Tripod: Messages from the Staff

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Late August/early September in Williamstown is a time of transition. Aspiring showbiz types from the Williamstown Theatre Festival move out as a new crop of Williams College freshfolk move in. The retirees that populate the town's golf courses and restaurants during the summer months head for warmer climates as the first frost threatens. It's a time of last nights and first nights, of packing up and setting up, of farewell dinners and welcome back kegs.<p> This year's transition was an especially poignant one for me. My girlfriend left Williamstown to start medical school in another state. Her departure marked a transition from our being together to being apart. And for her, it marked a transition from a leisurely summer spent painting houses to a committed six years of advanced studies. We decided to spend our last weekend together in Williamstown doing the things we enjoyed most: dining out, sipping martinis on the porch at Mezze (the local watering hole), and swimming in one of the town's many rivers. <p> For the site of the summer's last meal, we chose The Captain's Table, the poorly decorated but welcoming local lobster joint. The Table, as it is affectionately called, is not one of our normal haunts -- nor is it popular among Williamstown's young crowd. Those were two good reasons to put up with the staticky music and tacky nautical ambience; we thought that perhaps a night of drawn butter and moist towelettes would be best spent away from the watchful eyes of our peers. <p> Wrong. As soon as we sat down we were greeted by a group of friends a few tables away. They had recently ditched their high-paying consulting jobs and moved to Silicon Forest (read: Williamstown) to start an Internet company. The three of them were in full sales mode, trying to convince another frustrated consultant to join in them in their Kierkegaardian leap of faith -- a transition from the world of week-to-week banality to the world of week-to-week survival. <p> After a full Wetnap bath, we ventured to Mezze. Right away, we noticed -- way over in the corner -- another friend, an associate professor at Williams. We'd been out of touch with him for some time, and it looked as though he had plenty to tell us. We opened up with our sob story and quickly learned that we were not alone. He, too, was going through a transition. His girlfriend had just decided to give up the footloose lifestyle of freelance writing to take a job as an editor at a stodgy New York City publishing firm -- a transition from the world of week-to-week survival to the world of week-to-week banality. <p> The next morning (you didn't think I was going to tell you what we did after Mezze, did you?) we headed out to our favorite swimming hole. It's pretty remote. We almost never see anyone there, and we were looking forward to a little meaningful time together... <p> "Hey guys, what's up?" <p> It was another friend. How nice. <p> "Have you guys been to the swimming hole up the road? It's as good as this one." <p> We decided to follow. We quickly learned that he, too, was in transition, cherishing his last day before returning to classes at Williams. He had worked at Tripod as an intern and was headed back to school for one last year -- a transition from the world of incredibly inspiring, self-fulfilling, life-affirming, pioneering, if-I-were-more-on-the-bleeding-edge-I'd-be-dead work to the world of academics. <p> Later that day, my girlfriend and I parted ways -- she in her packed car going south and me in my packed car going north. I had decided that a few days hanging out with my family in New Hampshire would help ease my transition. On the way up, I reflected on my last day in Williamstown. What struck me was that, despite the personal nature of my own experience, my last day was nothing but a condensed version of these two weeks of seemingly universal transition in Williamstown. And that these two weeks are but a condensed version of life as a young person -- always transitioning: from school to work or from work to school, from company to company or from company to your own company, and from relationship to relationship...and sometimes back again. <p> This is why we started Tripod; to help people like us make these tough transitions and succeed and be happy during a time of life when, if you're lucky enough to have a rug, you can be sure it will be pulled out from under you soon. And it's nice to know that after all the sophisticated technology, high-priced conferences, venture capital, strategic partnerships and investment banks, I still feel these transitions in a very real and personal way. <p> Take care.<br> -- <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/business-html/anchor_bo.html">bo</a> <p> <br clear="all"> <hr width="330"> <p> <center>Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>.</center> <p> <hr width="330"> </blockquote> <br> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>