The most painful goodbye of my life
Saturday, 26 February 2005
There
was a woman, Cindy La-what’s-her-nose, who worked with ceramics or
textiles or something before she hiked the Klondike trail, via the
Alaskan Way Viaduct, to pan the dot-dot-dot.com gold rush.
I oversaw the workflow for her and a couple hundred other people now and then. When I wasn’t doing that, there was typically a line of answer seekers at my desk; the Oracle at Decatur.
It was complicated and demanding work and she was never good at it. A
15 minute contrarian argument about her false memories of the
impossible output of specstat was the crown on the
tumbled Jack.
On her way back to all points patchouli she tried in her own way to ameliorate the command line debacles, unceasingly repeated questions, and emergency interventions of the past months.
She came up to me to say kindly, reflectively, “You know, you’re so good at this and I guess I never was because I’m an artist.”
I didn’t respond. Just wished her well.
Where do I pick up my fucking Peace Prize?
