Naomi's User Manual

Hiya! This page is meant to give you a run-down of what working with me is like. It's like a li'l insight into the way I best interact with people and perform on a team.

My Values

I tend to be very firm in my values, to the degree that I shy away from organisations or projects which do not align with my ethics.

• First and foremost, do not pass judgement. I will not begrudge you for your religious beliefs, political alignments, or any other aspects of your life. And I expect the same courtesy in return. You do not have to accept who I am, or support my choices, but we need to maintain a respectful and cordial professional relationship. Expressing hateful, mean-spirited, or vitriolic comments does not foster such an environment, and my tolerance for such is nil.
• Second, we shall do no harm. I very strongly believe that technology is meant to advance our society, not regress it. Software should not be used to automate people's careers away, or replace creative works with pale imitations, or harass/target someone, or restrict access to information.

Environment

I have found that I best thrive and produce the greatest works in specific environments.

• Ideas should be freely discussed, challenged, and evaluated. I am not a "yes girl" to blindly follow orders. If I hear a plan that I think misses the mark, I will absolutely voice my concerns. And I welcome the same scrutiny in return. Discussion needs to be constructive and fruitful - if we're going around in circles, it's time to table it and sleep on our thoughts.
• We are not our ideas, however. "This is bad and you should feel bad" helps no one. "I'm not sure that is the best approach, can we consider doing this instead?" keeps the conversation focused on the right things and moving forward.
• ADHD means my productivity is highly fluctuating. There are days where I can sit and bang out a week of work in 16 hours, and there are days where I stare mindlessly at the screen and then realise the sun has set already. Flexibility in both schedule and deadlines is very important to me.
• Likewise, insomnia can rear its ugly head and absolutely wreck my sleep schedule without any warning. Asynchronous comms are always preferred over meetings, but if a meeting must happen the afternoon hours are the best. Too early and I'll likely fail to wake up. Too late and I might be incoherent.
• If given something like a Trello or a Monday board, I will 100% make it pretty and load every single task ever on there. I'm a sucker for organising workloads and the easiest way for me to be transparent about the work I'm doing is to just let you look at a task board. If you say "what did you do yesterday" I will not remember this for I have slept since then.

Communication

As with many people, there are certain approaches to communication that are more effective for me.

• Don't just say "hello" in my DMs or ping me without context. You'll pull me out of a workflow to wait for the rest of the message. Send it all at once, or save the ping for the last part.
• I have generalised anxiety disorder. Please for the love of all things, do NOT say "we need to talk" or "do you have time to meet". I will 100% sit there right up until the meeting starts stressing about getting fired and not actually getting any work done. If you need to call me out, just rip the bandage off and come out of the gate with it.
• I dunno if you noticed the tone changed in this document about a million times. That's pretty much Naomi in a nutshell. I'll go from collected and eloquent to manic and sending messages faster than Discord can process. I try my hardest to stay professional, but ADHD makes that very hard. I'll swear sometimes, I'll say totally off-the-wall things. But I really do try!