Let me say right now, this piece isn’t really about Pinterest or BO.LT or copyright or companies that look like Pinterest. It’s about the way we react to things, and how eager we are to be the one to speak first instead of being the first to speak thoughtfully. I’m as guilty of this as the next person. I see the backlash against Jonathan Franzen for his remarks about Twitter, and it’s easy to jump on the #JonathanFranzenHates bandwagon because there’s momentum. I may not agree with how he says things (because I find it alienating and polarizing, but really that’s more his problem than anyone else’s, and if he doesn’t see it as a problem, why do we care? But I digress…) — still, I have to admit I can empathize with the essence of what he says. Or rather, I fear it.

I fear we have made it so easy to fall into action that we have lost the ability to choose not to act. I wonder if we even ask ourselves why we feel or act in a particular way before jotting off a snappy 140-character retort. Like, why does it bother me that Jonathan Franzen says “[Twitter's] the ultimate irresponsible medium. People I care about are readers … particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.” Well, it’s probably because I feel defensive about my own perception. Will you think I’m not a serious reader or writer because I’m on Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare and Highlight and Path and and and…? I don’t think I want to be one of Franzen’s people…but shit, maybe I secretly do? And suddenly it’s about me, not about him, and I’m glad I can recognize that before tweeting something full of witty brilliance about what #JonathanFranzenHates.

In the startup world, we’ve gone giddy for concepts like lean startup and minimum viable product. Yes, you need to get shit out the door. I get that as much as the next person. But, in execution, it looks more like I don’t know what we’re supposed to do but holy fuck let’s go do something now and we’ll figure out the next step in 2 days, rather than, I’ve thought about the problem and while we don’t have all the data, this is the plan I want to follow for the next 2 months.

I digress and digress and digress. Okay, let’s talk about Pinterest. They have a beautiful UI. I’m sure they were influenced by other objects and concepts in the physical and digital worlds, but that doesn’t matter. They created it for themselves and they shared it with the rest of us. Other sites are now using that UI as a way to shape and display their content. The UI is not the product. The product is the product.

I’m going to talk about poetry because I think about nearly all things in terms of language as a way to make sense of it. There are many poetic forms out there, and it’s probably impossible to pinpoint who invented any of them. And I would bet that whoever invented the sonnet or the ghazal or the pantoum didn’t think they owned it, nor would they have wanted to. Language is for the people. And when I say language, I also mean paint, and fabric, and food and clay and whatever building block pleases you and fills you with joy. Even CSS, as it may be.

If anyone thinks Elizabeth Bishop ripped off whoever first “invented” the villanelle when she wrote One Art, I will punch them in the face. Anything that can do for people what that poem does is free from human pettiness, or should be. And that’s the thing, isn’t it already more than we can hope for to create something brilliant that is inspired by something else brilliant, and share it with the world? And in return, could the world not be full of haters who are more interested in snark than praise?

Okay, let’s get meta. I read recently that over 80% of the content on Pinterest was repins. EIGHTY PERCENT. Staggering, and yet it makes sense. We have distilled the internet to be one click. One click to buy, to like, to copy. We do this knowingly, happily, intentionally. As a product person, I think all the time about instant gratification. Greasing every single action so it’s easier to stick with us than to leave. But what the hell are we doing to humanity in the process?

Are we supposed to try to create products that make you think before acting? I’m seriously asking the question. I suspect that is the wrong solution, simply because nobody would use or buy it so what’s the point, but I raise the question because I think it’s our collective problem. By our, I mean you and me and the rest of the human race. I worry we’re losing (or running away from) the ability to think critically and tenderly about a problem. Underscore tenderly, as in gently, with empathy, with a lot of fucking heart. For better or worse, this is the shit that keeps me up at night. How will it get better? Are we magically going to turn away from Farmville and Facebook and Twitter and sit somewhere quiet to think about a complex problem that doesn’t have an immediate solution? I confess I started reading Marilynne Robinson’s essay in Guernica a few days ago and found it so taxing on my brain that I had to save it for later. I don’t know if I’ll return to it. I don’t particularly want to, it wasn’t satisfying to not just get it in the way that I totally get this tweet: “How about book ppl stop talking abt #JonathanFranzenhates & discuss something important, like the top 12 author beards.” And yet I think it’s important (no, vital!) that we return to the things we don’t understand until we can understand them just a tiny bit more.

Back to Pinterest and repins. Can anyone appreciate the meta-ness of the site that is getting copied being essentially a big bucket of copies? I mean, this is what humans do. We advance because we build on top of work that other people did. There is an undeniable beauty to feeling as if you’ve created something by retweeting, retumbling, repinning, and yes, even rebolting. Curation is a valid form of expression. But, not to state the obvious, we all know it wasn’t invented for or by the internet, right? (I wonder how art curators feel about how the word curation has been snatched from their delicate, discriminating fingers.) To take this argument one step further, 99.9999% of us have not and will never create anything from scratch. It’s simply impossible, and that’s a beautiful thing. We have so much that’s been created to assist and inspire us already, so why are we still so attracted to own things and believe that we were the first and only person to ever think of such a masterpiece? It’s absurd and narcissistic. Great artists are falling all over themselves to name the people who helped them unlock another realm of creativity and possibility in their work. Why can’t those of us who are building something to sell act in kind?

