I left my job in Melbourne yesterday in preparation to leave the country on Monday.
My colleagues and I had drinks at a local, noisey bar where they presented me with a gift and kind, funny words. I said a few words too - loud so they could hear me over the shitty bar music.
"Thank you for saving my life. For being the defibrulator that started my heart when I didn't even know that my last job had nearly stopped it beating."
They gave me an over sized envelope I opened on the last train home after all the drinking was done. Out tumbled photos and notes - individual photos of my colleages and a personal, wonderful, lovely note from each one of them. A dozen pages of words that unlocked tears of sadness and proudness and gladness at the opportunity I had of getting to know such a stunningly generous group of talented people.
Gawd, I've only been there six months and the impression they have made on my life has been profound.
I was thinking last week about common traits that we shared that made us all work together so well as a collective. One that stood out for all of us was this crazy need to work at something to get it done, to get it right, to put it before everything else. To work more hours than we were paid to work, to push through into the nights and the weekends, to be the one who is still pounding on the keyboard in a car in the supermarket carpark, while our friends are inside buying provisions for the Easter weekend camping trip, because the soloution is so, so close and others are depending on it.
That sounds a bit crazy - but it's also the level of committment (and craziness) that we all shared. That and the humour; the support; the loyalty. For the love of pixels; for the beauty of code; the drive to find solutions; the desire to make things.
I have been very, very lucky to be part of this something this special for the last six months.