Episode 46: Ebonie Butler

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Introducing Ebonie Butler

Ebonie Butler has her BS degree in information technology from Drexel University. And in 2015, she became interested in WordPress as a platform to start blogging about metal music. She recently started her first developer position with YIKES, Inc. as a WordPress developer.

Show Notes

Website | Ebonie.me
Podcast website | http://metalandcoffee.com/
Twitter | @metalandcoffee_

Episode Transcript

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 46.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Ebonie Butler. Ebonie has her BS degree in information technology from Drexel University. And in 2015, she became interested in WordPress as a platform to start blogging about metal music. In late 2016, she participated in the interactive mechanics fellowship program, focusing on creating a custom WordPress theme as her final project. At the conclusion of the fellowship, Ebonie started her first developer position with YIKES, inc as a WordPress developer. Hi, Ebonie. Welcome.

Ebonie: Hi.

Liam: Hi, Ebonie. Thanks for joining us on the show. Can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself? More than what Tara just shared?

Ebonie: Sure. I’m a 30-something and I feel like mentioning my age as a new person in tech is like– people don’t think that you can get started in tech later in your career but I’m only a developer and I just turned 30 so it’s never too late. Yeah, I’m a 30-something WordPress developer and I’ve been a developer professionally, full time for about nine months. And I transitioned from being a tester in a big company but it wasn’t fulfilling at all. I finally took the leap and took the challenge to become something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do, something I wouldn’t think I’d be able to become. But with high work I definitely made it there, obviously. But yeah, I think that’s a little bit more about myself.

Tara: Have you always been interested in technology and is that thing that you’ve been passionate about? What kind of sparked that for you to pursuit that?

Ebonie: Well, I grew up in a very tech family. My dad has his degree in computer science and he always exposed us to a computer. From early age, probably around six, I had my own computer which is a good and bad thing. Because with my generation, I definitely grew up in the height of chat rooms and talking online and all that stuff. I think actually that definitely played a huge part in what I’ve become today, just having access to that information right from the getgo and having a computer at that age. I was being able to learn how to reinstall my OS when I screwed up the viruses or malware. Because my dad wasn’t going to do it for the 10th time, he’s got tired so I had to learn how to do that. That ended up just being something I do yearly, not knowing what the skills I had. I know a lot about system admin stuff just from being forced to do it myself when I was growing up starting from when I was six. It was good, I definitely had a lot of fun, had my own computer, but I definitely feel like that contributed to my introvertism, too Because I had a lot of online friends. I still do have a lot of online friends friends. [laughs]

Tara: That’s really neat that your dad kind of did it for you a bunch of times but then let you take over and build up your comfort level with digging into things that people aren’t comfortable with. Did you also break apart the computer and look at what was inside of it or were you doing code type of stuff mostly?

Ebonie: It was mostly building computers. I did have an opportunity to build my own computer as well. Just because of the nature of my dad’s work, he always had computers and data racks in the basement. If he was working on something, I’d be nosy and look and see and learn what a hard drive looks like and what CD-Rom looks like, people were still using that. I installed my own CD-Rom drive on my tower one time because I just wanted it to play video games. But yeah, looking back, I definitely had exposure to a lot of tech when I was younger, not knowing that it was very beneficial.

Tara: Right, right. And now you’re using it to make your living. It sounds like you dove into studying it formally which a lot of people that we talk to on this show are self-taught, so I know you expressed that you’re getting into it late. From my perspective, it seems like you’re getting into it not that late. But the fact that you actually pursuit it formally, to me, I’m envious of that because I think that we talk about imposter syndrome a lot. And I think a lot of imposter syndrome comes from the fact that so many of us are self-taught. At least speaking personally, but I think it applies to a lot of people. When you’re self-taught, you kind of assume that you don’t know a lot of things because you never actually taught it in a formal way. Can you talk a little bit about your formal education and how that’s helped you as a developer?

