artiss.blog

Category: Automattic

My life at Automattic

  • EA customer service don’t know what they’re talking about

    EA customer service don’t know what they’re talking about

    A strong title, I’ll admit. But, as you’ll see, I’m not wrong.

    I’ve been a massive fan of Battlefield 4 since it first came out. I bought it for the PlayStation 3 and then upgraded to the PlayStation 4 version, when I got that. I played it for thousands of hours and hit the top rank.

    I ran the website bfmedic.com for many years, which gave news and tips about Battlefield, and crafted gameplay videos on YouTube.

    Yeah, I was a fan.

    Recently, I’ve been getting the itch to return. I don’t have a PlayStation 5, so can’t play Battlefield 6 and BF4 was definitely the best, more recent version of the game. Sadly, BF4 is dying. Not surprising considering its age. But there are just a handful of official game servers left and a sprinkling of other servers, often just playing the same map on repeat.

    So, I thought I’d rent my own server.

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  • My Personal Best & Worse Customer Service of 2025

    My Personal Best & Worse Customer Service of 2025

    If you didn’t know already, I work in customer service and have done for over 30 years. So, it’s important to me and I understand when something is badly wrong.

    So, to wrap up 2025 I’m going to mention the companies that I’ve had the pleasure or displeasure of dealing with in my personal life (and nothing to do with work).

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  • What’s in my bag? 2025 edition

    What’s in my bag? 2025 edition

    Every year I like to share the contents of my backpack. I travel a lot at WordPress VIP, so it often changes to reflect updated products as well as differences in my own thinking.

    So, here I present what I’m carrying around in 2024 (albeit some of these will be dependant on the type of journey I’m making).

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  • Sunrise alarm clocks and why Lumie customer service sucks

    Sunrise alarm clocks and why Lumie customer service sucks

    Many years ago my wife bought me a bedside alarm clock with a built in sunrise feature. If you’ve not come across this kind of thing, before the alarm comes on, a light slowly brightens on the clock, simulating a sunrise, both in brightness and colour tone. The idea is that it wakes you more naturally and you’ll feel more refreshed than being awoken suddenly by a loud noise.

    It was made by a British company called Lumie, who solely creates products based on light therapy.

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  • What’s on my desk? 2025 edition!

    What’s on my desk? 2025 edition!

    For a number of years now, I’ve shared my desk set-up to the world. As I work from home, my office is both practical but cosy and personal. In an office, you may be limited to personal possessions (in fact, at my previous employer, they made you clear your desk at the end of each day into a locker) and, although I try and keep clutter down, I still want to have everything to hand.

    The room is compact, but that’s more than enough to get me and everything I need inside. However, that means I had to opt for a deep, rather than wider, desk. This is what it looks like…

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