I am up and showered by 5:00. Is it obvious I am ready to get out of here?
I eat a Chinese bun for breakfast then briefly talk to Tommy before I go. It is more humid today which is thankfully short-lived as the Uber driver is there to AC my way to the airport. I go in & out of SFO because it has a lot of EWR direct flights and it is bigger. I will always prefer the bigger airports when I am in a rinse & repeat process. I do enjoy the small airports at times but I always feel like if something is going to go wrong, it’ll be at a smaller airport.
I have a coffee. Then I have another coffee.
As we take off I see the city through the clouds and it is a nice sight, one I will miss. I end up just working the whole trip, which in hindsight always seems crazy but it makes the flight go faster.
As we land an old woman gets up to go to the bathroom, then never returns. Her son seems to wonder what happened to her but as there is no medical emergency I guess it all worked out. Teh landing is fast, which I am thankful for.
I have phone problems and need to turn it off & on again to get the Uber app to work. All of this in due time, as Jesus takes me home.
I was originally going to reflect on liking my job and as of this trip I still did. As I look back I can see the problems that would manifest themselves here in the next 8 months but you never know at the time that was going to happen. It’s always easy to say that you saw it coming, but I think we always see many different options and for all the ones you saw coming, there are more than you thought were coming but did not. In reality, I thought this org had a chance through March of 2020 but then I lost faith.
When I came out here, I really liked it. I have just recapped all 16 blog posts for all the trips and I now see that I did not make the most of the time here. There was a lot of half-ass nights, and it was only in the end that I did some proper exploring of better food & coffee. I wish I would have done more to branch out, in hindsight.
The first 2 days of the trip were the best of the 16, spending them in San Francisco. We had a great time and I value that memory greatly. Doing the city by bike was an excellent experience and possibly one of the best of 2019. So as much as I do not miss the job, I got a lot out of that.
Silicon Valley is a different story. I do not miss working out there, and the work ethic for me was horrendous, to say the least. I struggle with this juxtaposition of talent, money, drive, and totally poor work habits as well as atrocious social situations and acidic office conditions. I would not move out there even if I got a million a year in salary. It’s horrible.
But it was an experience, and it linked me up with a guy that brought me where I am today. So in all, I got 2 great days, a lot of great ramen, a few new friends, and a better job in the end. So for a 9 months stretch, things were really not so bad, all in all.
Traveling Normandy 