This week is a bittersweet week for me. On Wednesday night, I went out to a bar with a bunch of colleagues to watch the Phillies win the World Series, which was awesome. But the real reason for the outing was a farewell to the CTO and founder of our company as he was resigning and Thursday was his last day with the company. So I find myself sitting here on Halloween, on the day of the celebration parade for the World Series win, on a day that I will be getting a catered lunch and get to leave early to take the kids trick-or-treating, in a rather ho-hum mood.
I’m not depressed or worried about our CTO’s departure (whom I will refer to as K from now on). Sure K was a great guy and was fun to work for, sure he knew more about the inner workings of our technology than any individual in the company, and sure he seemed to be the only one who had the vision to shape what projects we worked on next, but this change does not mean doom. Those of us left know what we are doing and have our own ideas – we can keep it going without a doubt (assuming the production side of things doesn’t fall apart – economy stagnating and all). And it isn’t like we won’t be without leadership. The top five tech. managers have been training up for 2 months now and are prepared to run the show until our new CTO takes the helm in a few weeks. And he seems like a good guy and that he will mesh well.
So why the funk? I guess because it feels like an end of an era. I guess because it is the kind of transition where I’m not busy with or part of the transition. And I guess some of it is that the shift is somewhat palpable in the office. Last year at halloween, we had a decorating contest as well as a costume contest and the office looked festive and almost everyone dressed up. This year we skipped the decorating contest and, though we do have a costume contest, almost no one dressed up. So things are different.
I’m sure I’ll be fine – probably as soon as I’m done writing this I’ll move on to something else and forget about this mood altogether. There are plenty of things that I’m happy about in my life and plenty to look forward to. So the future is bright. I just have to move on.
P.S.
There were awards given out at a happy hour at my office the other night, but I didn’t stick around for it and apparently missed out on one for me. As it turns out I got nominated for one for “getting shit done and just being Ben”. And as it turns out that nomination came from K. Thanks K.