Every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, courts and advocates around the U.S. and its territories gather to finalize the adoption of children out of foster care. As the proud father of three children, two of whom are adopted, I can personally delight in the experience for both the families and children involved. The anticipation, worry, and excitement that precedes receiving that new child in your family is only overtaken by the extreme emotion that comes after your child is home. And as an adoptive father, I know firsthand that the path of adoption is not always easy. But wow, is it rewarding!
Why am I writing about this in a monitoring and data center management blog? As the Zenoss executive responsible for Customer Success, I could try to tie this into product adoption or draw similarities between onboarding a new customer and receiving a child into your family. But that is not what matters in this case. Instead, I’d like to share how Zenoss has enabled and supported the most important aspect of who I am — my family.
When I started at Zenoss four years ago, I did not know that just a few months later I would be buying tickets to Seoul, South Korea, and asking for a few weeks off. My wife and I had adopted a wonderful baby boy domestically several years earlier who happened to be Korean. For our second child, we chose to pursue an international adoption. Along the way, miracles occurred, and we found ourselves pregnant, too! Long story short, I got an unexpectedly early call at my new job at Zenoss saying get your bags packed and passport ready. I came back from that trip on Sunday, and my wife gave birth to our daughter that Thursday — taking our simple family of three to five in a matter of days. Each of the five of us went through an amazing range of emotion over the next few weeks as we adjusted to an incredible new reality. You can see a short video of my arrival in the Austin, Texas, airport from Seoul with my new son, and my pregnant wife and older son meeting our new second son for the first time here.
Zenoss comes into this story by the warmth I felt across the teams as I went through a whirlwind of emotions, by the support I received from the executive team as I was suddenly out of the country, and by the care and concern they expressed across the company at large. Zenoss is a company that really does care about its employees, and they, in turn, care about you, our customers, with that same intensity every day. Just like in my personal case, Zenoss knew that by helping me succeed in meeting my goals of building a family, that I, in turn, would help Zenoss excel with gusto and focus. Zenoss gained an “employee for life” by the genuine support of both my personal and professional life.
So, when I look at the Zenoss core value poster on the wall in my office in Austin, “Customer’s For Life” really does hold special meaning for me. Thank you to Zenoss for helping me when I needed it, and thank you to our customers for helping make Zenoss great. We all succeed together.
Finally, a special thank you to everyone out there who is involved in any aspect of the adoption process — forever families, foster families, adoptees, birthmoms, social workers, orphanage workers, and agency staff. Happy National Adoption Day!
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