July 8, 2020: Of Identity, Companies, And Where I Work

As the facilities manager of Steve Jackson Games, I have a lot of diverse responsibilities. Some are more fun than others, like working with vendors to install great big solar arrays or flying my drone over the property to check the roofs and the many trees on the property. Some of the less fun tasks include rebuilding hot water heaters and removing rust from our storage containers out back.

I'd like to share one of those behind-the-scenes tasks with you today. Just before Austin's stay-home order came in, I removed the Eye in the Pyramid from the warehouse wall. It was waterjet cut when it was attached to the building more than 10 years ago. Its finish, having been exposed to the Texas sun for years, was tarnished and even rusted in many places. I took it to a friend's hangar and we sandblasted all the old paint and rust away, revealing a really cool bare metal finish. That done, it went to a powder coating place north of Austin. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago, and its new finish is surely a thing to behold. Shiny and new!

Symbols, icons, and flags help us maintain a sense of identity, as a company, a city, a sports team, or even a nation. For the last several weeks, many of us have had little contact with each other, and many are struggling with that sense of identity and community. I hope that as time goes by, we all do our best to stay in touch with our own identities, taking pride in the things that reinforce our strengths and taking steps to address those that don't. I'm proud of where I work and the work I do here. In the end, my hope is that, like the freshly polished EIP at Steve Jackson Games, we can all clean off the rust and tarnish from our lives, polish and strengthen what remains, and come out shiny and new for the new decade. Let's not let the first half of 2020 set the tone for our future, shall we?

-- Eric Dow