We All Come Around Again

When You Know Who You Are at Every Age

This past February a close friend of mine was fired from a job he loved for no good reason other than “management conflicts”. As is typical with people in my line of work, long hours, slave wages, overwork and burnout are typically the name of the game, and my friend was no different. This guy has an incredible eye (he’s a mid-range film maker, his film “Microgravity” won the visual effects award and 3^rd place in the Seattle Sci-Fi film awards) and didn’t deserve the treatment he got from the people he was practically killing himself working for. I couldn’t do a thing to help him except be there as a friend when things went completely down the drain. He was finally let go last Valentine’s day, actually told on the day itself. Sons of bitches. We lost contact the past couple of months while I got my job affairs in order as well, and I hadn't thought of him the past few months. Then I got a surprising email from him over the weekend, and I was so inspired by it that I wanted you all to see it as well. I clipped it into the small section below:

"As it turns out, leaving was a blessing. Pretty much every client that had tried to give me a bleeding ulcer in 2006 bailed on that company in 2007. One company closed two thirds of their locations, leaving (the company) with tens of millions of dollars of un-funded inventory. And the problematic engineering practices that had been sewn in 2006 were reaped in 2007...as I sat in my bathrobe, drinking gourmet coffee and writing screenplays.

But my biggest epiphany: I'M NEVER WORKING IN A CUBICLE AGAIN!

I flew out to Thailand for a couple weeks ostensibly to help a little with David and O's movie, but it ended up being much more cathartic than that. I was standing on a beach on Ko Samet eating a rambutan when I realized that if there was one thing I wanted out of life, it was utter and total freedom from the veal fattening pens we now call offices. I jumped into a degree I hated in college so that I knew I would never have to depend on my parents for anything. Last summer I realized that I was less than a year away from reaching the apex of my profession. This summer I firmly decided that there was no price too high for never doing AutoCAD for Hooters ever again."

…Way to rock it, Seth. I’m doing good as well (you knew that, tho!) I’ll catch up to you next month & we’ll laugh over some beers together.

Bobbe