Dopp Juice Archive

It’s a long story, and I won’t get into it now.

It involves all of the plot elements of a good high-budget dramatic movie. I’d like to think that after I finally sell the script to David Lynch, my character will be played by Janeane Garafalo. It will be a romantic comedy, filled with dry wit and poetry, and it will document all of the laughter and tears in the latest chapter of my most tumultuous love affair: my relationship with the tech industry.

The film will end with me sitting at the top of Nob Hill, looking out over a sparkling, thriving city with a shaken longing in my eyes. And after a few minutes of thoughtful silence, I will take a deep breath and say, “Holy crap. I’m unemployed!”

And as the screen fades to black and the credits start to roll, the music will be soft, and a heavy sigh will be heard through the darkness. It will be followed by three words in the same intense voice : “It’s about time.”

Back to reality for a moment. I suddenly have no income. I’ve said goodbye a team that I’ve been calling “family.” I’ve transitioned out of exciting projects with valuable clients that I adored. No, these things do not make me happy.

But there is a relief that comes with change. There is a blank piece of paper in front of me, and I haven’t even picked out my pen yet. There is a time to rest.

And there are also many questions to answer. So let’s get them out of the way now.

The “Sarah is Unemployed” Fall ’07 FAQ

Q: Are you okay?

A: Yes.

Q: What was your job?

A: I was the Project Manager and Technical Writer for a new partnership between two firms, overseeing the production of high-end internal websites for large corporations. In other words, I was the “details person” for a startup.

Q: Were you an employee or a contractor?

A: I was a contractor. I haven’t been an employee anywhere in about 3 years. My autonomy and flexibility are very important to me. So is my ability to legally work eight hours without a break. :)

…

A: ::sighs:: You’re giving me that look my mother gives me, aren’t you. Yes, I buy my own health insurance. No, it doesn’t cost that much. And my level of job security is no worse that it would be anywhere else in the tech industry.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: I’m taking a few weeks off to rest, volunteer, write, and reacquaint myself my plans and goals.

Q: Don’t you think you should be looking for work right away?

A: To be honest, work seems to be looking for me. I’ve only been out of work for a week, I haven’t asked for any help, and I’ve already received 10 nudges/leads/offers for new work. This tells me that the tech industry is alive and well, and I don’t have much to worry about.

Q: I know someone who needs a website. I’ll send the request your way, okay?

A: Hold that thought! While I appreciate all leads and adore the spirit of community, I’m not in a position to be building websites right now, and will have to decline the request. I’ll let you know if that changes. I am, however, happy to offer suggestions for where to get assistance with your web needs — especially if you don’t mind me blogging the advice for the general public to see, too.

Q: But isn’t building websites your thing?

A: It used to be, back when simple designs and static page content were considered “high-end websites.” Now there is so much more that can (and should) be done with a website, and I’m far more interested in managing and documenting the vision and process than I am in learning new programming languages. Consider me a Project Manager and Technical Writer now. And while, yes, I could manage and document the details around your web development project, I don’t currently have a team on hand for building that website. If you have that team, we should talk.

Q: Are you, um, going to grow your hair out now?

A: Nope.

Q: Okay, I mean, it’s a good look on you. So anyway, what are you looking for right now?

A: Open space. Inspiration. Coffee dates with people who are living lives of their own design. Calls for submissions to publications. A good yoga class. Resources for improving my financial literacy. Lunch dates with people who have outlandish dreams and want to scheme the details. Tech conferences that I can get into for free or cheap. Meetups. The motivation to fix up and reorganize my home office. A renewed connection with the blogosphere. Lots of time and space and focus to write.

There’s more to come, I’m sure.

Dear Dad,

Tonight I’m going to San Francisco’s El Dia de Los Muertos celebration to be in community, and to mourn. You died almost nine years ago and yet, I still can’t seem to get rid of you. You’re in me, despite all my best intentions, and though you’ve backed off nicely, you’re still not going anywhere. I can’t make you go away.

So let’s make peace. Going on nine years later, I’ve grown up, and you’ve grown deader, and it’s time we both learned to get along.

I miss your promises. I miss the lottery, the “We Just Sold a Bridge!” sushi celebrations, the what-if games, the scheming, the adventures. I miss how casual you were when you announced you were taking me out of school for the seventh grade to travel the country. And I miss how hard you fought for it when the rest of us told you: No way. I miss your self-made cliché one-liners: Know your environment, respect your environment, but don’t fear it. I miss watching new doors open just because you knocked on them. I miss your ego, your pride, your disregard for assumptions and expectations, your frankness, your vision, the laws you constructed for the people in your world, your kingdom. You named me princess for a reason, and I always hated that name, but sometimes I do miss our castle.

I think you’d be proud of me. I’m smart like you. I find the holes in the rules and exploit them to my advantage, like you did. I love lots of people, like you did. I learn new technology and I use it, like you did. I make up my own titles and I tell people how I’m valuable, just like you used to. And whenever I’m not sure about where I am, I stop what I’m doing and go on an adventure. Just like that. Just like you.

