I’m Autumn Bystrom, an adult, human, female who owns a shark costume. I jog (because it’s overstating things to say that I “run”), I read, I bake cookies, I drown in spreadsheets, I pretend to know what I’m doing, I occasionally DO know what I’m doing, I crinkle my nose when I laugh, and I have a very strong disappointed face. I am also a business professional. Yikes.

I’ve been in the People Ops space (tech and creative) for something like 10 years and I’ve done it all from building IKEA desks to standing up a UK company, from agonizing over accounts receivable to implementing company-wide pay transparency. I’m a diplomat, a doer, a big-picture thinker. I’m curious, suspicious, tenacious, and delicious. I really just needed another word that ended in “ious” and that one seemed better than “audacious” or “conscious”, though I’m also both of those.

But WHY am I blogging? Way back in the day I had a LiveJournal (heyo, web 2.0) but professionalism calls for something a little more grown up, a little more…focused. So I’m here to talk about my professional journey and my thoughts and I’m going to interrogate my feelings or whatever it is the kids do these days in a public setting for accountability. So that’s cool, I guess.

Also, FakeProfessional.com hadn’t been taken so I figured I should jump on it.