At work, when developing WordPress sites we share the same database and media files between all developers as well as with staging. This means, that every time someone uploads a new image to the WordPress media library, the image needs to be transferred to other developers as well.

In the Finnish coding related Slack community, Koodiklinikka, was a good discussion about work boreout.

That discussion got me thinking, and I almost said that I’ve never suffered such a thing. In fact, it has happened once. So I thought, why not share few tips on how I battled it then and how I battle it today.

I feel like this year has again started with many posts about how people are switching jobs. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure it has been the right move and I’m really happy for them. Nevertheless, it has caused a little bugging feeling inside me.

When people share about their new jobs, they are justifiably always excited. The little bugging feeling is, that I think those posts do need a counterbalance. In the form of posts telling how great people’s current job still is. Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into thinking that you should find a new job just because “everyone is changing jobs, should also I?”.

Here at Dude, we use the same database for the site’s all development and staging environments. With this neat arrangement, we always have the latest content shared between our developers, which is crucial as the team might be working on the same project at the same time. No need for database migrations or moving dump files. Backend developer can just tell to frontend developer that the new page is there and needs styling.

Earlier today I needed to get posts across the entire WordPress Network installation into ACF post object field. To my surprise, this isn’t possible with ACF itself and few plugin implementations found from Github were abandoned or didn’t fit fully to my needs.

So what developer does in this kind of situation? Writes a plugin that adds a new field type.

During the last six months, I’ve been thinking more and more how grateful I am for being able to contribute to the WordPress project. It has taught me so much on so many levels. Helping event organizers allows me to go (virtually) around the world and learn from different cultures. I get to work with amazing and super talented persons. New friendships and connections have been established. I’ve been trusted to take care of complex things and resolve those on my own.

It always gives a long-lasting good feeling, when you see someone you helped to make a blast out of their event or success in their contribution. But the utmost valuable thing has been endless warmth and respect for each other. Even if we wouldn’t always agree, everyone’s opinion is heard and taken into consideration. We work together towards the same goal.

Without my involvement in the project and without the discussion with thoughtful individuals, I wouldn’t be the person I’m today. WordPress project has given me the feeling of being part of something bigger and far more important than I’ve felt ever before, although I have been involved in too many soups to this age.