The best laid plans…
At the end of July, 2016, I packed up all my things, said
goodbye to the town I was born in, the cities and state I grew up in, and
headed north to seek what I thought would be a much better life. Some place
where you didn’t need to earn $100,000 to afford a three hundred square foot
apartment in a ghetto, or have to commute two hundred miles a day through first
rate awful traffic. I wanted to live some place that a guy like me could find
some pride in; where his work was valued as useful and important, not as a second-class
worker to a desk jockey who bangs away on a keyboard (on the days he decides to
actually show up to the office) and then catches a shuttle to his $850,000
condo for craft beer and gluten free Prosciutto
nibblers.
But most
importantly I wanted to live in a place where culture still existed. Some place
where creativity still ran, communities still came together, and where art and
life blended together in such a way that not only could you not see the end of
one for the beginning of another, but you were hard pressed to even want to try.
I was looking for a somewhere that was built off my past, but still moving
forward to a potentially bright future.
So I pointed
the car north, drove nine hundred miles, and fourteen hours later I arrived in
Seattle, Washington to find that; yes, there was just a place like I had always
dreamed of! There were traditional looking homes and neighborhoods, with busy
streets full of shops spanning what I could only describe as a bumpy Los
Angeles squished into a mountain forest.
The air was
clean, the sky was (mostly, when it wasn’t raining,) blue, and each district of
this huge city was bustling with art, community, and culture that, though very
different from area to area, still united itself in a common identity. Having
been over a lot of this country I had found a place quite unique to itself that
had everything that the second tech boom had pushed out of my native San
Francisco Bay Area. I was in love.
Too bad that
Seattle didn’t love me back.
That’s not to
say that I didn’t receive a warm welcome from the folks I met, conversed with,
and mealed together. I did. In fact, it was funny to find that almost half the
folks I had run into were, themselves, from some other place. (Ironic that as
we all run to escape gentrification hell and the ruin it’s bringing to our
homes, natives of King County are fleeing their homes because of us.)
No, the people
and places up here are wonderful, inviting, and full of hospitality. However,
not so much the same for its job market.
I have a very
typical Silicon Valley resume. That is, to say, that it’s full of a lot of
lay-offs and contract gigs that have come and went. (Also some resignations,
though I have never been fired, or put into a position where it was quit or be
fired.) As a Facilities Manager for Silicon Valley corporations my career path
is not, in any reasonable way, upwardly mobile. And, like others in corporate
fields that relate to tech, jobs usually are for two to five years and then you’re
on to the next one. (I once was hired to a company that was bought by a larger
company the week I came onboard, and was laid off only a few months later.)
My resume does
show expanding skill sets and responsibilities with each new position, but like
most it’s full of a few years here, a few years there. In contrast, I’m
learning first hand that this is very unique to Silicon Valley. Here, for
example, it’s common for someone to start as an employee in the mailroom and
one day, fifteen years later, find themselves managing a division; often in
another part of the company from where they started. Back home the only two
kinds of employees who have been with a company fifteen years are either they
guy in the mailroom – who’s been there the whole time because he’s never felt
compelled to challenge himself, or was an original founder of the company and
just hasn’t sold their shares yet. (There are notable exceptions, of course;
but in Silicon Valley people who stay at a company that long really are very
notable exceptions.)
Worse; you just
can’t explain Silicon Valley business to someone who isn’t, for lack of a better
term, “Silicon Valley”. It’s not for malice, much, as just the simple fact that
it’s so foreign… so alien… that they just can’t wrap their minds around it. So,
what looks like a busy and productive contractor to someone who might hire me
back home appears to be a job-hopping vagabond to anyone else.
And then, of
course, there’s the typical stereotyping of a Silicon Valley worker. On more
than one occasion I’ve had interviews go south when they figured on my being
some kind of IT guru; which I am not. (I do know maybe enough to be a little
useful in assisting said IT guru, but punching in a network is not the same as administrating
it.)
When I moved up
to Seattle I had a solid plan, three months of full resources, a place to lay
at
night, and a (dead and broken) heart full of passion to make myself a
resident of Washington and the Pacific Northwest for however long my precarious
life had left. Five months later I am broke, massively in debt, and heading
back home to face not only the personal shame of failure (Yes, I know; many
things are learned in failure, so it’s not wholly a negative experience.), but
a region that has become so toxically unlivable for the average worker that
even $100,000 a year tech workers now pile four or five deep into homes, or
commute hundred miles a day to their jobs because only about five percent of
the employed work force can afford to live and work in the same town.
To its credit,
Seattle, and the surrounding counties, are beautiful; filled with nature, a
cleaner environment, culture, history, and its own sense of identity that isn’t
just charming, but down right seductive to anyone who, though liking some of
what modern living offers, really would like to reconnect to the promises of
the future we had in, say, the 1980’s. (I know, I know; but go with it, will
you? It’s about the only way I can think on to explain how it feels… to me, at
least.)
And I’m really
glad I got to see it and experience it; it only has, maybe, another six years
left. As of today, the same roots are growing deep into Seattle and the
surrounding area that eventually brought about the end of the San Francisco and
Silicon Valley mystique. They’re growing, and fast (Second fastest in 2015, if
I remember correctly.) with new companies and new jobs and opportunities. And
that’d be great, but coming along with that is quickly rising housing costs as
new developments are rising up everywhere; stark, sleek, and impersonal
constructs that scar the quaint settings of old American neighborhoods.
This is a place
where a $65,000 annual salary would have you in a home and comfortably on your
way to a fun and family filled retirement. (Most folks don’t actually make
anywhere near that, and as of a couple years ago, didn’t even need to because
the cost of living was in balance with income up here… mostly.) Now many I’ve
come to know and talk with at length are seeing, very rapidly, their checks not
going as far as they used to. Slowly, frighteningly, Seattle is becoming the
new Silicon Valley.
I hope that
Seattle, King County, and even the Washington state, will find a way to push
back against the tech cancer. (Note: tech isn’t inherently evil. Nor are some
of its workers. But runaway growth is still a cancer.) I hope they’ll find a
way to create and foster a balance between what the markets can buy and pay
for, and the happiness, health, and prosperity of its people. I’d hate to lose
this place a second time when I return to, at least, visit.
As for myself?
Well, I’m heading home; beaten and broken. I have a lot of rebuilding to do.
All my resources are gone. My health is a touch dodgy. And, with other events
of the past three hundred and sixty five days added to the mess, my personal
outlook on life has become rather dark. (Bleak is another good word that you
could use there, too.)
But I am taking
home five incredible months of adventure, food and drink, wonderful people I
have met, and amazing places I have seen and been to. I don’t know what my future
will hold past today, but I want it to, once again, include King County, and
its cities and towns like Seattle, Everett, Bremerton, Park Orchard, and – of course
– Pike Place Market. I left California after forty two years and thought of it
as a found memory. I will look back at five months in King County and be really
homesick.
One day I’ll be
back. One day…