Ebonie: Well, I still think I have imposter syndrome myself even though I do have a formal education. Like you mentioned, I have my bachelors and science degree in information technology. I originally started out in college going after my degree in computer science because I kind of just knew I wanted to do that because my family, my dad– I knew I was smart enough to do that. But I had experience in college where one of my classes, I forget which particular class. Something to do with binary trees and recursion, basically a lot of the fundamentals of programming and learning different programming algorithms and ways of creating functions and all other stuff. I was having a difficult team class and that was like the second year of my computer science degree, soI made it through the first year, thankfully. Having difficulty, didn’t really understand a lot of it and being a perfectionist, I put a lot of pressure on myself. Like, why can’t I understand this? Something wrong with me. I was going to turn west and actually step out of my comfort zone and meet with the TA, the teaching assistant of the class, to try to get help. Fortunately, that experience kind of led me to change my majors because he kind of ended up– near the end of the session, he ended up basically telling me the major was not for me. Also, probably being one of the few black women in the major, you kind of– and he was a white male so he wasn’t really being too– looking back, he wasn’t actually teaching me or trying to teach me. He was making an assumption that there was no way I could understand what the mediocre effort he put into teaching me and I still not understanding, but he included that I was not good enough to be in that major. Of course, that’s always upsetting. I didn’t know the guy but when you’re in college and you’re interacting with teachers or teaching assistants, you put them on a pedestal, you think they know everything. I took that to heart and ended up changing the major. [laughs] To be honest, information technology was super easy, I barely studied. [laughs] I do always say I took the easy way out, but that experience definitely took a toll on me because I ended up not– the first six years of my career, I wasn’t a developer like I thought I would be. I thought I was not good enough to be a developer because what he said to me in college.

Tara: Do you ever think back to that time and think about, now, knowing what you know now, if you had that teacher now and he did that, how you would reach differently? I guess in the current climate that we are, times change, too.

Ebonie: Yeah, I would definitely have reported him. My mom, when she was alive, did yell at him, so I’m happy about that. [laughter]. But in the times that we have, looking back to that, I would just really– it’s never worth really trying to encounter that kind of bias and try to speak logically to person who thinks like that. Especially, if you are the person who’s being oppressed and you’re trying to speak rationally with someone who’s oppressing you. By default, everything you say is going to go in through one ear and out the other. It wouldn’t even be worth it to encounter him but I would probably just snark at him and tell him I’m a developer now and I am better than you. [laughs] But that’s to an extent that I would probably interact with him.

Tara: Yeah, that’s a really good story when you think about how times change but also how your mindset changes. When you’re young, too, it’s harder to stand up for yourself, I think, too. It’s great that you moved past that and that you are a developer now. Tell us a little bit about that and where WordPress comes into this story?

Ebonie: I’ve been reaching my five-year mark in my corporate career as a tester. Technically, they called me assistant engineer which is a very big term that can mean anything. Just not being happy and kind of seeing a lot of women developers and black women developers and being influenced by that and kind of getting the feel to be like, “Oh, they can do it. Maybe I can do it, too.” And also just encountering people on the street that’d be like, “Hey, I’m a developer. I’m just taking lead over my classes and I’m just building stuff because I want to.” Encountering a lot of that, I finally took the leap into trying to code and learn how to code. What originally tipped that off is because of my love for metal music and wanting to put myself out there as a metal personality, metal critic, metal reviewer, just because mostly, kind of funny, in tech, it’s male-dominated. Metal is very male-dominated. I took the opportunity there to actually create a blog called Metal & Coffee and that was my first adventure into WordPress and coding because I went ahead and set up my own hosting provider, did a manual installation of WordPress. Also, choose a theme, I ended up buying a theme, I didn’t code one myself yet but I just wanted to get the ball rolling. Then I made it live and that happened in 2015. So I started my blog in 2015 and yeah, I feel like that gave me a taste that I can do this because I was able to easily follow instructions on how to set up a hosting provider but also fill in the blanks of understanding because my past knowledge of tech and being in tech family, that whole process went really smooth. That was my first glimpse into WordPress connections. I ended up choosing WordPress for my website because I did research and it was easy. I could put easy content into it, and the setup was easy so I agree.

Liam: Five-minute install.

Tara: Five-minute install. Jinx.

Ebonie: Yeah, let’s say 10 minutes.

Liam: Yeah, and then some, right?

Ebonie: Yeah. [laughs]

Liam: Ebonie, you shared a very interesting story, particularly that college challenges that you were facing as a student compared to your TA, as a woman in tech, as an African-American woman in tech. You’ve overcome all of that and you had a corporate job that, my words, not yours, you weren’t overly happy with. And you found a way out of that into a job that from what I gather, you really enjoy. With that kind of context, I wonder if you can talk about what is your definition of success and if you want to weave in a personal definition or professional. What does that all mean to you? How do you define success?