And I have faith. It’s incredible — watching God dress in drag and quote Pema Chodron at me, bellydancing and holding an earth’s worth of messy people in a steady, loving, flirtatious, and deeply accepting embrace. God and I finally get along.

And I’d like to think that if you’d lived, nine years would have been long enough for you to have broken down and opened up to a few more ways of relating to the world. I’d like to think that I could tell you stories about the life I’ve found, and introduce you to the crazy, beautiful, outlandish people I’ve met. I’d like to think you’d find them just as heart-healingly wonderful as I do.

I’d like to think we’d get along. And we’d scheme more adventures and more ways to be gods among men.

I’d like to think you’d accept me and see me and love me as a human being, separate from you and just as flawed, but just as fierce, and just as fabulous.

And I’d like to think we’re there now — with the you that is in my bones riding my life with joy and appreciation. But maybe nine years of the silent treatment doesn’t end in acceptance. Maybe I need a few more years in San Francisco, marching with thousands more lovers and mourners before I will reach you as I am —

your child.
your adult.
yours, independent from you.

I hear the drums now. Rest well.

Love,
Sarah

You may have noticed that my last post was about having a full plate. You may have also noticed that my last post was nearly three weeks ago. These are not coincidental. They are quite related.

But while I have a few free moments on “Indigenous People’s Day” (or “Columbus Day,” if you live in a less rebelliously liberal part of the United States), I’d like to give a quick summary of my recent technodrama and its unexpected happy endings.

First, Gmail. I posted awhile ago about getting locked out of my gmail account. Fortunately, I received some very valuable feedback from a reader who has now become a very valuable friend to me (yay for broken tools creating new connections!) and was creatively persistent with Google. Forty-two days after the incident, I finally received an apology from them, along with instructions on how to now access to my account. My Gmail account is alive again! The irony is that I had forty days and forty nights to completely detach from it and pronounce it dead. It feels sort of like a zombie now. (A zombie that wants to eat my brains.)

Second, the Treo. Have I told you about the physical health of my beloved Palm-driven cell phone? Let me put it this way: every single person on my web development team has been threatening for more than six months now to steal it from me and destroy it so I will be forced to get a new one.

More specifically, the antennae is held on by a paperclip. That paperclip is held on by green electrical tape. The earpiece has broken off. The holder for the stylus is so loosened that I’ve now lost three of them and have given up on carrying one. The front face plate has separated from the back of the machine and is being held on by a single loose screw (and the paperclipped antennae, when it happens to be attached). The RAM is so overloaded that it takes 5-10 seconds to load the dialing screen when I’m ready to make a phone call.

BUT IT WORKS FINE! I DON’T SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT!

The laughable part is that I’m paying for full insurance on the machine (which is all of $6 a month), and I could have claimed it for repairs or replacement a long time ago, given its condition… even without my coworkers first stealing it from me and throwing it into the bay.

The camel’s back broke yesterday, though, when I dropped the machine on the pavement and cracked the front face plate. Now it took four fingers clutching the machine from three different sides to hold its pieces together well enough to get a signal. It still worked — no, really, IT STILL WORKED! — but okay, yeah, it was probably time to take advantage of the insurance.

This morning, I did a final hot-sync with my computer to back up the data… which turned out to be quite an undertaking because the hot-sync port is mostly broken, too. The task required propping the machine halfway up on the edge of a notebook and weighting down the cradle port with a pair of heavy metal scissors, stepping back, and holding my breath for ten minutes, praying that the precarious sculpture wouldn’t move before the sync was complete. It took a few tries to get it right.

Then I walked into the Sprint Repair Center at 4th and Folsom, slapped my busted Treo down on the counter, and announced, “My Treo is exploding in on itself and eating its own brain. I have insurance. What are my options?” The man ran some diagnostics (which amounted to dismantling the tape and paper clip and watching it fall apart in his hands like some kind of gag gift), and returned with a concerned look on his face.

“We can’t repair this for you,” he said apologetically.

“Oh,” I said with disappointment. “But I have insurance…”

He interrupted me. “We’ll have to replace it for you.”

“I am TOTALLY OKAY with you replacing it for me,” I reassured him. “COMPLETELY FINE WITH IT. But, um, how long will it take? Do I need to go without a phone for a few days?”

He pulled out a new Treo and handed it to me. It was already connected to my phone number. “Here you go,” he said.

“That’s it? I don’t need to sign anything? Or pay a deductible?”

“Nope. That’s it. If you’d like, you can wait ten minutes and I’ll transfer your contacts.”

“No, that’s fine, I have it synced on my computer,” I said.

And I ran home gleefully, laughing and skipping in puddles and dreaming about all the beautiful ways this new phone will fall apart on me over the next year.

Ah, beginnings!