We launched this website. It shows a lot about how you work together as a team Especially in interviewing processes, too That's something I would always look for whether someone would describe their work as I or we We're we're all working on these projects together I want to be careful about keeping personal business out of the office and I'm Totally I can't like there's other things besides work, right? And how annoying is it that you have to make phone calls to everyone before five like if every like doctor and dentist had an Email would make life a lot easier. So I know these things happen But just step outside to make the phone call your co-workers don't want to hear about your divorce or the weird thing That's on your arm or how much you hate AT&T while you're cursing them on hold, right? These are the things that make can make workplaces really awkward But that's not to say that you shouldn't really know your co-worker. So I will rephrase that and say Dedicate the actual time to share personal business with those around you Your co-workers are people you see probably a lot or almost every day and the more we like each other the better We're gonna work together But spend time to develop those relationships go out to coffee go out to lunch actually have a meaningful conversation Versed just like oh, you know, I heard you're going to Hawaii because you were on the phone with you know You was there, you know get get those out in a nice really in a great way, you know Number seven is important I Mentioned a side project I was working on recently and to or to someone I was working with and They were sort of new and I told them like oh, I'm not familiar with like this person that I was working with and Actually the next day they'd asked me to go to lunch with them And I didn't know this person very well. So again like we saw on the slide before I was like, yeah, sure Let's let's get to know each other more So we go to get lunch and we sit down and the first topic of conversation. He says to me Oh, turns out. I do know Shaq Shaq actually worked at my old company is like a consultant Shaq was terrible. We fired him I was like Okay, how about them Phillies like where do you go with that? Right in this situation? Who who is the person you have negative thoughts about the fired person or the person telling this person's business of something that happened in the Past right what it comes down to is this We want to work with nice people who are nice to each other Right, it's so important. It's so easy and so important Now of course We're gonna make mistakes. This is gonna happen We're gonna say things that maybe we regret sometimes I you know, I still am trying to not say guys or not say man and I find myself doing that a lot There are things that are going to slip. Sometimes there's gonna be stories you tell that you're like, I wish I hadn't told that one When that happens apologize, right? Sometimes we can go over the line address it instantly and sincerely and this is a way to sort of clear the air That said if you have a problem with someone that you work with it's really important that we find a way to tell them about it I asked some people what's one of the worst things a co-worker can do and I found that most people found what they really Want is for you to be direct with them, right? Find a way to talk directly to this person now Of course, this will not work if you feel unsafe in a situation in that case Of course go right to your manager or someone else to help solve this the problem But if it's something like, you know, your co-workers writing really like terse feedback or like vaping at their desk You know You know, I'm not really not really a fan of what's happening right here. Could you maybe do that someplace else, right? Find a way to tell them because you know, it's possible. They have no clue I'm sure my friend and I used to when we worked together we stuff thing We'd be like, can you tell me if I'm like doing anything like weird with like my face, right? It's like you don't know sometimes so finding a way to be open with people. Oh Always meet your deadlines, right? Sometimes this means under committing and over delivery, right? always be dependable you want to be someone that people can rely on and Sometimes this means that we have to know when to ask for help If you have a deadline approaching and you're not going to make it let your boss or co-workers for both know as soon as possible Right, so you all can plan for it together It's so weird some of us we work elbow to elbow with each other But we're sort of scared of hesitant to ask each other for help It could be for a lot of reasons, right? Maybe some of us are perfectionists and don't want people to know that we need help Maybe it's something where your co-workers really busy so you don't want to bother them Or maybe it's because there's so many good resources out there on the internet that we don't think we're like Oh, we can find it somewhere else, or you know, or I should know this Right, of course, there is a lot of information out there And you should be seeing what's out there before asking your co-workers for help, right? It's like the let me Google that for you syndrome And if you're looking up the CSS property, that's something you can Google But we don't want to be scared to ask for help if we want to meet deadlines We have to feel comfortable working working with each other and learning from each other What I'd like to do is I use the 15-minute rule So if you can't figure it out after 15 minutes, ask for help What this does is it shows self-initiative to try to solve the problem while also respecting your co-worker's time and then also respecting your team and trying to complete a project together I like this because I love formulas So this is really easy for me to be like, okay, here's my time limit on this If you want to challenge yourself or move up in your job roles It's really important that we're taking the initiative to self-teach beyond what our job requirements are calling from us Now when I talk about being a good co-worker, a lot of that has to do with embracing what we do as our career Many of us are in the web field because it's something that we love How many of you love being in this field? Right as we have to remind ourselves how cool it is the things that we're doing right and how we