Ebonie: Success to me is being happy with your job, basically, with your profession. That’s the most, obviously, professional definition, being happy, and just yeah, I feel like that is the definition. Being happy in your profession because with my previous experiences in my previous jobs, I always felt like I was not heard at my job. Not that I was the most flamboyant person and talking all the time, I’m actually pretty shy professionally. I’m a quiet worker, I like to get stuff done but the major problem in my previous positions was that there was a lot of disorganization and I didn’t see a lot of diversity and inclusion at my previous positions. That led to having to hold in any passive-aggressive comments made towards me or any borderline racist comments towards me or sexist comments towards me. Because I knew that management weren’t going to view much for me. Dealing with those kind of things in a working environment really weighs on you because it makes you very stressed. I remember how hard it would be to get out of bed and just get ready for work and have to drive to work and just how this big dark cloud was with me the entire time. Yeah, and I didn’t even realize that was not normal, I got used to that. Basically, a toxic work environment is what that is. Dealing with a lot of the– I mean, not every workplace has this but it can seem like there’s like a high school dynamic going on where there’s like quips, and gossip, and all this is going on in the big– a lot of that goes on in bigger companies, too. But my position now, where it’s only five people, including my two awesome bosses, the big difference is that my management, my bosses are actually real, they actually reveal success, they actually care about your life. And they actually check in with you on life in general, health, fiscal health, how you’re dealing with work if you need help completing tasks. It’s not a question that they’ll help you and get the information that you need. They’ll feed you with the resources and who to talk to you if you need help with the task. I’m having really caring bosses and people who care about you and don’t look at you as a number and just a low-level employee who needs to do their job.

Liam: That sounds really healthy.

Tara: I’m really glad you explained that and went beyond the idea of being happy with your job or happy with the work that you’re doing because what you’ve described is much more than that, right? It’s not just the work that you’re doing, it’s not just your job, but it’s culture and environment in which you’re working in. It sounds like you’ve found a great fit for that and you have a lot of things to compare it to in your experience. You describe yourself in a world that’s dominated by men and by white men to be a black woman, to stand out and stand up for yourself and be in an environment where that’s embraced, it must be like you’ve described, just a great place to be. I think that happy is a general term that really hits a lot of described.

Ebonie: Yeah, exactly. Another thing I’m happy about but I define success is that when you’re excited to learn, and most of that is because you’re being enabled to learn and always stay on top various technologies, especially in the tech field. One of the instances I had at my previous job is that it was not encouraged to learn and as someone who can’t sit still, I have to do something. If there’s no work to do, I’m going to learn. That was what I was doing. And because I was doing that, going back to that workplace seeming like it was high school, I experienced a lot of jealousy and kind of being ostracized for working hard, which I kind of never understood, and this is weird. I’m not even sure if anyone can relate to that experience of being seen as weird and overachieving because you’re just trying to do the job to the best of your ability.

Tara: It does sound like high school, that really does. That’s a sad story. What would you say is something that you do every day or the most important thing that you do every day? We talked about learning as part of your definition of success. What do you every day towards that goal?

Ebonie: Well, in terms of WordPress, since I’m a full-time WordPress developer, I’m always seeing what’s being released in the upcoming core releases, such as Gutenberg. I’m learning to build my own blog. I generally do stay on top of WordPress development. My team, YIKES, that I work with, they’re always keeping us in the know and keeping us on top of what’s going on. But in terms of regular life stuff and engaging my creative side, I always listen to new music. That is always something I do absolutely do every day without question. I probably logged an insane amount of hours listening to music this year already, it’s not even half a year yet.

Tara: Do you listen while you code?

Ebonie: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I’m a very eclectic person, I don’t only listen to metal. I love dance music, it’s my favorite kind of music, actually. But yeah, I’m always listening to new albums. I’m actually someone who reads album reviews and sees what’s coming out and adds to my calendar because I’m excited and nerdy. [laughter]

Tara: Are you also a musician, or you’re just a, not just, but you’re also passionate about listening to music.

Ebonie: I play guitar, that’s just something I do to act like I can be a singer/songwriter, which I’m never going to do. [laughs] I’m mostly into reporting. I go to live shows and I actually do write album reviews as well. I’m one of the dorky people who talk about album reviews and music on YouTube. [laughs] I’m definitely IT support, I’m not a musician but I try to make my mark with supporting music and all that stuff.

Liam: Ebonie, let me change gears a little bit on us and just swing a little bit back towards WordPress, if I can, and ask about your involvement with the WordPress community and maybe share some of your thoughts around the WordPress community as it relates maybe to kind of achieving your goals and/or your successes, and kind of learning and you can talk about inclusivity and diversity over the course of the conversation. Maybe you can share some thoughts there?

