I worked at Red Hat's office in Mountain View up until about a year ago. I remember once when I was at the San Jose airport a stranger struck up a conversation with me and asked me where I worked. When I told him he said, "They're still around?" That's what it's like working for Red Hat.

Mind you, things were pretty good for me in those days. I had moved in with Linda and it looked like we had an endless future ahead of us. Linda still calls me now and then because she's still trying to figure out why I suddenly decided that things wouldn't work between us. She couldn't understand what she perceived to be a rash and irrational decision. She wanted to build a step-by-step framework that explained exactly how I arrived at the point where I sat her down and calmly explained that I had to go.

The thing is that Linda is not going to find what she is looking for. I made the decision on a hunch, if that's what you want to call it. Perhaps it was intuition. But there's no logical explanation for what I did. I woke up one morning, went to work, came home, and then told her it was over between us. That's about as much as I can tell you. It felt like a normal enough day at first. And then, quite suddenly, it wasn't.

Things at Red Hat were always chaotic. The company would get behind a certain initiative and then change its mind and start on another project. Or, that is to say, there were multiple projects going on at once, and they could fall in and out of favour with the guys on top at a moment's notice. Of course we got our instructions from Raliegh, which made the situation even more confusing. Messages would arrive via email that explained clearly and calmly that entire projects that folks had spent months working on were to be scrubbed and forgotten. Occasionally we'd get a phone call. But usually this stuff came by email.

Oxley had been with the firm since they opened up the Mountain View office, so he was used to this sort of thing. I remember telling him about the encounter I had at the airport once when we were going over a client's case in the break room. "We might as well not exist as far as most people concerned, " Oxley said. "I don't see why it should bother you."

"Perception is important, " I said. "If people think we're good as gone, we're not exactly going to have an easy time attracting business."

"But this was just one guy at the airport, " Oxley said.

"The thing is that he looked like our typical customer, " I said.

"How do you know what our typical customer looks like?" Oxley asked me.

"It's like taking a poll, " I said. "You get a random opinion and it tells you something about what other people are thinking. And he struck me as the kind of person who would use our services. He was in sales. I don't remember the name of the company."

"Well, you set him straight, " Oxley said. "He can go tell his friends the big news."

"You know how things are out here, " I said. "Companies come and go. We don't know what's going on."

"So they shut us down, " Oxley said. "Why worry about what might happen?"

"It's not instability I'm worried about, " I said.

"I think maybe it is, " Oxley said.

"I'll go somewhere else, " I said. "That's fine with me. I'll send out resumes. I'll go a convention and make new friends and call them up and tell them that I'm looking. They'll tell me about an opening that's coming up and that they really shouldn't be telling me about it but since I'm asking they'll pull some strings with me and get me an interview and put in a good word for me."

Oxley opened the folder he brought with him to the break room. "We have to get to this, " he told me. "The CTO called me the other day. He says he's still not happy with the technical support they're getting."

"That's Raleigh's problem, " I said. "They need to give us the resources."

"There was an incident, " Oxley said. "He didn't know all of the details. But his network guy got into an argument with one of our people."

"Who was it?" I asked. "I bet it was Hughes. Tell me it was Hughes."

"They didn't get the name, " Oxley said.

"They should have asked, " I said. "There's nothing we can do without a name."

"The problem is that this reflects badly on us, " Oxley said. "It's not important who it was that started the fight."

"So now you're concerned about our reputation, " I said. "Some anonymous guy in the airport thinks we're out of business and you don't see it as a problem. But Hughes does what he always does and suddenly it's an issue."

"You're not making any sense, " Oxley told me.

"You're getting old, " I told Oxley. "You must me older than me by, what, a decade?"

"More than that I'm sure, " Oxley said.

"I think your judgment has been compromised, " I said. "You've been here for too long. I can't believe how long you've been here. Nobody can believe it. Ask anyone around here. They're shocked that you've stuck around so long."

"Hughes isn't the problem here, " Oxley told me. "You're all wrong about this."