Alright — what’s the point of writing this? I’m not sure, I just know I’m sick of all this noise that doesn’t matter, and I wonder why we all contribute to it. I have to believe I’m not the only person who’s had their fill of this vapor. It’s utterly valueless and I feel hollow thinking about it. Let’s just go create good things. Let’s be kind to each other. Or rather, step 1 — let’s not be unkind to each other. No, step 0 — ask yourself if what you’re about to do or say makes your life or anybody else’s better. If not, what’s the point? If not, go do something else. Or think about it for awhile, maybe even a long while. And then say and do and create meaningful things. Onward and upward.

When I think about how I approach the rest of my life though, I find myself trying to hedge more and put preventative measures in place. I’d like to get to the point where I’m not constructing to avoid pain and can instead find a way for fear to simply be the complement to all the good problems I’d like to have. And then I move forward.

You know that feeling when you’ve been on vacation a few days, and then it kicks in that you’re in a vacation state of mind? That’s how I felt during a conversation at dinner in Manhattan when somebody was talking about Google Buzz. I think it went something like this:

Him: “What’s this Buzz stuff? I can’t seem to make it go away…tell me the secret.”

Me: “Um, well it’s sort of like Twitter, but more private. It’s cool…”

Him: “Huh? I don’t want that in my email. Also, why is Google telling me to make phone calls from Gmail? Why the f*ck would I want to make calls from my email?”

In that moment, I remembered that most people don’t care about whether Google is going to kill Skype or how Facebook Places compares to Foursquare. In fact, most people have never heard of either, and they continue on in their daily lives quite happily.

A few days later, at my friend’s wedding, I met a lot of interesting people, none of whom were in technology. I found myself trying to explain software-as-a-service at one point, and then realized that I had no interest in talking about technology at all, and wow did it feel refreshing! Instead, we talked about education and affordable housing and shared personal stories, and some people even talked about how much they didn’t like their jobs. Somehow I feel that doesn’t happen all that much in San Francisco. We either have the best jobs in the world, or we’re never actually not working when we’re excitedly talking about the next feature or product we’re building.

I love technology and I love San Francisco, but it felt really good to be reminded that there’s a whole lot more out there too.

There was intrigue, drama, and mystery, and then the post went *poof* in the day. Instead, people saw a bunny with a pancake on his head. They were pleased and yet not. Life went on, but Lily felt unhappy about the missing post.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Today, the post is back. Not for controversy or more intrigue, but because I thought long and hard about its content, and the larger topic of writing publicly, and it didn’t and doesn’t make any sense to take it down. Am I ever going to write a post that trashes a single person or company? Definitely not. But can I write a post about what I’ve experienced and observed that leaves interpretations open to the reader? Absolutely. At the end of the day, isn’t that what all great writing is about?

I would love for those on the other side of the fence (hiring managers, *maybe* my former employers ) to comment. As a postscript to my previous post, a former manager who I respect and like very much once told me that he couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t get bored in another 6 months to a year if he promoted me. It was a fair assessment, and helped move me toward the conclusion that I really needed to move on to another role and company entirely. I appreciated the counsel he gave me, and I really believe that that type of open dialogue makes a workplace a hell of a lot more happy.

So enjoy, there will be no more posts that go *poof* on this site.

- Lily

1) Your employee takes a lot of private calls in the conference room/empty offices. This one’s definitely ambiguous. Maybe they’re taking some recruiting calls, maybe they just got a new boyfriend they really like. It’s a tough call, but it might be time to pay closer attention.

2) Your employee talks about being so busy with work, but they don’t seem to be working that hard. It seems curious when your employee never has any free time, and yet, their workload hasn’t increased. There’s a reason though. It’s because they’re working hard on their resume and networking.

3) Your employee starts dressing like it’s their first day on the job again. Oops! This probably means they’re already out interviewing. Did they get in late? Take a long lunch? Leave work early to feed the dog? Yep, they are beginning to sniff around.

4) Your employee takes a lot of personal days at the beginning of the year. As everybody knows, you want to meter out your personal days evenly throughout the year in case something comes up and you need some time off. If your employee starts burning through all their days at the start of the year, it probably means they’re not planning on sticking around much longer. Letting your personal days run out means you’re committed to the idea of leaving.

5) Your employee says they’re unhappy. Ding ding ding! This list is not in chronological order. In my personal experience, I’ve always given off this bell first, but employers like to play chicken. I’ve heard all the reasons – it’s a down economy, no job will ever pay as well, this is the best job you’ll ever get, you should be satisfied, there will be opportunities down the road. Here’s the problem, none of those reasons matter when you have a smart, motivated and ambitious employee who wants to continue to learn and be challenged.

So here’s the lesson I hope to leave you with – your best people will always have opportunities elsewhere, no matter what’s going on with the economy or industry. If you can be just as successful without them, then continue to ignore the signs. But no complaining when the inevitable happens, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

None of this is to say that employers should take the Google route of algorithmically trying to detect who’s more likely to leave. At the end of the day, I think you’re probably not doing a stellar job as a manager if you need a program to tell you when your employee’s looking to leave instead of just listening to them and looking out for the glaring signs above. It’s also both the employer’s and employee’s responsibility to examine whether they’re doing right for the employee and the company. I really respect managers who acknowledge that taking another opportunity is a better choice for somebody, even when it means their own team is going to take a hit. Got other warning signs to look out for? Add them in the comments – here’s to a happy workplace!