Paternity Leave: A Retrospective

My colleague Joe (as of tomorrow - thirteen years my junior) is off on paternity as of today. This got me thinking back to just over six years ago when I was in his shoes about to embark on life's next adventure sometimes called fatherhood. Would I have felt ready at 30? Probably not, I had just got married to Michelle and our income at the time and accomodation situation did not led itself to starting a family. Financially many moons away but also maturity wise a far cry from a person whom could inherit the title of Dad.

How does the saying go? Do not judge your chapter 3 against somebody on chapter 20 or vice versa. Everyone's timeline is different. It is public knowledge I had set myself specific deadlines for each key milestone decade of my life, married by thirty, children quota completed by forty. Who knows what the plan is for fifty.

With the benefit of being on the other side, half a decade plus I was able to share a few minor pearls of wisdom with my colleague during lunch around Covent Garden in the heart of the West End on Wednesday afternoon. However, there was probably more advice I should have given but you also do not want to get in the way of any individual's learning experience. We are all trodding a different path and at different stages in both personal and professional life.

My current employer does not provide any company sanctioned gift(s) when an employee is having a baby (particularly their first child). Each HR department to their own policy - suppose it does make me appreciate the Human Resources team and their personal touch, even in the dying days of CA Technologies as the Broadcom acquisition was clearly on the horizon in late October 2018. Therefore, I took it upon myself to organise the gift, setup a PayPal pool and reach out to all the key people within the organization, across multiple timezones and continents.

Last night I was on the computer late, waiting for a meeting with my boss. With her based on the East Coast, Thursday 4pm EST equates to 9pm GMT but it works for me as by this time both children and wife will be asleep and I can catch up on all the outstanding projects. Particularly important as next week Thanksgiving falls alongside the end of our current two sprint. I had happened to be on X (the social media microblogging network formerly known as Twitter) and stumbled upon a tweet (or whatever it is called now) by a marketing executive on a recent television commericial. I started watching, leaking into the time of my 1-2-1 with my manager. There was only one person I needed to share this video with but instead of disturbing my colleague (and all our global Data & Analytics (DnA) colleagues) I opted to wait and compose an elegent message on our WhatsApp group which could act as the informal send off.

It has been a long time since I cried during a television commericial - it is usually the John Lewis Christmas advert at this time of year but instead I was in floods of tears for a car advert. The irony of this whole post is my Dad had a 240 GLT in navy blue which he bought brand new in 1988 (E414CJO). It was his pride and joy. I promised myself - I would never own a Volvo. I would never become my Dad. I suppose that is what connects me so much to this short form film. I love you Dad.

Quality Time

On 1st July 2018 my employer, CA Technologies issued an enhanced parental leave policy. Any potential male parent would be eligible for 12 weeks leave for the birth of a child, to be taken any time in the first year. This was outstanding news! I shared with my wife when I returned home from work that evening but she did not believe me until reading an article on recruitment portal Monster. The original plan had been to take the mandatory two weeks and add a week holiday afterwards to give me a total of three weeks and perhaps take another week holiday after returning to work. Our plans changed, I informed my managers and HR of my decision to make the most of this generous new policy. Little did I know I would be one of only a handful of employees to benefit.

A mere ten days later, as I was scrolling through my LinkedIn feed over breakfast news had broken overnight. Broadcom was to acquire CA Technologies in a deal reportedly worth $19 billion. There may be a slight change to our plans. I went into work that day wondering what the future would hold. We had happened to have a hospital appointment the day before so I had not been in the office to learn anything from the rumour mill on this big tech deal. It was almost a year to the day when there had been a rumour in the market place that we were to be acquired by BMC. This time around it was happening - the company I worked for had been sold to a global semiconductor business.

Originally I was going to defer my leave until January but with these change of circumstances, I had to take the leave as soon as possible having been advised by Broadcom HR that in January the change in the new employment contract would mean only two weeks statutory leave would be available. While perhaps my hand was forced, I got to enjoy the first twelve weeks with my son Logan and that is something you cannot put a price on. I am probably only two or three guys in the office able to make the most of this policy change. The policy did not even last a full calendar year being disbanded on 31st May 2019. Other firms offer generous paternity leave, such as Microsoft with six weeks but some firms even offer unlimited leave (with a small portion unpaid) but it is refreshing to see the role of fatherhood being taken so seriously in the workplace. Long may this trend continue.

My Career Trajectory

This blog post is inspired from the first episode of the US smash sci-fi hit, Heroes Series 4 - Orientation. Claire Bennett's (AKA the Cheerleader) room mate at college has plotted her own career trajectory and placed this on a board above her bed. I paid little attention to it at the time, things may not have been great at work but I was coping and getting on with it.

Several months later, I realised the significance of that TV moment and went back to watch that segment of the show again.

The topic came up again, in a one to one with my manager, just over eight years later. As you have guessed I tend to have several blog posts drafted and abandoned from years ago and I always like to go back and think if perhaps this is the right time to revisit past topics. All our career choices are leaps of faith. Beit, decisions made with a great amount of thought, research and gut feeling. Sometimes things work out, other times they do not but you have to be honest with yourself and learn from the lessons of the past. In my case, you can go from regretting a decision and looking for opportunities externally. Only to find yourself a mere ten months later moving to a different team a different management and becoming the happiest I have ever been in a workplace. Is it not strange how things work out?

All our opportunities are half chance, but then so are everybody else's. Thanks to Spotify, I have been listening to Hush again by rapper and Lip Sync Battle host LL Cool J. There are some amazing lyrics in this song.

