Moving to the bay

Queers and Steers

As a Texan, and a lesbian, I knew eventually I’d end up in California. That’s what we do. We leave Texas, and go west. I’ve spent the past four years hundreds of miles north in Portland, OR working remotely for various companies. I loved the trees, and the few amazing friends I made there, but found it hard to get through the long, lonely winters. It didn’t help that most of my jobs were remote—Portland has a burgeoning tech scene, but in general jobs haven’t kept up with rising cost of living. Working remotely meant rent was easier to pay, but that most of my world existed elsewhere. This all changed when my last company, my favorite job ever, shut down and went to work for Slack. I joined in the fun. Working for Slack, for me, also meant moving to the bay.

Fast as you can

From the time I knew I had a job at Slack, to moving was all of two weeks. I started as soon as I could to ensure I didn’t run out of cash, and with the help of a moving company, all my stuff was packed-up and shipped the Saturday before my second week of work. Sunday meant driving Snorri, my friend Amanda, and some clothes for 10 hours to my new home near an IKEA. It was a pretty drive, despite all the wild rain, and switchbacks. Snorri yelled intermittently.

Eventually, we arrived, quickly looted an IKEA for a few chairs, and set up my weird apartment. My stuff wouldn’t arrive for 2 weeks, so I was living that cool spy life until then.

A month flew by

This week is my 5th at Slack, and I’ve already learned so much. My coworkers are rad as hell, the office is unbelievable, and for the first time in years I get to work on a product I’ve used since its inception—one that I earnestly love to use. Slack is where my friends live, where I talk to my chosen family. Slack is how I interact, increasingly, with every app that I use. It’s still amazing to me that I get to work there, and influence how API features and partnerships are built out. Seriously. Wow.

Snorri is still settling in, it feels like, especially due to his insistence that daylight savings doesn’t exist, and we must still eat breakfast at dawn. I think he misses his friend, Prince, but hopefully he’ll get a new one sooner than later. For a little while, I worried he’d get sick because he wasn’t eating much, but now he seems to love a variety of wet food, and even his fancy cat fountain. He’s still getting used to me working out of the house every day, and seems to relish my semi-shut-in status while the smoke from the horrific fires in California rage in the north and south of my new state.

Bay life

I’m looking forward to exploring the city more, finding tons of plants to outfit my place, and enjoying regular sunlight soon. It’s great to know so many of my friends live here, and now I can see them more than the once a month I spent here before moving to the bay. In addition to just wandering, I hope to get a few museum memberships, and get involved in the arts and music scene in a way I didn’t feel able to in Portland. I’ll miss the evergreens, and my friends, but so far this feels like a very good move.