Whoa, GitHub!

Welcome to a new fork in my life — at the beginning of December, I started full-time work as a Support octocat at GitHub.com. I still haven’t come up with an easy way to describe GitHub for those not in the techy world.

I’ll bypass what it does, and tell you about what I’m doing there. Like any big company with a well-used website, GitHub gets a lot of questions. You know when you find the Help link, or you email support@thewebsiteyou’relookingat.com? I’m one of the people who answers all those questions — from “I lost my password” to “How do I remove a repo from a watched list?”. There are questions we get that I’m unable to answer, because my technical abilities just don’t encompass much more than some weak computer programming skills. BUT, what I am awesome at is replying to people’s questions in a way that makes them feel listened to, and cared for.

One of the awesome things about the GitHub community (and there is a community — GitHub lets anyone host their open-source code for free, so there are lots of people who work together to make awesome code for the betterment of everyone) is that most everyone is a software developer, so the collective sense of humor tends to skew towards Interne Nerd. “Like what?”, you ask.

When it was announced on the GitHub blog that I’d joined them, someone quickly checked out this blog, noticed the photo of 80 and I on the bike, and altered it to fit a popular meme. If you’re not familiar with the concept of a meme, read here. Suffice to say, I feel cozy and at home in this awesome GitHub world.