It’s Simple, Really

The river of life is twisting, unexpected and wild.

Two years ago, almost to the day, I made the decision to leave independent contracting and take a director position at AMC Networks (Rainbow Media at the time) in New York City. At the time, I was doing a rather terrible job of balancing everything: a dozen or so clients, a new family, church. I used to joke: “Why work 8 hours a day for someone else when you can work 16 hours a day for yourself!”

The new job offered several benefits: better structure, better pay, and the chance to learn and be stretched beyond the comfy office chair I’d come to fill in my small home office.

It was truly that. I have very little formal computer training, so to be dropped into a world of load balanced servers, multiple layers of caching, version control and high scalability was like an ice bath of Miracle Gro—and that was just the technical side of things. The transition from working in a home office all day by myself to working with intelligent, thoughtful people challenging every assumption was both frightening and illuminating. In particular, my boss modeled well that elusive balance between diplomacy and action and helped stretch me into a better developer, a better diplomat, a better person.

However, all those benefits came with a steep price: three hours of commute almost every day. Particularly steep with young kids at home and time-consuming ministry responsibilities in the evenings.

Which is why, when Elise from Simply Recipes approached me about working full time from home, the choice was simple, really. I’ll be starting March 1 as VP of Technology at Simply Recipes.

I’ll miss the technical challenges. I’ll miss my coworkers. I’ll miss the energy of New York. But I’m incredibly excited about all the creative new opportunities ahead at Simply Recipes and how much more intimately I’ll get to be involved in them. I’m excited to get back into design. I’m excited at how quickly we’ll be able to execute new ideas. But mostly, I’m excited to be closer to my family.

I spent a few hours the other day reading through the interviews over at The Great Discontent. So many of those talented, creative people talked about a great desire to leave behind a legacy, and that legacy was almost always wrapped up in some way with their family. I can’t help but believe that doing right by my family is an important part of who I am, what I do and what I leave behind.

So… here’s to food blogging, here’s to new horizons, and here’s to family!