Meeting with Local WordPress Fanatics

Before I begin, first and foremost, I would like to apologize to everyone for such a very long (almost a week!) server downtime. The downtime greatly affected all of my sites, as well as a few site projects that I currently maintain for my friends and such. I had been suffering a major withdrawal syndrome from all the hard work I’ve created, only to go down so easily and then wait until it goes back up again. Anyway, I’m currently going through some remedies on how to prevent something like this again, but it will take time.

Last Sunday (March 19), I continue on with my tech meetup adventures when I began attending my first specific meetup with the East Bay WordPress Enthusiasts meetup group. I’ve joined the meetup group last year via Meetup, but did not attend any of their gatherings until this date. Like the GDI Oakland meetup last month, the East Bay WP group meetups are also located in Oakland. The meeting began with some delicious pizza from one of Oakland’s local pizzerias, and when the actual presentations began, one of the members presented as a demo of a good practice in freelancing and managing proposals with a client. The group doesn’t just focus solely on WordPress development, but also with the business aspects that involve WordPress.

The topic for that day’s meetup was common mistakes and remedies that many freelancers make in general. The group was small, with a somewhat equal number of males and females, however, I felt a little overwhelmed that I was the only one who isn’t in the WordPress-related business, whether I’m working for a business or a freelancer. Still, just hearing the members’ stories about the mistakes they have made are still valuable to me as someone trying to get into a WordPress-related business. A lot of them involved dealing with clients, especially the ones that we sometimes would call the toxic ones. The toxic ones are the ones that you truly want to avoid. If you spot a toxic one among your clientele, the best thing you should do is to cut ties for good. The money and time to spend for the toxic ones just aren’t worth it.

The group meets once a month on Sundays with special topics involving WordPress or the business around it. However, they also meet weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays to provide help, mentorship, and support for their fellow developers with their work. Unfortunately, the times are early afternoons, and I work during those times. Now, if it were Mondays, that would be perfect for me. ¹ I’m looking forward to their next meetup session in April, and that upcoming topic will hopefully be more hands-on.

I’m still looking through the Meetup website for more groups to join, but at the same time, I made a mistake all this time. I’ve written all about it in detail on my personal blog, but let this be a lesson to everyone who are going through self-learning and just anything else in general: Never overestimate yourself because you can only do so much with the very little time you have. Always prioritize with the most important goals. If you have a family of your own, always focus on your family first.

It’s a quick write-up, but I’m heading out soon to go to work. Until next time!