should never be complacent and always strive to improve Part of that is embracing feedback Now let's be honest feedback is tough Right. No one wants to be told what they're doing wrong. That's not like you're like, hey, what are you doing? It's Friday night. I was hoping someone would give me some feedback on how my talk went if they didn't like it You know like you have to sort of balance this But instead let's try to spin it and instead of looking at feedback as negative Let's look at it as opportunity Opportunity is for us to grow and get better at what we love, right? I just saw your hit you raise your hand. So I know that we all want to get better at this in the end It will make you better at what you do. Also, if you really want to get great at this We have to make sure that we're going beyond our work hours Tackling a website from start to finish is a great way to do this and you can do that with a personal project Have ever gone home and in the evening Maybe after being at a bar, maybe just having a very inspiring day, and you're like, I've got an idea I'm and then you go and you register that domain. You're like, this is going to be brilliant Yeah, how many of you on a lot of those domains, right? How many of you have those domains and you haven't done anything with them yet? Oh, yeah, me too me too But these are great ways like these are the projects that we could be learning on right? I had one of these ideas I had one of these ideas where I thought it would be a good idea to have a show where you just cooked recipes for the sides of boxes I believe I was with Chris at that time when I thought of that idea And it was like because there was a there was a recipe on the side of a nill away for box like talk about something That doesn't need a recipe, right? You're just like reach in consume But it did So my friend also thought this was a brilliant idea So we went ahead and we made this project and doing a project like this Let me go through so many different phases right so concepting script writing video editing user experience design That was that was fun Development, you know project management. I think we often forget about project managing, but it's a super important skill to have Managing ourselves both solo and in a team can help us all work better together We can also learn more through collaboration You know, we all know how hard it is to stay up to date with everything in the tech field To be a jack of all trades right? Hey lots of times it can be lead it to being a master of only a couple But it's important to be well-rounded and be knowledgeable outside of our specialty Okay, warning. We are now entering the job role stereo portion stereotype portion of this talk. Here we go designers in the room How many of you have ever reviewed a comp and it was made in the browser and you had designed it? Wonderfully on a grid and all of a sudden there's no grid in sight when your developer shows it to you and the developer says Developers in the room how many of you received a comp and it's got like a design element or 50 And you're like well we could build this if like the CSS 27 spec was out right and when you express your concerns You're greeted with project managers, right? Ever try to compose a project timeline and then when you show it to your team like that's way too short and the clients like that's a way too long right Exchanges like this are why it's so important that we have to be on the same page as our team tough sometimes very tough That's why we have coworkers to support us But if we respect each other we work better together But how do we do that if we don't want to know what it's like to be in each other's shoes, right which? Can be weird and uncomfortable But a necessity right of getting better at our jobs and working well together We gain respect for the people that we work with by understanding what they do Otherwise, it's really common for us to make assumptions about you know how hard or easy or silly some of the people that we work with What they do for their jobs? We become more well-rounded when we learn about the team and all aspects of web design and development And one of the other ways we can do this is by sharing Writing teaching and speaking don't just help those around you expand their horizons But it also helps you solidify your knowledge on a subject Organize weeklies bi-weeklies monthly lunch and learns with your teams and they can be about anything right they can be Introductions to get they can be about Gantt charts. They can be about infographics They can be about how to use base camp or set up a grade in Photoshop It can be about so many things but the idea is you share with each other and you rotate through Everyone giving presentations at lunch to sort of share team knowledge But how do you get people to go to this? That's right my friends pizza Seriously though pizzas like the magical tool for team collaboration If you provide pizza they will come right it's like if it's there people will show up to meetings like magic It's wonderful Beyond that attend local meet-ups with your team right learning together is a great way to build a team sort of you know Collaboration and team building or teach together Create a panel with your co-workers and submit it to one of your local meet-up groups if there isn't something local They're already start one with your co-workers also Volunteering is a great way and organize maybe a co-worker volunteering session where you all go in TA at the same group or teach together You know there's great organizations that are teaching a lot of underrepresented groups amazing things these days that could always use volunteers So as a team we want to make sure that we're working on documentation together So style guides pattern libraries coding standards, you know even contracts and timelines These are documents that we can be working on together You sort of divvy things up and then work on them and review them in pieces So recently at a job where I'm consulting I started an image optimization dog or sort of bit image best practice doc And I split up each section for people on the team So someone handled optimization someone handled picture element people are handling things like cropping scene seven all these different parts What happens is when you split up that work together people become more invested They become