Here are some thoughts, in no particular order and with no guarantee of coherency, about leaving ThoughtWorks again (in 2017- the first time was in 2014)

  • Someone is going to ask me “didn’t you learn the first time?” or “was it a different/same reason this time” or “are you going to go back again?” and the first person to ask will be myself
  • I no longer have a strong reason to install updates, since I’m giving this computer back at the end of the week.
  • My backup laptop is even more out of date now than it was in 2014, the last time I didn’t have a corporate laptop. Not that I particularly want to keep this one; I’m one of those odd people who like moving apartments and changing laptops every few years- it cleans out the cruft.
  • I am going to miss working next to the Cole hardware store
  • There are so many meetups that I was hoping to help host in this office.
  • I had to find someone to commit to ownership of the hammock that I’m leaving in the SF office lol
  • I strongly believe that motivation structures have a lot of impact on outcomes. And it occurs to me that all teams at TW are explicitly based on the lifecycle of the project. So maybe that helps the people on the team get along better, because all of them know that it is “only temporary” for a month or six months etc. Problems don’t need to be solved, just dealt with professionally for a certain amount of time.
  • I am going to really miss hanging around and BSing with these people. I’m invited to many afterwork events with my current colleagues, but it’ll still never be the same.
  • I will not miss the weird-network-broken office chromecasts
  • Omg what even is a SAR (yes I have read the powerpoint)
  • Suddenly thinking of whether there is anything that I need to leave as a legacy is a weird feel- right now the only thing I’m putting effort into is helping my coachees (formal and informal) transition, and making sure that a collection of my TWU Trainer travelogue posts are available.
  • I won’t get to go to the Beach Product Pitches meeting on Monday :( …I think I underestimated how hard it will be for me to do any kind of self-study during my break from work which is more fun and/or more educational than just being on the beach at TW.
  • I will probably miss TWers more than I will miss TW or more than TWers will miss me. Because y’all have each other, and I have a new and exciting adventure full of strangeness and surprises :)