Fuck it, I'm a Pivot

You can't take that from me, Michael fucking Dell

Alright?

I write tests first, and I work in pairs, and I believe in doing the job right

I believe that what works is what's kind is what's right

I believe that "why" is just as important as "how"

And that you improve things a little bit over time, and that you never stop improving them

I believe that an engineer is only as good as their environment

I believe that you make a team faster by taking engineers away from it

I believe that "kind" is not "nice," and that doing things right means making people uncomfortable, and living with that

I believe that you can't separate the responsibility of deciding what software should do, from the responsibility of determining what it does

I believe that software should be as simple as it can be, and no simpler

I believe in running experiments, and I believe in throwing things away

I believe that if a story is important, it will come back

I believe, above all, that your values matter

That if you believe in "integrity," and "passion" that you should be prepared to live with that

That if you believe in operational efficiency, and laying people off every six months, that you should be prepared to live with that

That if you believe in kindness, and consensus, that you should be prepared to live with that

I believe that you should delete more things

And talk to your team about your feelings

I believe that the world can be better

I believe that software can be better

I believe in the Process

And I believe in modifying the Process

I believe that impact matters more than intent

And that if your intent actually matters to you, you'll own your impact

I believe that most people who have power and money have decided that power and money matter more to them than treating people right

Because treating people right, when you have power?

It's hard

You get that right, and I respect you

I, honestly, and I hate to admit this, believe in processes and tools over individuals and interactions

But I believe that individuals and interactions have to decide, have to agree, to that process, to that tool, for that process, and that tool, to be valid

I believe that *power* is about *legitimacy*

That a process is only as good as the people who agree with it

I believe that most powerful cis white men value their comfort over what is right, so much that they confuse the two

And that there are exceptions, and that those exceptions are valuable

I believe that most *people* value their comfort over what is right

And that I am not an exception

And that *trying* to be an exception, is a lifetime's worth of work

God help me, but I believe in Rob Mee

And I miss him

He had his flaws

He had a lot of fucking flaws

He built an organization, that, in a lot of ways, couldn't function without him

But I miss him

I hope someone tells him that

He made a place that made me, who I am

And that made a lot of people, who they are

I owe the man a beer

At least