Petr Pinkas is the Customer Success Manager at news aggregator application Feedly, where he works every day on keeping customers and users happy.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?
I started working when I was on college in AVG (acquired by Avast couple years ago), moved into customer support/QA at Sticky Password for couple years where I built everything from the ground and after that I was lucky to join Feedly where I work for over 4 years now.
I used Feedly from the beginning (after Google Reader went down and after that Blogines) so it was the best company to join as I was a daily user and loved the product.
2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
These days I usually wake up around 5-6am and either start working right away before my son Sam wakes up or exercise before breakfast. When my son wakes up we make a breakfast and play for a while before starting the work.
Since the majority of the team is in the US the first hour is about crunching through what happed in Slack, email, Twitter, and support the day before (or the night at least). After that I start digging into HelpScout (our support app we use for helping customers).
If there are any special projects I work on them too (we’re still at a scale where we do various things and sit on multiple seats – and that’s really great and energizing)
After lunch I usually take a nap if I can and work again until like 2-3pm where I go outside with my family or at least with my son (recently on his small bike) and enjoy some free time before the US wakes up.
We usually have some sync calls or status calls in the evening my time so the evening time is not set and varies.
3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?
I’m working remotely all the time and visit the HQ from time to time. It fits really nicely and I can work from anywhere I want which is a great benefit. Working remotely is the only way I can imagine working from now on.
4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?
This is never ending project, to find a balance, especially when you’re distributed in multiple time zones. Sometimes it is not easy, sometimes it fits well.
5) In the past 12 months, have you started/stopped any routines or habits to change your life?
Lots of things changes in the past years – cold shower experiments, no sugar experiments, daily yoga practice, Wim Hof method, fasting. Last 12 months were maybe about avoiding blue light before bed time and surely playing with my son. That is a one big habit/experience that it is all about now.
6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?
Everything in my Feedly. Plus all the books I have in Goodreads. I really like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. A must read for customer support/success. I used to listen to Joe Rogan and Tim Ferris, but I choose to spent time with my son these days over podcasts and newsletters.
I use Leo in Feedly to save time reading through what I don’t care about and focus only on important news around the topics I want to focus on.
7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?
Feedly. HelpScout, Slack, iPhone and MacBook.
8) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?
I’m not sure, I thought Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but there was no life balance when they were growing their businesses.
9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?
Never stop exploring, there are always ways on how to make this all work for you in all the different stages of your lives – single, married, being a parent, it all changes all the time and that’s great on life.
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