Ebonie: I think the WordPress community is definitely the most accepting community I’ve been in so far. It’s like one of the few I’ve been in. But when I previously started learning to code, kind of trying to get involved with other meetups for specific coding languages, it wasn’t as easy to jump in and kind of arrive as a newbie and kind of expect to be helped. Not that you’re expecting to be helped but kind of being welcomed.

Liam: Sure.

Ebonie: When I arrived to my first WordPress meetup, it definitely felt a lot more comfortable. I didn’t feel like I was an outsider, and I was welcomed and people were asking, “Hi, how are you? Welcome.” That seems like small but it’s definitely going the long way when a community recognizes when a new person was there and brings them in and accepts them and makes them acknowledge just to make sure they’re having a good time and all that stuff. That was definitely one aspect that stood out in the WordPress community, but I feel like a lot of people, as well, which I think is awesome, are enthusiastic about WordPress. Which makes you enthusiastic when you’re talking to them. When I entered my first intro to WordPress class, early last year, and Tracy Levesque, my boss, she taught that. I remember saying in the class and we were introducing ourselves– because I had recently come to decision, after completing my interactive mechanics fellowship where I had built my first really crappy theme, but I built it. I had come to the conclusion–

Liam: Functional. [laughter]

Ebonie: I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a WordPress developer. We were going around class introducing ourselves and I just said, “Hi, I’m Ebonie. I love metal music and I want to be a WordPress developer.” And then Tracy was jumping up and down being super excited. [laughs]

Tara: Tracy is wonderful. I’m going to ask you a question about advice, and I think we already know probably what the worst advice you ever were given, which was to tell you that computer science was not for you. What would you say is the best piece of advice that you’ve ever been given and that you’ve implemented in your life?

Ebonie: Best piece of advice, and this is compiled over reading multiple self-help books about meditation and yoga and all that stuff. The best piece of advice would be to encounter everything with a beginner in mind which basically means to don’t go into situations expecting you know what’s going to happen or how it’s going to go because as someone who was always pressuring herself, one of the notorious things I’ll do is I’ll create a to-do list with the items for one day, and always expect to complete it. When I think about that statement, always approaching things in beginner’s mind, that influence means to slow my line down and really think about what I’m putting on my plate and allow myself time to process things and to take breaks and not always be moving all the time. That to-do list is capped down for three things, which I’m happy with. And you end up being happy when you can actually complete your list.

Tara: Yes, I am totally onboard with that, that is great.

Liam: There’s so much packed in that, right? That massive to-do list gets into time management, it gets into the psychology of managing your own expectations and imposter syndrome and self-worth and all of that. It sounds like that beginner’s mindset, which I love, I have not heard that phrase before so thank you for sharing that, of really just slowing down, thinking about it, trying to not put the horse before the cart, get to what you can get to with– that’s really valuable, thank you.

Tara: Realistic expectations.

Ebonie: Yes. And just trying to be present in everything you do since a high paced world and we’re always trying to do three things at a time. It’s actually more beneficial to do one thing at a time and be really into that one thing because then the quality of that one thing is going to be amazing.

Tara: No one else can see this but because we’re on video with you. We started out this call seeing your adorable little dog. What role does your dog play in your development and metal music lifestyle? Tell us about your dog?

Ebonie: She plays a big role because she is someone who will be proud of me whenever whatever happens. Right, Cookie? [laughs] She’s just a very warming animal when I think about it. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird when you think about it because I’ve never been asked that question so I haven’t thought of it in that aspect. But coming home to see her and being excited after I’m coding all day to chill with my dog because he’s a really big cuddler, as you can see. He would like to be in that position the entire time. He warms my heart for sure.

Tara: A few guests have mentioned their close relationship with their dog and I’m actually out of town working remotely and brought my dog with me this time and I am so grateful for my dog this week. So shout out to dogs and pets that support us in our quest for–

Liam: Dogs everywhere, dogs everywhere.

Tara: Yeah. And laughter, too, sometimes, but yeah. Ebonie, we are out of time, unfortunately, but I’m sure your dog will be glad to have your full attention in a few minutes. Can you tell us where people can find you online?

Ebonie: Sure. I’m very active on Twitter and my Twitter handle is @metalandcoffee_ , and I have my really bare bones portfolio site called Ebonie.me. And yes, those are two places you can find me.

Liam: That is awesome. Ebonie, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a real pleasure spending time with you, chatting with you and getting to know you. Thanks for joining us.

Ebonie: Thank you for having me.

Tara: Thanks, Ebonie. Take care. Talk to you soon.

Liam: Bye-bye.

Tara: Bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.