Business Lunch

Yesterday I had lunch with an old coworker from when I first lived in San Francisco. He's at a fancy new startup, and what a coinkydink! They are looking for tech writers.

It was grim. I loved seeing the guy again after all these years, and he's just as interesting and fun to be around as ever. But dang. It's a company that specializes in figuring out how to get consumers to see more ads. And when I say I'm interested in switching away from tech writing and maybe getting into nonprofit work, he's like, "at our age, it's really too late to change." And stuff like that, that I know he wouldn't say if he were thinking clearly. But he's doing his pitch, he wants to deliver the package.

So he shows me around his office, and he's introducing me around, and everyone's like, "so what are you working on these days?" And lo and behold I'm starting to give corporate answers. "Well, I've been involved in a number of projects," and so on. Ugh.

What have I been doing, you ask? I've been getting as far away from the corporate world as I can run without injury. That's what I've been doing.

I'm just not a corporate person. If someone comes up with a great idea for something that a lot of people might want, the most natural thing to do is to just give it to them. Just invent your gizmo, or set up your web site, or build your infrastructure; and just give it away. If it's so great, then let people have it.

It's amazing to me how many friends I've made in the corporate world who would just laugh right in my face at that sentiment. "Why shouldn't I get the money I've earned from my hard work?" they ask.

Anyway, after we walked around his office for awhile, we went downstairs to say goodbye, and one of his colleagues came by. There was some sort of secret gesture between them, and my friend said, "no no, we're just saying goodbye." And then he turned to me and said, "unless you'd like to join us for coffee?"

So I said sure, and the three of us headed out. As we passed through the exit, my friend said to his colleague, "yes, I've tried recruiting him. No, he's not interested yet." Who knows if the colleague even knew I was coming by. The remark was really directed at me anyway. We want you. We're serious about it. Come on board. Name your price.

The capper came outside the coffee shop, when the colleague started telling us about how he treats his three small children. "When they wake up crying, and say they've had a nightmare, I say, 'no you didn't', and put them right back down." He did the gesture of taking a crying baby and setting it back down in its crib several times. "No you didn't," and set the baby down. "No you didn't," and set the baby down. "No you didn't," and set the baby down.

I'm just thinking, "you monstrous smiling beast with your coffee." And of course I'm standing there smiling with my coffee. Because in the corporate environment, you can't say how you really feel. If I said how I really felt, they wouldn't want to hire me. And if I worked there and said how I really felt, they'd want to fire me. That's what the corporate world is all about. If you feel bad, you have to act like you feel good. If you think someone's an asshole, you have to act like you think they're a nice guy. If you think someone might be causing long-term damage to their kids, you have to smile and hold your coffee and laugh about it with them.

Notwithstanding the colleague and the recruiting, it really was nice to see my old friend, and reconnect after all these years. I don't mind having friends in the corporate world; it's just not for me. He's a fun guy to talk to, and the non-recruiting parts of the conversation were great. We talked about reverse lookups on the DNS when you're in a virtual network like Amazon's AWS system. We talked about the Presidential election. We talked about Linux and free software. In a lot of ways, it was just like old times.