Keeping busy

Well as reading week approaches and I wait (again) for feedback on my patch, I am trying to keep busy in Mozilla activities.

One of my recent activities is helping out with Live Chat user support. It's amazing! A very small team of dedicated people are helping individuals in real time with their wide variety of issues. I've been learning tons about the issues that users face - right now firewalls and security updates seem to be a frequent problem. I'm also jumping headlong into another thread of the vast Mozilla community, this one mostly volunteers, and getting to know some folks. The EST hours for Live Chat are from 4pm - 9pm and from 10pm - 12am. I mostly have been able to pitch in on the later shift because that's about when I am tired of doing my homework :)

Getting involved with Live Chat was super easy - I read the documentation, created and account and was shadowing experienced helpers less than an hour later. One week later and I'm in on a phone conference to discuss what the priorities are for the next 3 months. Again, I say amazing.

I encourage all Mozilla or open source involved Seneca students to jump into Live Chat and try helping out people in real time. It's intense, and can be challenging (I think my success rate is only about 50%) but it's an eye-opening experience for how the other half lives. The half what don't have #seneca for all their questions.