Notices by studio craque 54 🏳️‍🌈 (dtauvdiodr@c.im)

@inthehands Have you ever read an Edward Tufte takedown of PowerPoint? It's marvelous.

Today I got to speak for two minutes in our engineering org all-hands, over 500 people in attendance, about the improvements that I drive in SRE around resilience and incidents.

Size doesn't bother me, none of this production gives me anxiety... except figuring out what to do in the span of four days. Plus I have only been here just over two months.

The message I wanted to give was clear: here's three big questions you want to know about incidents and how we are helping you answer them, training is coming, join our slack to learn more. I also want to build relationships across teams and bring creativity and discovery to our collaboration.

A coworker of mine called it cinematic. That made me chuckle. I felt like me. Being able to bring my full self to that tiny rocketship of a presentation in front of our global team was exciting and exactly where I love being.

#SRE #Advocate #resilience

@adrianco It feels really good to be with people who care about each other!

Felt very overwhelmed today at work trying to answer to the force of the org to use AI heavily.

I know part of it is that it's new and every fucking person out there is flailing with it. But trying to onboard at the new job while everyone is ALSO telling me how I should be using AI just gets too much.

This is why I don't participate in pop culture. It's too much and it's slappy, makes me want to hide away from all this nonsense.

Anxious because I need to have the hearing disability talk with my boss and I don't know how to do it where I don't sound like I'm complaining. I just don't really know how to breach this that doesn't sound like I am making my hearing difficulties become his problem.

Something he does is mumble as he speaks, and CC will have a hard time, and I'll miss whole sentences and a lot of words. He also called me "Mr Matt" (which I can't stand) but the CC completely got it wrong and showed something like "Mr Metz" and I had no clue it was me, so it took me an extra few seconds to register, in which time he got frustrated that I didn't answer fast enough and moved on to the next person, so I had to interrupt him.

I guess I just need to give him a reminder. If he doesn't know I'm having trouble, it will never get fixed, but my CPTSD and wanting to be liked and fawning when I feel like I'm being a nuisance is getting in the way.

#CPTSD

Finally got a decent sleep after three days of cramping pain and fever. It took a while for whatever affected me to move all the way through.

My body really doesn't like intense spices. I had this problem with certain hops before I stopped drinking, major irritation to the point of injury.

Indian spices are now on the no-fly-list, too. I guess I'm either getting old or getting more Welsh.

Conference over. My talk was a success.

But it pays nothing. Nobody is banging on my front door with jobs because I gave a talk at a big conference.

I desperately need a job, coming up on 9 months unemployed.

I am looking for Incidents, SRE, or Platform work. I have been judged as overqualified for Senior roles, so my focus is Staff+ and such.

My LI profile is as good as anything for understanding my work history, so here it is:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcookedavis/

#FediHire #SRE #PlatformEng #DevEx

I got a job!!!!!!!!

Sr SRE on the team at NinjaOne, so excited!!!!

Starting in April, so taking the next two weeks to unwind from nine indescribable months. Then it will finally be time to start the next chapter.

#SRE

My mother died.
It was unexpected.
Last week I became
engulfed in the flames
of her technicalities.

A coming out ago, I grieved
for a mother lost, who remained
only to push people away.
She spoke of things steadfastly
like they weren't happening to her,
codependent and self-fulfilled,
blind consumer in a fantasy
built so she could use it all up,
like she did so many times
leaving nothing with depth,
just mock surprises, fictions
and false stories.

Stripped of my titles;
So Talented, So Gifted, So Smart;
my wisdom fades to fail judgement,
each moment a technicality
that feels swollen
and unexpected.

Jobless and moneyless my feet
swing out from under me,
her ex-jeweled hand reaching
to try and pull me to her slumber,
the object of her selfishness:
no longer her mirror
she finally watches me fall
alongside her heart,
not in it.

#poetry

TIL the late (RIP) founder of Texas Roadhouse, Wayne Kent Taylor, gave his entire compensation package to frontline workers during COVID and was a major supporter of tinnitus research.

The business continues his tradition of care. Nice thing to see while shitty CEOs and their shitty orgs fill the news.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Kent_Taylor

https://www.ata.org/taw2026

#TinnitusAwarenessWeek #TAW

current status

#modularsynth

It's time to throw the line out again.

I have been working in SRE for 13 years. I am a specialist in Observability, Incident Management, and DevEx. I have also managed teams and been certified in observability, agile, and unix operating systems.

In June of 2025, I was suddenly laid off. I'm still jobless in my seventh month of trying to find work.

I'll be completely honest, I don't know why I can't find a role, I'm either over- or under-qualified, I either give too much detail or not enough, I don't tell it like a story or I tell it too much like it's a story.

The people I used to work with have been shocked when I tell them I can't find work. One of them even said:

"you have such a great mix of talents that I wish more engineers had, and I still cite you as an example of the type of people I want to work with"

If you know of any leads in the SRE, DevEx, DevOps, InfoSec, or anything of the sort, I'm still searching as hard as I can.

Remote, I'm in Southern California.

My profile on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcookedavis

For direct help, please buy my music:

https://craque.bandcamp.com

#sre #FediHire

Auld Lang Syne on the theremin on Groove Salad right now @somafm

this happened. is happening. they take forever to cool.

Are bicycle chain chokers too hip for a 50 year old?

(I probably wore this once to a rave 20 years ago)

@evan The forked tail / legs thing really makes this unsettling and not mermaid.

I didn't quite see the AI bubble until I really started to look at the prevalence of startups.

It looks so familiar, yet another gold rush after a new tech, but holy moly are the stakes high.

The thing that bothers me the most is the centralization of power. One big rug ready to be pulled out from under everyone. Teetering on collapse, the system is growing more chaotic as it reaches the edges.

dump corporate social media and delete the apps from your phone.

@ai6yr Federated my ass

Didn't think this would be evergreen:

"We knew we had steered the Internet in the wrong direction when a tech giant bought Time Warner."