Best/Worst with Jared Erondu

What’s the best thing about your job?

I work for two companies, which at times can be is a lot of work. So the team is probably the best part. It would be a daily headache to work with a group of people I truly resent. Thankfully, in my case, it’s quite the contrary.

The Industry team is made up of a diverse group of talented individuals from different walks of life. We have two designers from Twitter, a CEO of a news app, a California-based tree trimmer, a Pittsburgh based illustrator who has a love affair with custom typography, a publisher, an Australian student who refers to himself as a “Gestalt-Ingenieur,” a British thinker, an ex-googler who’s fond of animals … yup, this is a run-on. You get the point.

The same story applies for Treehouse. When I visit the HQ every three months, I’m surrounded by experts of the fields. Alan and the video team have the word “product” on a dog leash. Michael and the video team shoot videos that should receive Academy nominations. Faye and the community team actually create communities. Nick and the teaching team make hard topics easily digestible. Chris and the marketing team make awesome deals to push our vision farther. Rich runs things, and Ryan Carson, our leader, leads – effectively. Yup, I’m talking too much again.

Nevertheless, I’m sure you get my point. I love to surround myself with talent, and although I don’t work in an office building with any of them, we all feel connected in some way. A positive way, for that matter.

I also enjoy the freedom of my job. Being able to do what you love for a living is a blessing in itself. The great sense of accomplishment that invades my mind at the end of each day drives me to wake up the next morning, return to work, and outdo the previous day – this fancies me.

And the worst?

The hours, location, and emails – plain and simple. People believe, for whatever reason, that not having the traditional 9-5 job is a blessing. To an extent, I beg to differ. Sometimes it has its perks. Being able to decide NOT to work today because of a friend’s barbecue you’d like to attend. “Cool beans,” like my bud Drew Wilson likes to say. However, when you are working, not having that austere 5pm clock-out time tends to leave you “running” for another 4-5 hours. I unfortunately like sleep, but I don’t get it. You can deduce the rest.

However, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this is the “worst” element of my job. Rather, the most … annoying. After all, sometimes those 24-hour runs can lead to awesome ideas which, in turn, can eventually materialize into great content or innovation. Now what’s wrong with that?

From time to time, I work out of the Treehouse HQ, but for the most part I work from home. This is great in some ways, but in others it just plain sucks. Although we have great tools to communicate with people thousands of miles away from us, nothing beats face-to-face. Not to mention, timezones can be a pain in the butt. When I’m waking up, someone else might be hitting the haystack, and vice versa.

As for the emails, I generally receive anywhere between 150-300 of them per day. Once again, I’ll leave you to deduce the rest.

Jared is co-founder of The Industry, content expert at Treehouse and editor of both, based in Baltimore, Maryland.