Certain doors that we go in The people we meet The hands that we shake

To complete the circle, the video features a young Dania Ramirez and she went on to star a mere year later in the Heroes franchise. (For younger readers, the "Game of Thrones" from the early 2000s.) Your career will never be a series of happy accidents, you have to plan to be successful. I totally agree with this but it is actually getting more involved outside of my day job that has seen my career accelerate. I cannot state a single event which meant everything started to head in the right direction. A previous mentor mentioned that environment is key. Does Andrew have the conditions where he can succeed? Of course, but my success is defined not by the people around me, the company overall but decisions made many many years ago.

When I was contracting at Microsoft, in my previous position, I would speak to one of my close colleagues and agree that the dream was to work in the same town I lived (Slough at the time) but the sentiment was always there. Location, location, location. When you are younger, the four-hour daily commute seems a minor inconvenience. You only appreciate the travel distance of a mere 15 miles with the maturity of how valuable time is. However, even with my current employer, I get the best of both worlds. We have a City office and I can work there whenever there is a need. In fact, the next scheduled visit is next Tuesday.

Corporate Team Building

My Dad would always say "Take part son, get involved! Never just sit on the sidelines." Sound advice, which as usual I wish I had appreciated more in my younger days. It would have led to different choices, perhaps different hobbies and a different circle of friends. Who knows?

While never a fanboy of any of my employers (past or present) I would consider myself proud to have worked for Bayer Healthcare, Intel and Microsoft. All well known household names. However when you start to work for an Enterprise Software Company that very few people out of the tech industry have heard of, you know you have work to do to explain to anybody who you work for before you even get to the point of explaining what you do for a living.

Trying my best to not do our Marketing department a disservice, the sponsorship of Trek-Segafredo professional cycling team last year stems from our Canadian CEO, Mike Gregoire being a diehard cycling fan. Apart from a generous employee discount, very little internal events or propaganda had taken place until the end of last year. Being in Operations does mean we are party to certain information early. Being on friendly terms with VP of EMEA Sales Ops and Liverpool fan does have it's advantages. We knew this was coming, because they had setup an experience for customers and partners at CA World, in Las Vegas in mid November. The reason for such early notice, we were informing the EMEA Marketing VP that we had a potential champion walking among us mere mortals. The benchmark for pressure I set against Jessica Enis-Hill, the poster girl for London 2012, holding the hopes of a united nation, going into not one but seven events over two days to win Gold and cement her place in Olympic history. While not quite the eyes of millions, but the burden of several hundred co-workers based in the UK office, Nathan got the reassuring "you got this" nod from our UKI & SA SVP Milko while we listened to Ivan Basso open up the event. Ladies and gentleman, that is pressure. Proud to say our colleague and friend did us all proud. Winning both Sprint & Champion Climb to book his place in the finals at the FY18 kick off in Barcelona.

To be frank, I am not a cyclist or a fan of pro cycling but I have the utmost respect for these athletes. These men (and women) putting everything on the line for their sport. Just watching some of the road racing in Rio over the summer proves how competitive the sport is and how it can come down to the narrowest of margins. While I reminisce of the early 1990s and riding around my estate in Wycombe proudly on my Raleigh Grifter. Let me share with you a few photographs from the Trek-Segafredo Experience day at my office including The Smiling Assassin, Ivan Basso set the bench mark for the Champion Climb and Sprint.

Some Days

I just go into work and everything comes together seamlessly.

By-Passing The Corporate Firewall

For almost two of the past three years, the Savage Chickens website was blocked by my corporate firewall. Categorised under "Adult Humour", even the embedded images in the e-mail I receive each working week day were disabled. However to by-pass this, you would just go and view the latest cartoon over on Tumblr. Doug Savage will be pleased to discover that changes to the corporate infrastructure now means I am able to visit his blog without issue and receive his e-mails with bright yellow Post-It Note image.

The cartoon are always brilliant but the work based ones in particular I can fully relate to. Sometimes I could just post Doug's images, as they reflect moments at my workplace (or work history).

This blog post is dedicated to Canadian and all round good guy Doug Savage. His daily cartoons get me though the working week. Sometimes I do not get the humour, perhaps lost in translation from North America over the Pond to the UK but his book is still one of my favourite items. I keep it at work, as a daily reminder not to take work too seriously, even if it does take up a big chunk of our waking hours.

Direct From The Top

There is a prize I have been lucky enough to gain at my previous two employers and hope to continue to repeat for the rest of my career. Rather superficial I agree, but the coveted e-mail from the CEO. Now I do not mean an e-mail that has been drafted by an Executive Assistant or Communications department but one typed by the fair hand of the man or woman at the top of the organisation. In both cases, they were received after I had left the employment of the company, so some of you out there may take dispute with my claims but I care little. I can only make these revelations now as both men have long since retired from their positions as the head of two multinational blue chip companies.

Of course, the CEO of any company would not be e-mailing me or even an ex-colleague directly. They would be following the chain of command. In the case of Microsoft, this was from CEO (Steve) to CFO (Kevin) and then down to Global Commission Director before moving across to the EMEA Director and getting to my boss (Operations Director) into my mailbox with some kind of urgent action attached.

When you work for the biggest microchip manufacturer on the planet with over eighty percent market share you are going to get law suits and you are going to get complaints. People will just complain directly to the CEO when their brand new gaming work station is failing due to the motherboard and processor. The man at the top believes it could potentially be a scam but passes the mail down to his directs, once it gets to the Global Support Manager it then quickly gets forwarded to the Support Centre Manager. A ticket is raised and followed up with the highest priority possible.

With websites such as CEO Mail it has never been easier to get your message to the man or woman at the top of an organisation. Plus with the advent of social media, people tend to vent on Twitter, hoping somebody somewhere will resolve their problem. This works sometimes but not always.