With a net

When I heard that the Public Buildings Service was getting hit hard yesterday, with entire regions almost entirely shut down, closure of the historical buildings teams and leaked lists of historical buildings on the chopping block, it made me realize that not everyone can get the attention of a laid-off team of techie do-gooders, and I thought a bit about how what we’re doing can help shine more light on what is happening now at GSA and elsewhere and what will be rolling through the rest of the federal government in the coming weeks and months.

I also wonder if we can share some of what we are learning about mutual aid and support in a time like this. The way the 18F team has carried on after being locked out of our jobs has been inspiring. In some ways it could feel a bit like Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam or Wile E. Coyote running headlong off a cliff and continuing to make forward progress as long as we don’t look down.

But I prefer to think of it as a tightrope walk. The safer kind, with a net. And this net is held by all of us. It is actually made out of our personal ties and our trust for each other.

Today I got a direct job lead from an old colleague and friend that I passed along to my erstwhile product team, and other folks in the group shared a couple more good leads among us. We discussed this the other day and agreed that we should all go after any roles that sound appealing and we will all be happy when any one of us lands a new gig.

This is how we uplift each other. This is how we enable ourselves to work together again, sooner or later. This is how everything should work.