Originally published on Butterfly Mind, September 2015.
A little over a year ago, I submitted work for a writing gig that I was sure I was a great fit for. I was deep into my writing habit, and I knew the work I submitted was good. When I never heard back — a fate even worse than outright rejection because it feels like they don’t even care — I was heartbroken. I had had pieces of work rejected before, but this rejection stung. It stung because I knew the platform, I knew the subject, I thought I was a part of the tribe. It stung because I realized I wasn’t part of the tribe: I was chasing people who didn’t want me. I felt like a girl with a crush, and the object of my crush didn’t even know I existed.
And then came Automattic.
And I realized who my true tribe are.
Automattic is the company that makes WordPress.com, the blogging platform I use for my Butterfly Mind and Andrea Reads America blogs: the blogging platform that enabled me to dig deep into my writing habit. WordPress.com is the blogging community that helped me keep writing, keep improving, and keep publishing without a gatekeeper, without giving control of my work to someone else who could potentially reject it even when I know it’s good.
Automattic is a company dedicated to the mission of democratizing publishing. That’s a mission I can 100% get behind.
One year ago today, I joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer, and was welcomed into the fold with open arms and a genuine feeling that I am trusted, I am wanted, and I am where I belong.
My job is to help others realize their publishing dreams. As a Happiness Engineer, I have the honor of helping writers, photographers, small business owners, poets, graphic artists, and other creatives get their work into the world without anyone else’s approval, without fear of the big fat REJECTION stamp that someone else wields.
How have I done that? One of the things I love about my job is how nerdy we all are. Which means we have stats. I’ve been waiting for this day so I can peek at my support stats and see what I’ve done this year:
Support emails with WordPress.com users: 2232
Live chats with WordPress.com users: 3738
Number of Blogging University courses I helped with: 5
Number of bugs reported: 35+
What about that writing dream?
Number of internal blog posts written: 430
Number of comments written on internal blogs: 1299
Number of Daily Post articles I authored or contributed to: 7+
And this is my very favorite:
Number of words posted on internal blogs at Automattic: 126,010.
That’s longer than a standard novel*, y’all. And that doesn’t include my personal blog posts here on Butterfly Mind or at Andrea Reads America. I seem to be writing more now than I wrote as a writer.
Thank you Automattic, for an amazing first year, for welcoming me, for trusting me, and for providing a place of purpose to work.
*For reference: 126,000 words is almost double the length of The Color Purple by Alice Walker or The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
Does this sound awesome to you? Join us. We’re hiring.
Andrea Badgley 