Charlotte

Over the eleven-year (and counting) lifespan of Clearleft, people have come and gone—great people like Nat, Andy, Paul and many more. It’s always a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand, I know I’ll miss having them around, but on the other hand, I totally get why they’d want to try their hand at something different.

It was Charlotte’s last day at Clearleft last Friday. Her husband Tom is being relocated to work in Sydney, which is quite the exciting opportunity for both of them. Charlotte’s already set up with a job at Atlassian—they’re very lucky to have her.

So once again there’s the excitement of seeing someone set out on a new adventure. But this one feels particularly bittersweet to me. Charlotte wasn’t just a co-worker. For a while there, I was her teacher …or coach …or mentor …I’m not really sure what to call it. I wrote about the first year of learning and how it wasn’t just a learning experience for Charlotte, it was very much a learning experience for me.

For the last year though, there’s been less and less of that direct transfer of skills and knowledge. Charlotte is definitely not a “junior” developer any more (whatever that means), which is really good but it’s left a bit of a gap for me when it comes to finding fulfilment.

Just last week I was checking in with Charlotte at the end of a long day she had spent tirelessly working on the new Clearleft site. Mostly I was making sure that she was going to go home and not stay late (something that had happened the week before which I wanted to nip in the bud—that’s not how we do things ‘round here). She was working on a particularly gnarly cross-browser issue and I ended up sitting with her, trying to help work through it. At the end, I remember thinking “I’ve missed this.”

It hasn’t been all about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Charlotte really pushed herself to become a public speaker. I did everything I could to support that—offering advice, giving feedback and encouragement—but in the end, it was all down to her.

I can’t describe the immense swell of pride I felt when Charlotte spoke on stage. Watching her deliver her talk at Dot York was one my highlights of the year.

Thinking about it, this is probably the perfect time for Charlotte to leave the Clearleft nest. After all, I’m not sure there’s anything more I can teach her. But this feels like a particularly sad parting, maybe because she’s going all the way to Australia and not, y’know, starting a new job in London.

In our final one-to-one, my stiff upper lip may have had a slight wobble as I told Charlotte what I thought was her greatest strength. It wasn’t her work ethic (which is incredibly strong), and it wasn’t her CSS skills (‘though she is now an absolute wizard). No, her greatest strength, in my opinion, is her kindness.

I saw her kindness in how she behaved with her colleagues, her peers, and of course in all the fantastic work she’s done at Codebar Brighton.

I’m going to miss her.