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Apr. 30th, 2014 02:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariPacific Northwest Fact #2 - I leave stuff behind on purpose.
In 1997, I worked my first real technical support job. It was for a company called Swan Technologies (okay, it was called Zenith Data Systems Direct, but I preferred our pre-buyout name) in State College, PA (yes, this isn't the Pacific Northwest, bear with me). Swan was one of the first places I worked that I really enjoyed working, but, unfortunately, it didn't last long. I was hired in January, we got the layoff notice in May and we were gone by July.
For those two months, we worked, watching the company slowly dissolve around us. In June, one of the bosses offices was clenedout, leaving only a gigantic wihteboard. Someone, in small letters, wrote "The Bird Will Fly Again." We were a very relaxed company, and many of us would stay after closing to take advantage of the network and play FPS all night. I stayed late, and, over the course of that month, created a mural around those words on the white board.
On our last day, everyone erased a piece of that mural. We left the words, though. The Bird never flew again, sadly.
This was the beginning of a small tradition I've kept up, at least at places I enjoy. I leave something behind at the places I enjoy working. Although it hasn't happened often - just two other times. When I worked at DNP, I was allowed to use our high quality photo printers to make prints to sell (as long as they had the DNP logo on the back). I left behind several prints. I know one of Carrie in her green qipao was framed in my bosses office. When I went back to the DNP going away party, I found out said boss took it with him to his new job.
I didn't want to leave Nintendo, but I could no longer stay. Leaving something behind felt very important to me...I wanted something of mine to stay, so I could always kind of say I was still there in spirit if not in flesh. About a year before I left, someone brought in a fishbowl full of layered colored sand. I wasn't sure why it was there, but it stayed there for the full year, slowly getting more and more mixed until it was a uniform brownish-pink.
Around that time, I finished Skyward Sword (the second game what would become my Play all the Zeldas quest), and suddenly I got an idea of what I would leave behind for Nintendo. I raided the office supply cabninets for paper, scotch tape and paper clips and I began working on my breaks and lunches to finish up ,y gift to Nintendo.
About a week before I left, I set it up.
As far as I know, it's still there. And unlike the mural and DNP, I hope it stays and welcomes people for a good long time to come.
"I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in the station when it is quiet, and just listen. After a while, you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that is going will very much miss the part of you that is staying." --G'Kar, Babylon 5
In 1997, I worked my first real technical support job. It was for a company called Swan Technologies (okay, it was called Zenith Data Systems Direct, but I preferred our pre-buyout name) in State College, PA (yes, this isn't the Pacific Northwest, bear with me). Swan was one of the first places I worked that I really enjoyed working, but, unfortunately, it didn't last long. I was hired in January, we got the layoff notice in May and we were gone by July.
For those two months, we worked, watching the company slowly dissolve around us. In June, one of the bosses offices was clenedout, leaving only a gigantic wihteboard. Someone, in small letters, wrote "The Bird Will Fly Again." We were a very relaxed company, and many of us would stay after closing to take advantage of the network and play FPS all night. I stayed late, and, over the course of that month, created a mural around those words on the white board.
On our last day, everyone erased a piece of that mural. We left the words, though. The Bird never flew again, sadly.
This was the beginning of a small tradition I've kept up, at least at places I enjoy. I leave something behind at the places I enjoy working. Although it hasn't happened often - just two other times. When I worked at DNP, I was allowed to use our high quality photo printers to make prints to sell (as long as they had the DNP logo on the back). I left behind several prints. I know one of Carrie in her green qipao was framed in my bosses office. When I went back to the DNP going away party, I found out said boss took it with him to his new job.
I didn't want to leave Nintendo, but I could no longer stay. Leaving something behind felt very important to me...I wanted something of mine to stay, so I could always kind of say I was still there in spirit if not in flesh. About a year before I left, someone brought in a fishbowl full of layered colored sand. I wasn't sure why it was there, but it stayed there for the full year, slowly getting more and more mixed until it was a uniform brownish-pink.
Around that time, I finished Skyward Sword (the second game what would become my Play all the Zeldas quest), and suddenly I got an idea of what I would leave behind for Nintendo. I raided the office supply cabninets for paper, scotch tape and paper clips and I began working on my breaks and lunches to finish up ,y gift to Nintendo.
About a week before I left, I set it up.
As far as I know, it's still there. And unlike the mural and DNP, I hope it stays and welcomes people for a good long time to come.
"I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in the station when it is quiet, and just listen. After a while, you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that is going will very much miss the part of you that is staying." --G'Kar, Babylon 5
