It's a long road behind me
It's a long road ahead
If you follow every dream, you might get lost
If you follow every dream, you might get lost
--NY, 2005
When we last left our hero, he was recalling that rapid rises in his employer’s stock are followed by his losing his job. Always a fan of tradition, he lost his job right on schedule! Precisely as he predicted, a pronounced run up in stock price pre-empted his progression of prolonged employment. Actually, he prophesied this predicament months earlier when, only a few short weeks--which included Thanksgiving--after he joined the company, a reorganization caused him to report to a manager in Canada instead of the one he liked in Sunnyvale. Losing one’s champion is never a good thing. As he saw at NASA, Sony, and Symbol, whenever his manager departed due to retirement, reassignment, or demotion relative to his peers, his position became tenuous.
Shifting to first person...
At NASA, the boss who recruited me from MIT retired shortly after I arrived at NASA. I was very resourceful and managed to survive, even excel, for a few years. However, it got increasingly harder to hide from the budget axe, and after they cancelled the space station payload for which I was the UI designer, there was no place else to go. People often ask why I don’t return to NASA. Well, the labs and facilities did not exist before I started them and they are long gone now. There literally is nothing to which to return.
At Sony, a Vice President thought it would be great to start a usability program and built a group of engineers around me to implement my designs. Shortly after I arrived, he left. I did not realize at the time that that was the beginning of the end. The entire group is long gone now.
At Symbol, my boss lost stature with respect to his peers. I told him that I had seen this movie before and I did not like the way it ends. Never having seen the movie himself, he was not sure what to make of my prognostication. However, overcome by iambic pentameter at the beginning of Act V, he apologized when he understood. Endearingly, a young colleague I was mentoring was on the verge of tears when I broke the news that the political winds had blown me out the door. He was too young to have ever seen the movie previously.
In the most recent situation, much of the reason I joined the company was to work for a particular manager, who greatly impressed me. However, while visiting our Canadian offices five weeks into the job, I learned that he and the rest of my former group had been put out to the pasture of planned obsolescence, and that I was now reporting to someone in Canada. I knew right then and there that that was the beginning of the end. Canada has different tastes in entertainment, eh, and with William Shatner, Paul Shaffer, Neil Young, Mike Myers, Joni Mitchell and others preferring to live in the US, I knew I did not have a chance. That and my adventures at a conference in Vancouver years ago all but sealed my fate.
Women keep telling me that guys like a challenge, so I rose to this one. While I was uncomfortable much of the time at work, ironically, I caught myself singing to myself a few times shortly before the axe fell. As with most other places I worked since NASA, this company had never previously had an employee with my skill set. So as more and more people discovered me, I received more and more requests for assistance and got involved with projects for which I was not directly responsible.
I visited the Utah office and helped their engineers understand how to improve the usability of their product and how to increase consistency with the entire product line. As I had done elsewhere, I started a newsletter relating the latest industry research and trends to work that I was performing at the company. The kind folks in Technical Publications asked me to give them a presentation about my background and talents, and teach them the usability aspects related to online Help. My friends in Professional Services, as my boss referred to them, appreciated my asking them how our customers use our products. They also told me how much they valued how helpful I was at entertaining our visiting Support Engineers when they were in town and that they were planning a reward dinner for me. The leading architects in the company told me how glad they were that I was working for the company and how much they appreciated my contributions as the company had needed someone like me for some time.
Perhaps most interestingly, one of the local managers kept asking me for my expertise. I kept referring him to my manager, whom I said owned my time. I guess he was reluctant to do so as he ultimately told me that when he visited my Canadian boss several months prior, my boss said that he could not afford to spare any of my time. Pretty strange how my boss rapidly switched from not being able to spare any of my time to not wanting to pay for any of it.
While writing these thoughts, I was reminded of the similarities with more former employers. At another previous job, my foreign-born boss was similarly criticized for being difficult and for having political ambitions that negatively affected the quality of the product. There, too, I spent increasing amounts of time helping colleagues in a foreign country with their work and received recognition and accolades from an armada of local colleagues. Another similarity concerns another company, where Management told me that they had trouble retaining people. Am I the lightning rod, the canary in the coal mine, the catalyst, or the calm in the storm?
I can see by your eyes you must be lying
When you think I don't have a clue
Baby you're crazy
If you think that you can fool me
Because I've seen that movie too
--BT, 1973
Most ironic was the fact that in the weekly video conference with my boss, I was eager to show my boss the latest designs for a feature on which we had been collaborating. When I noticed one of the HR ladies in attendance, I knew what was happening and I began mentally taking inventory to remember what I needed to reclaim from around the company, to whom I needed to bid goodbye, and what I needed to erase on my computer. I also thought it was ironic that I had been regularly riding my bike to work, but now I had to return with my car the following day, Bike to Work Day, to collect my possessions.
So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself. . . nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
--FDR, 1933
Make no mistake, rejection weighs heavy and I am drained by it all. Also, I’ve had enough other challenges recently with a dramatic rent increase, the disappearance of the Club Adam Breakfast Lady, and the reporting by the media that San Jose is the only metropolitan area in the country with more single men than single women. In fact, at the two weddings I attended in May, the ratio of single men to single women was greater than the ideal ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids. Nevertheless, I still have gratitude for what I’ve got.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
--JM, 1966
Since I know how much people like happy endings, I want to leave readers with a few brief stories to cleanse the palate from the reality above.
Recently, I was excited to return to NASA for the Yuri’s Night celebration in honor of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. I had not been back to NASA in years so I was eager to see how it had changed since I worked there. The event was held in the hangar where I remember assisting with the Child Care Center Christmas Party. In those days, I enjoyed watching Santa arrive on a helicopter. At this event, I watched women studying motion sickness. NASA has certainly changed since I worked there many years ago, but I guess I’m not the same either, so we’re even.
I also enjoyed Just L’s birthday party. I never would have guessed that women enjoy being spanked or watching pole dancers, however, being my usual good-natured self, I was supportive and non-judgmental. I figured it was her birthday and she deserves to enjoy it as she selects. My favorite part of the day was the steam blow, so I guess we are all entitled to our preferences.
I also enjoyed several weddings as mentioned above. At the first, I was reunited with several college buddies whom I had not seen in years. In the second, as anticipated, we had a clear reminder of the gender ratio in Silicon Valley. Indeed, many of my women friends tell me they have a hard time making friends with women. Fortunately, fighting statistics, I know many, many women.
Finally, I competed in a singles tennis tournament, an event in which I had done well in the past, but I have not been playing much singles lately. My first opponent, who has known me for years said this was the best he had ever seen me play. Perhaps he was just rationalizing his loss to himself. I wasn’t sure I deserved all the credit. Then I had another match from which I rose from the depths of a first set loss to clawing my way to win the second and barely losing the third to the guy who ultimately won the tournament. A bunch of people said it was a very entertaining match to watch. I told them that can be taken two ways, but I’m still not sure what the other one is. Even my team’s Captain on the next court said he was watching my match instead of his own. I guess all the anti-oxidants must be paying off!
Well a young man ain't got nothing in the world these days.
--MA, 1957
I was just putting the finishing touches on the invitation for my birthday fundraiser. Since I had had a pretty good run of employment since last year, I was ramping up the matching gifts component to include two for one matching for all gifts. Unfortunately, as I was writing this invitation, I lost my job. So the 2:1 matching is pending, habeas corpus is suspended, and alternate side of the street parking rules are in effect. Stay tuned.
Thanks for playing, eh.
©Adam Brody All rights reserved.
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