more invested in your documentation and the standards that you're setting together as a team Because now you're all involved and you're all making these decisions together Also, it's great because it's really nice to see what other people have to say about things Which is really nice so you learn as well Another thing I really like to do is learn something new so learn something completely different I've taken jewelry classes sewing classes woodworking classes bullturning classes poll turning is the worst But what learning something new does is it teaches us about empathy and it reminds us what it's like to not Understand something as much as we do right now Also remind us how cool it is the job that we have Remembering how hard it is to learn something really reach can tell us what we're sort of taking for granted about our own jobs When we learn new things we become more patient with others So when come someone comes up to you and ask for help sometimes you can be like Oh, don't you know this already and learning something you remembers Oh, yes There was a time when we all didn't know that the things that we know now Reminds us to sort of take this patience with your coworkers Patience can help us work better together and remember that we all might have different working styles Not all of us prefer to work the same way When I asked people about what the best thing a coworker can do I got a variety of different answers and Then on the opposite spectrum Very different distinct types of criteria that people think make a good coworker and that's because we have different working styles Often animosity at work can come from not understanding the personality types of the people that we're working with Something I really like in that is the asker versus guesser sort of philosophy So when ask culture the idea is that askers have the expectation that it's okay to ask for anything But they're also okay with receiving no as an answer Whereas guessers avoid putting requests out until they're pretty sure the answer will be yes So for example your friend is coming to town and they send you an email and they say hey I'm going to be in your town. Can I stay with you for two weeks? Now an asker will say well if I don't ask how will ever I know And a guesser can say well, that's rude of you to ask to be there for two weeks All right, so boss may say hey, you know Can you work on this tonight and guessers might hear that as a request or sort of a demand? They have to work on it, but your boss may be an asker and totally okay with you saying no When we think about this thing, we sort of understand where people are coming from So guessers may find askers impolite by being rude whereas askers may find guessers impolite by being passive-aggressive If we understand how people are It makes it easier to work together, right? It makes it easier to empathize and adjust your request according to the needs and the personality types of the people that you're working with It's also really important to establish team norms I've worked with a fabulous scrum master Anna Lee's and she loved team norms And it was really great some of the ways that they were implemented into the teams when I worked with her What you want to do is sit down with your team, right? And write down what each 10 team member thinks is a great aspect to working together Can be in the environment could be in communication It could be anything it could be like always schedule meetings for 25 minutes so you can make it to the other meeting You know the 2555 rule so you always have time to get to the next meeting or it can be like something like if headphones are on That means it's heads down work slacker. I am me, you know Or it can be something like we only check emails at 1 p.m. And 5 p.m. Or you know, no offensive jokes are allowed in the office or we should always celebrate team milestones with pizza Or just with high-fives that whenever we launch something The team norms can be anything that works for you and your team But after you make them you then review the list together and sort of come up with these norms and Establish them as rules for your team and revisit often You can learn a lot when you sort of write these down on post-it notes and review them with each other Some things you may maybe never knew about your co-workers things that help them work better and then you will work better in turn together number 19 number 20 last rule We have to say thank you People who show gratitude in the workplace increase their productivity and happiness by as much as 31 Yet less than 15 of us express thanks in the workplace there is A devastating amount of hate in this country We need to appreciate each other more and we need to show that appreciation I want to thank nicole and adam right now for organizing css comp Really cannot express to you how happy I am to be a part of this This has been I think the most inclusive conference. I've ever attended And the effort that you have put in to establish this has been great I loved being here for two days and I have loved learning with all of you And I will just thank you so much for putting this together and putting so much effort and being proactive in this So thank you very much for this Everyone else to take a moment And I want you to think about the people that you work with And I want you to think about something awesome that they do And it can be anything can be they you know They brought you a snack when you were working late or they helped you work through a bug You know or they left you alone when you have headphones on it can be any one of these things It could be big. It could be small But whatever it is when you get back to work on monday or this weekend or whenever your schedule allows you to work because man We have a great field that lets a lot of us have flexible schedules Right. I want you to buy them a cup of coffee or a donut or send them an email if you don't work with them in the office Right or look them in the eyes and just say thank you Say thank you for everything you do Because it really the stuff that we work on together. It's super awesome. The stories I've heard from all of you It's been so great This field is awesome and we have this awesome community And we really need to appreciate that because it's awesome and we really are all in this together So thank you sincerely