There’s no big theme or focus today, just a brief story. I have a friend who I’ve known for decades. And although we met in middle school, it wasn’t until about ten years ago that we reconnected, making a commitment to get together every six weeks, or so, to make sure we never drifted apart again. Well, as it happens, today was one of those days where we were scheduled to get together. I made my way to our regular spot, picked out a seat near a back wall, and waited for Muni to deliver my friend to our rendezvous.
As I sat, trying to ignore the Twitter train wreck, I kept seeing familiar faces filling up seats at the other side of the bar. Turns out, dozens of my former Twitter colleagues were getting together having just ignored the ultimatum to be more hardcore. I headed over and was immediately greeted with as much warmth as surprise. And lots of hugs. It felt so good. And so sad.
See, when I left Twitter, we had, only months before, started mandatory work-from-home. I turned in my laptop by shoving it in the mail. I sent farewell notes to colleagues by DMs. All the pictures and mementos from my desk were shipped to me in a box. But I never really got to say goodbye.
Tonight felt like a wake. We talked about the good times, made fun of the mistakes we made together, and generally romanticized what was — when we really think about it — just a job.
But it was more than a job, wasn’t it? We could have worked at any number of other places, if all we were looking for was a job. But a lot of Tweeps called it our dream job. We were doing work we enjoyed, with people we genuinely cared about, on a service we felt purpose-built to maintain and improve. I don’t know that this will ever exist again, definitely not for me. I cannot imagine a more perfect way to take the disparate skills I have and apply almost every single one of them in such a focused direction.
Seeing the service coming apart at the seams tonight has been incredibly hard. And I can’t look away. I took a little break to type this up, but even as I feel like I’ve said all I want to say right now, I find myself wanting to rush to the end, just so I can go back to the voices of the people who built that imperfectly beautiful platform. However, if you see me out in the next few weeks, and don’t mind listening to someone gush about a job I haven’t had for more than two years, ask me about Twitter. Istill have a lot more to say.
Zero Chance
17 November 2022
Blocked and reported.
There’s no big theme or focus today, just a brief story. I have a friend who I’ve known for decades. And although we met in middle school, it wasn’t until about ten years ago that we reconnected, making a commitment to get together every six weeks, or so, to make sure we never drifted apart again. Well, as it happens, today was one of those days where we were scheduled to get together. I made my way to our regular spot, picked out a seat near a back wall, and waited for Muni to deliver my friend to our rendezvous.
As I sat, trying to ignore the Twitter train wreck, I kept seeing familiar faces filling up seats at the other side of the bar. Turns out, dozens of my former Twitter colleagues were getting together having just ignored the ultimatum to be more hardcore. I headed over and was immediately greeted with as much warmth as surprise. And lots of hugs. It felt so good. And so sad.
See, when I left Twitter, we had, only months before, started mandatory work-from-home. I turned in my laptop by shoving it in the mail. I sent farewell notes to colleagues by DMs. All the pictures and mementos from my desk were shipped to me in a box. But I never really got to say goodbye.
Tonight felt like a wake. We talked about the good times, made fun of the mistakes we made together, and generally romanticized what was — when we really think about it — just a job.
But it was more than a job, wasn’t it? We could have worked at any number of other places, if all we were looking for was a job. But a lot of Tweeps called it our dream job. We were doing work we enjoyed, with people we genuinely cared about, on a service we felt purpose-built to maintain and improve. I don’t know that this will ever exist again, definitely not for me. I cannot imagine a more perfect way to take the disparate skills I have and apply almost every single one of them in such a focused direction.
Seeing the service coming apart at the seams tonight has been incredibly hard. And I can’t look away. I took a little break to type this up, but even as I feel like I’ve said all I want to say right now, I find myself wanting to rush to the end, just so I can go back to the voices of the people who built that imperfectly beautiful platform. However, if you see me out in the next few weeks, and don’t mind listening to someone gush about a job I haven’t had for more than two years, ask me about Twitter. Istill have a lot more to say.
See you tomorrow?