These Boots Were Made for Walking

The One With An Aborted Move

I've been entertaining the idea of moving to San Francisco forever - ever since I left. I finally made a decision to find out if I even could last week. I brought it up in my weekly one-on-one discussion with my manager. She overwhelmingly supported the idea. She told me to put it in writing and she would circulate and investigate what needed to be done to get me office space in our SF offices. I thanked her, finished out the day, and went home still mulling if this was really something I wanted to do. I was conflicted: on the one hand, I felt that life in general would just be happier in SF. On the other hand, I would be uprooting and leaving behind a whole new circle of friends in Seattle - especially Anurag and Sarika who I think of as family. I got home and started to unwind. I texted the usual suspects to see what was going on that night. Nothing. Everyone was non-responsive or just planned on staying home. I figured I would round up some folks as usual. But then party o'clock came and went and nothing happenned. And around 11:45 at night I sat down in front of my computer and without hesitation typed up the email to my manager about moving to San Francisco - putting it in writing and making it real.

I continued to waver in my resolve, debating the pros and cons all weekend with any of my friends who would listen. Saturday afternoon walking around on the beautiful sunny day I told Rachel about my conflicting thoughts as we walked around downtown and the sculpture park. Saturday night Ankita invited me to go to a charity art auction. It was the most fun I'd had in Seattle in months. There was a live band. The auctioneer was a rapper. The art was really interesting. One piece was a diorama with little candles inside and it caught on fire in the middle of the auction. The wine was served in plastic cups with a suggested donation of $2 to charity - and eight dollar later we were drunk. But it was as I was being presented with reason after reason to stay: friends like Rachel, days like that day, nights like that night.

But then Monday I talked with Ankita about helping her non-profit fundraise in the future. The conversation was awkward and even as I suggested ideas I could help her with, I wondered if I would stick around Seattle long enough to see them through. I spent that night hanging out with the usual suspects plus Sapna (who had recently moved from Seattle down to SF and was up visiting for the day), I suddenly felt distant from these people I thought of as my friends. Like there was a barrier betwen me and them because I wasn't going to be around much longer. It was as though the world was presenting me with reasons to leave.

Today my manager and I had a meeting on the Student Partner Program which I manage, but an hour before the meeting she changed the agenda to add the San Francisco move. I should have known this wouldn't be good news. We had a long discussion on the Student Partner Program and then, subconsciously wanting to avoid getting to the SF conversation a few moments longer, I changed the subject and spent another ten minutes talking about something else. Then there was nothing left to talk about. She brought up the proposed move, and told me she'd had a long conversation with Suzanne - our General Manager - and they had both agreed that for the student lifestyle marketing manager role it was absolutely critical that the person be in Redmond. She said that so much of it was about working with other groups that the face to face was a huge asset. Which is interesting because I was never encouraged to form these partnerships across product groups - it was almost a side project when it started - and now it's apparently an integral part of the role.

At least my vacillating is over. The power to make this choice for myself has been taken out of my hands. I will live in Seattle as long as I work for Microsoft. But one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

::cue music::