When I left Novell back in 2004, I didn't fully realize exactly what I was escaping. This op-ed helps me articulate some of that, and I wish it hadn't taken me seventeen years to figure some of this stuff out. https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1390501454138466310

Specifically, this: when I left, I felt like I was leaving a family. I was abandoning friends. I was stepping away from relationships I'd worked hard to build.

That's what I felt like I was leaving.

That's how it felt.

That's how the company *wanted* me to feel.

I have not kept in touch with most of those people. The few I have? I count them as genuine friends.

Yes, I could have worked harder to maintain more friendships.

But there's a horrible truth to why I did not.

I was no longer being paid to.

I *said* it was horrible. Stop looking at me that way.

Consider the company's motives (anthropomorphizing "the company" as if it is a singular sapient thing, which it is not):

If nobody here likes anybody else, they'll have to be paid more to stay.

The bottom line benefits from donut day, birthdays in the conference room, etc.

The camaraderie is real, yes. But take away the shared tasks, the contiguous spaces, and the money, and many of the people in that conference room birthday party will wander off in search of something.

"In search of something" is doing some heavy lifting here.

We're all—every one of us, all the time—searching for genuine connections with other humans. It may be a passive search, a mostly muted longing, but it's still a thing we all do.

And the company (again, anthropomorphizing) knows this. It seeks to fill that need, to end that search, to build contentment into the compensation package.

And like I said, the camaraderie is real.

But it might not be the actual human connection we're looking for.

So when the CEO of the op-ed I QT'd says "come back to the office or we'll cut your pay," that's the company saying "if the faux camaraderie isn't keeping you here, then you're not part of the glue we need to keep other people here, so we're done investing in you. B'bye."

I left Novell in September of 2004, after being there for 11 years.

I did not realize that my time there had stunted my emotional growth. I didn't understand how true friendships are formed. Or, I dunno, maybe I did, but I couldn't admit to myself that I was bad at it.

I'd like to think I've gotten better at it, and that my decision to leave the corporate world sixteen-and-one-half years ago unlocked some key nodes on my "be a human" skill tree, but I could be wrong.

That op-ed lays bare some important truths. I don't know what we as a society (or you as an individual human person of infinite worth, and I'm rounding down) should do with the information, but I guess we can be glad we know things.