Happy the Year of Rabbit
I started my career at Google more than 10 years ago in New York. My then manager asked us to set personal OKRs. I wrote “visit the Chicago office" so I could spend more time with my wife in Chicago. They were very supportive. The entire org cared us, and sincerely put our career in priority. Every Friday 7:30PM we ate pizza and watched founders' TGIFs hosted in California. It was an unconventional company.
The day before this Luna New Year's Eve, I was waken up by my wife around 2:30AM telling me to check my email. We are still not sure how she woke up exactly minutes after the email. It was difficult to process when sleep deprived. Heck it would probably take a really long time to digest everything. We are still celebrating the New Year and the Spring Festival. I don't know how I would feel going back to work on Monday. One thing became obvious, it is now just a conventional company. After the founders left, you can feel it stronger every year.
I can still enjoy working on my team and enjoy the work I do. But I start to question the long term purpose of it. I guess I set my 2023’s theme to be the Year of Purpose for a reason. I hope I can figure it out.
I'm upset. Happy the Year of Rabbit.