For pure Shits and Giggles™ I put up a form yesterday asking people where I should try to work now that I left Mozilla. By no means I have approached all the companies I listed (hence an “other” option). I just wanted to see what people see me as and where I could do some good work. Of course, some of the answers disagreed and made a lot of assumptions:

Your ego knows no bounds. Putting companies that have already turned you down is very special behavior.

This is utterly true. I applied at Yahoo in 1997 and didn’t get the job. I then worked at Yahoo for almost five years a few years later. I should not have done that. Companies don’t change and once you have a certain skillset there is no way you could ever learn something different that might make yourself appealing to others. Know your place, and all that.

Sarcasm aside, I am always amazed how lucky we are to have choices in our market. There is not a single day I am not both baffled and very, very thankful for being able to do what I like and make a living with it. I feel like a fraud many a time, and I know many other people who seemingly have a “big ego” doing the same. The trick is to not let that stop you but understand that it makes you a better person, colleague and employee. We should strive to get better all the time, and this means reaching beyond what you think you can achieve.

I’m especially flattered that people thought I had already been contacted by all the companies I listed and asked for people to pick for me. I love working in the open, but that’s a bit too open, even for my taste. I am not that lucky – I don’t think anybody is.

The answers were pretty funny, and of course skewed as I gave a few options rather than leaving it completely open. The final “wish of the people list” is:

• W3C (108 votes)
• Canonical (39 votes)
• Microsoft (38 votes)
• Google (37 votes)
• Facebook (14 votes)
• Twitter (9 votes)
• Mozilla (7 votes)
• PubNub (26 votes)

Pubnub’s entries were having exceedingly more exclamation points the more got submitted – I don’t know what happened there.

Other options with multiple votes were Apple, Adobe, CozyCloud, EFF, Futurice, Khan Academy, Opera, Spotify (I know who did that!) and the very charming “Retirement”.

Options labeled “fascinating” were:

• A Circus
• Burger King (that might still be a problem as I used to work on McDonalds.co.uk – might be a conflict of interest)
• BangBros (no idea what that might be – a Nintendo Game?)
• Catholic Church
• Derick[SIC] Zoolander’s School for kids who can’t read good
• Kevin Smith’s Movie
• “Pizza chef at my local restaurant” (I was Pizza delivery guy for a while, might be possible to level up)
• Playboy (they did publish Fahrenheit 451, let’s not forget that)
• Taco Bell (this would have to be remote, or a hell of a commute)
• The Avengers (I could be persuaded, but it probably will be an advisory role, Tony Stark style)
• UKIP (erm, no, thanks)
• Zombocom and
• Starbucks barista. (this would mean I couldn’t go to Sweden any longer – they really like their coffee and Starbucks is seen as the Antichrist by many)

Some of the answers were giving me super powers I don’t have but show that people would love to have people like me talk to others outside the bubble more:

• “NASA” (I really, really think I have nothing they need)
• “A book publisher (they need help to move into the 21st century)”
• “Data.gov or another country’s open data platform.” (did work with that, might re-visit it)
• “GCHQ; Be the bridge between our worlds”
• “Spanish Government – Podemos CTO” (they might realise I am not Spanish)
• “any bank for a11y online banking :-/”

Some answers showed a need to vent:

• “Anything but Google or Facebook for God sake!”
• “OK, and option 2: perhaps Twitter? You might improve their horrible JS code in the website! ;)”

The most confusing answers were “My butthole” which sounds cramped and not a creative working environment and “Who are you?” which begs the answer “Why did you fill this form?”.

Many of the answers showed a lot of trust in me and made me feel all warm and fuzzy and I want to thank whoever gave those:

• be CTO of awesome startup
• Enjoy life Chris!
• Start something of your own. You rock too hard, anyway!
• you were doing just fine. choose the one where your presence can be heard the loudest. cheers!
• you’ve left Mozilla for something else, so you are jobless for a week or so! :-)
• Yourself then hire me and let me tap your Dev knowledge :D

I have a new job, I am starting on Monday and I will announce in probably too much detail here on Thursday. Thanks for everyone who took part in this little exercise. I have an idea what I need to do in my new job, and these ideas listed and the results showed me that I am on the right track.

http://christianheilmann.com/2015/01/27/where-would-people-like-to-see-me-some-interesting-answers/