Departure

There is a professional clown in New York who taught his two-year-old son to shake the bars of the playground fence with his tiny fists and yell, “Freedom!”

That’s how I’ve felt these last four years whiling away my days at the southern end of Silicon Valley. As I prepared to leave my position there last week, I tried to identify some permanent achievement I could point to as a symbol of a successful tenure at the company. I finally settled on my bank account. I should be proud of this. I took the job for the money, after all, not for love of computer hardware.

As I have realized on the many frustrating days when I have been yelling on my cell phone in the parking lot, money is not much consolation in the short-term. It is discouraging to think that most of the useful systems I did implement might well be un-done or overwhelmed by disorder within a matter of months. Attrition there is extremely high, despite the salaries, and I was the last of my original team to go, leaving no one with any experience to mind the store. Also, the CEO’s headed for jail, so that doesn’t speak well for them heading in the right direction.

There are two points of consolation however:

1. The primary job of the technology consultant is to make her job unnecessary. That is, if you are managing a system or a site, you should be working to make it so much better that you are no longer needed. In this regard, on many fronts, I succeeded. While it may not be apparent to him or her, my successor’s job will not be as painful as mine was.

2. In a month, I won’t care.

Just for fun, ask me how much my 10,500 vested stock options are worth. Go on. Ask me. Really. Go ahead. Oh, you want to know? Really? All right. $240.35. That’s right, you heard me. $240 big ones and 35 little tiny ones. Drinks are on me.