It took me 55 minutes to walk from my mother-in-law Beth’s back to our house after dinner. It was dusk but I didn’t get rained on, I got home before dark. There’s a part of the walk that goes up… Read More ›
work identity
Six days in hell one May, Las Vegas
I needed a win pretty badly. I’d just gotten off a project from two years that really never went anywhere. I didn’t realize there’s a skill not only to leading projects but killing them or figuring out how to get… Read More ›
Sketch of a Volvo 740 taken from driveway
It took long enough, but it finally hit 70 in Seattle. In the morning driving in how the mist clung to the trees, and it was Double Stamp Wednesday at the coffee shop, and when I left work about noon… Read More ›
‘To become one with whatever one does’
My first day consulting, it had been almost two years since I last worked. They welcomed me in, and the office reminded me of where I’d been so many years before. They were nice and we had lunch together in… Read More ›
“Rain starting in 38 minutes”
When I came down in the morning I didn’t know where Dawn was, the coffee was brewed but she wasn’t in her office or the bathroom and for a moment I imagined her crying, in the dark—but she was just… Read More ›
Song for Friday, Monday, the weekdays
Worked into the tapestry of life is work itself, it’s inseparable, in fact it will loosen and destroy the fabric of life in its absence the way pests get into the woodwork or wardrobe and ruin you with holes. Work… Read More ›
Blue in green: Monday, January 23
I got too close to my car, which is never good (emotionally attached), probably starting to identify with it falling apart, the inexplicable warning lights flickering going up steep hills, knowing it was only a matter of time. And I… Read More ›
Nothing perfect or terrible
We drove down to London from Stratford mid-January, found our place, parked, confirmed the length of our stay with the manager who warned the time would go by fast, which was fine by me: we’d been out of our house… Read More ›
A message for a Golem one morning
Clouds spun out in pillowy strands, like cotton candy. The frozen leaves on the rhododendrons collapsed in on themselves like umbrellas. They had a copy of The Corrections in the lending library on the dead end street so I nabbed… Read More ›
The speed of coffee and music, marketing serene
My last project at Starbucks was to address the move toward slow coffee, or as it’s called, the Third Wave. A strategy guy shared a deck with us he pitched to the board demonstrating why Starbucks had to act, the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 