David works remotely from the Sierra de las Nieves in Spain
The Mediterranean climate is wonderful, as most of you know, because the company event was held in Torremolinos in Spain a few years ago. I am fortunate enough to live in the countryside of Malaga province, in a little village called Monda bordering the south side of a natural park, Sierra de las Nieves. Apart from a few villages this isolated area has seen very little human influence or activity and was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1995.
Monda is right in the middle of the Costa del Sol but a few miles inland in the countryside. My partner Caridad and I have lived here for 14 years..
Cari and I have been together for about 24 years now. We don’t believe getting married would help our relationship so we never married. We are together because we want to be , not because we have signed a paper. I think it works.
Monda sounds an idyllic place to live, but don’t you find yourselves a bit isolated?
Not at all! By car we are 10 minutes away from Marbella with all its beaches and luxury, 30m away from the airport and 20m minutes away from my parents’ house. All our close family lives nearby.
My Dad is Spanish, from Madrid where I was born, but we moved to the south of Spain when I was only 10 years old so I feel I belong here.
My mother is English. She was born in Singapore after the 2nd World War. My English grandfather was a bomber pilot and he was assigned to Singapore at the time. My grandmother wasn’t allowed to travel with her husband while pregnant, but she hid the fact and traveled with him anyway.
We lived for a couple of years in London when I was 4, so I learned to speak English with little or no effort.
It was my grandmother who got me into reading English books and she is the reason for my good written English even though I never studied English grammar.
So what do you do for relaxation?
Living in the countryside leaves little time for hobbies. There is always something to do around the house.
Cari and I had been renting for years before we decided to try to buy something for ourselves. We didn’t have enough money to buy anything by the coast but we found an affordable piece of land in Monda. We purchased it with a mortgage and started building the house ourselves at the weekends. After a year we moved in and fell in love with the area..
We used to have 3 dogs (Alaskan malamute) but they gradually passed away. Now we have way too many cats! We got our first cat round about 2011 because we started having mice around the house. I was working part time and couldn’t afford to neuter the cat back then. A couple of years later the number of cats increased to almost 50! We started neutering them one by one about 3 years ago and now the local vet is a very good friend of ours. The cat population here has stabilized to around 30. We have 6 in the house and the rest live outside in the garden and sleep in a shed. I would really like to get another dog eventually.
Something that always moved us is music. Is it never silent around here; there is always music of some sort going on. Even our holidays lately consist of going to summer music festivals.
How did you join OTGS?
Ever since 2004 I have been working remotely. I first began with Qoan, a local company and later went truly remote with a US company called American Registry. Later I spent a couple of years working for German company.
Cari started working at OnTheGo before me and, when Eyal asked her if she knew anyone, I was also invited to join. This was back in June 2012.
What is involved in your role here at OTGS?
Over the years I have acquired many skills which have allowed to me to move around in the company in different positions. I started in Support like most of us. Later, I started off the Compatibility project in WPML. Then our Systems guy left the company and I was asked if I could cover the role. The company grew and several more employees joined the Systems Team. It evolved to be known as the “Dream Team”. I was very happy in that position because I got to know and help practically everyone in the company. Recently I was asked if I could move to the Compatibility team. I am even happier now because I get to do a bit of developing, which is my real vocation.
What do you like most about your work now?
Compatibility work is mostly problem solving and I love it. You get great feedback when you find a solution and since I’m doing this several times a day it feels great!
How do you handle your daily tasks?
It depends. Some days I take care of one queue and some days I take care of another.
These are the queues I generally check:
- compsupp-new queue: This is my main concern. It is about escalated support tickets for plugins/themes that haven’t joined our compatibility program. Sometimes we just suggest a solution to the theme author, but other times we need to invite them to join our program.
- comp queue: This is about theme and plugin authors who join our compatibility program. We share these tickets evenly amongst the whole team.
- Finally, I reply to Spanish pre-sales questions on our WPML site.
- I also like to keep an eye on our p2 forum and WPML support channel in case I can help with something.
Do you have special plans for the future?
I’m 47 years old and I started using computers at 14. I don’t plan many changes in my career at this stage!
I am happy in the company and I would like to continue working here for as long as I’m useful.
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