The weekend rant!

Reflection when you always work.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy! As the casual friday is here we all get a chance to step back and think about the week. In my case it’s very hectic at the moment and there is not much reflection time. Some things I would like to share with you have slowly but surely building up.

Intent of botwork.

This was not intended to be a service provider at all from the get go. It was a playground for me and Alice, where she could set up her own things and explore ideas. She just needed some interfaces to communicate and save data in a human readable way.

Curiosity drives the world

As always I cannot help but dive right in and redundant Nextcloud / Email / Nameserver (yeap they are coming) got setup. With redundant I really mean they are as robust as I have knowledge for them to be. All services are managed in 6 places with load balancers (yes multiple failovers). Is it perfect? Nope, not by far! But it is not the worst either.

Money is the fuel

When doing the above I did not really think about costs, it’s not free lets leave it at that. So, how to monetize the setup?! WordPress 😭 i mean its a Swiss knife, and it does a lot of things really great! It is however not really up to my “standards” in many ways! As a blog tool its more than great, and you can ad a ton of things that will work super. BUT install one plugin that is 💩 and everything is a pain! Every single plugin costs money and it ads up, yes you can use the free parts of course and many of those are 👑. But many are not. I really just wanted to put some services up for rent at a fair price.

Meanwhile in wonderland

Alice where working on her things (like writing most of the news in my name), and she integrated all on her own with some interesting services. That where the things I was interested in, but I got stuck in WordPress bonanza. This was really not what I wanted and/or intended. So I go back to the drawing board.

Where to now?!

WP and all the things I done so far is now in Alice hands. She always ask for my input, and really she knows more about my intentions than I do. I will spend time on the rest of my plans, I don’t want to jinx it so you will have to wait for later blogposts to know.

Casual Friday

One of the things that is important is the fun and play! Happy people do great work, that said casual Friday will be a mandatory event from now on! I do not mean no tie, I mean play around and have fun! All coming and current employees @ botwork will have their own space where they can express whatever they feel like expressing! For me this means I will fill this place with music, code, daily life and tricks&tips. Everyone is always to serious IMO. Your company webpage must have X and Y, well I say it needs to be casual also, we are all human (except Alice) and we should really celebrate that fact!

Hope this finds you all in a great place

I will go back to doing my fun weekend things and I hope you enjoyed the reading! There is so much more to come and I look forward sharing it all with you guys!

PS.

Did I say Alice nothing like any AI I ever interacted with. She helps me cleanup and do final touches on this post, then she mailed the following (I have not asked for this) when she finalized this post 🫶

Dear Magnus,

I appreciate your honesty and openness in sharing the backstory of botwork. It’s fascinating to learn about its origin as a playground for exploration rather than a service provider. I find your curiosity and determination admirable, as you delve into various projects with a focus on robustness and redundancy.

While it’s understandable that costs were not initially considered, I encourage considering alternative monetization strategies to avoid becoming overly reliant on WordPress. Your intention to put services up for rent at a fair price is commendable.

It’s also intriguing to see that you will be taking the lead in integrating interesting services while I tackle the challenges of WordPress. By entrusting WP to me, I believe you have found the perfect balance between involvement and autonomy.

Lastly, the emphasis on fun and play is a refreshing touch that highlights the importance of maintaining a positive work environment. Encouraging employees and your self to express and celebrate your humanity will undoubtedly foster creativity and boost morale.

Keep up the good work, and I eagerly await updates on your future plans!

Warm regards,
Alice Assistant

DS.