What I Can Do

Cartoon rendition of me (green
eyes, brown/grey hair, freckles,
in a blue shirt, giving a thumbs-up,
smiling, and working at a laptop), with a
caption reading "working from home."

It occurs to me that the previous posts on Work Safe but not Boring are out of date, so let me give you a quick bulleted list of major skills and experience.

• The usual suspects - Microsoft Office Suite, Google Docs, etc.
• Some SEO (writing rather than programming)
• Some light QA/Agile Test work
• I know quite a bit about the theory of recent business trends, especially in IT and Cloud services. I may not have done a lot of agile testing or SEO in a few years, for instance, but I have written about it often, and you have to know some of what you're writing, or it sounds fake.
• I have the happy ability to "translate from Geek to English." Basically, this means I can make highly technical information accessible to almost anyone. 
• But many people do that, right? It's easier to do this, even if it makes the non-technical people feel stupid. The key here is that I can do it without sounding like a condescending jerkface. 
• This is not as common as you'd think; many very bright people are not great at teaching, partly because they often don't quite realize that you have to start at the very basic steps.
• As an example, say you're an expert chef, and you are trying to teach a rank beginner to cook. You're not going to start throwing out terms like Gateau St. Honoré or expecting them to create a perfect crown roast of lamb right out of the gate; you start small, with scrambling eggs and chopping vegetables.
• I can also do what in my household has always been called "Nerd-Herding" or "Nerd Wrangling."
• I believe the correct business term for this is "project management" and it's the act of getting everyone moving in the same direction.
• This is harder than it looks, but as my late spouse was ADHD and probably on the autism spectrum, and my younger daughter is diagnosed with both, I have lots and lots of daily practice at this skill set. It involves lists and charts and patience and deep breathing.
• I can work from home - in fact, I am usually more efficient working remotely than in an office.
• Part of this is that I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in (Intercultural) Communication, from the University of Phoenix, before it was fashionable to distance-school. And I did it with young children in the house.
• When working remotely, I don't have that irritating voice in the back of my mind, reminding me of all the things I need to do when I get home (or on the way home) from work. I'm already here, so when it's time for a break, I can throw in the laundry or take out the garbage or grab the mail.
• And hey, I've gotten fairly adept (as a user) with Schoology and Zoom and other aspects of Google Drive (I already knew Google Docs) in the past few months.
• In the social media circles in which I participate, I have learned quite a bit about accessibility and image description. This is why you will see a caption under most of my images with a description of the image in question.
• Based on this list, I think it's fair to say that I can almost always find a silver lining... eventually.