"You see Hughes as someone to be managed, " I said. "You sit him and down explain to him what he's done wrong and then we keep on going as if nothing has happened."

"I know there are issues with Hughes, " Oxley said.

"Let me tell you a story, " I said. "I'm working late one night. I mean I'm here until nearly midnight. So I'm heading out the door and I'm right behind Hughes, because he's working the late shift that day. So I decide on a whim to follow him. You know, he gets in his car and takes off, and I'm right there behind him. This is crazy, right? Because it's late and there's not much traffic on the road. But then he gets on the 101 so it's a little easier to blend in. We go all the way to South San Francisco before he gets off. So I'm still on his tail and he takes a few twists and turns and he pulls into this little strip mall with a boarded-up gas station in front. You know, one of those places that's just waiting for some developer to come in and tear it down. Except that there's a bar in the corner that's still open. There's a dry cleaning place and a law office, but they're both closed. The bar is still open, though, and that's where Hughes is heading."

"None of this is important, " Oxley said.

"You have to let me finish, " I told him. "So I don't want to follow him in, right? Because he'd spot me for sure. This place is a hole in the wall. So what I do is I pull around the old gas station and park so that I can see inside, but I'm hidden pretty well. If he sees anything he won't know it's me unless he gets out and takes a closer look. So of course I'm hoping that he doesn't do that. Anyway, he sits down at a table near a window, so I get a good view of him. And as soon as he sits down these two other guys from inside the bar come down and sit with him. So they're all there like they do this all the time. And then Hughes reaches down and I assume he's opening his briefcase here. What I mean is that he pulls out a folder and it must have been something he took with him from work, because I saw him walk in to the bar with the briefcase and nothing else."

"So what do you think he's doing?" Oxley asked me. "You want me to report him?"

"I'm not saying anything, " I said. "I'm not even saying that any of this happened. But let's say it did. Let's say that Hughes is giving out company secrets and one of our competitors has inside knowledge about what we're up to. Wouldn't that concern you?"

Oxley leaned back in his chair. "So are you telling me that this actually happened? Or are you making it all up?"

"I'm not saying either way, " I said. "What I am saying is that Hughes is a problem. Clearly he's a problem. I'm telling you this story and you think maybe it's true. You don't even know. You have no judgment. That was my original point."

Oxley shook his head and tapped the open file on the table. "Enough stories, " he said. "We have a real problem to deal with."

There's something about Hughes that I’m forgetting to mention though. On my last day at work he actually dropped by my workstation. This was a long time after the technical support incident. We never pinned that one on Hughes, and things went on after that as if the whole thing never happened. I think Oxley went to go meet representatives from the company to make a formal apology. But that was it.

Anyway, I'm packing up my stuff at my desk and Hughes comes by and he leans against a cubicle wall. "I think this is the first time I've ever been here, " he said to me.

"You were here once before, " I said. "A while back. You had a question about something."

"I don't remember that, " Hughes said.

"I don't remember any of the details, " I told him. "I just remember that you were here."

Hughes rapped a fist against the hard plastic lining of the wall. "So you're making your escape, " he said.

"I wasn't planning on it, " I said. "An offer came in. A friend of mine works for a marketing firm and the pay is good."

"But you were looking, " Hughes said. "What I mean is that this friend of your makes you this offer. So he must have known that you were looking."

"My life's been a bit crazy lately, " I said. "I wasn't specifically looking to leave. I think I said something about wanting a change. That's what I told this person, I mean. But I didn't necessarily mean a change in employment."

"You're a bachelor now, I hear, " Hughes said.

"That's an unbelievably strange way of putting it, " I said.

"There's gossip going around the office, " Hughes said.

"I know how these things work, " I said.

Hughes paused for a moment. "I was married for a while, " he then said. "Years ago. I can't believe how long ago it was, now that I think about it."

"Things don't work out sometimes, " I said.

"It was my fault, " Hughes said. "Probably you're not surprised to hear that."

"I'm a bit surprised to hear you admit it, " I said.

"You do lose something when something like that happens, " Hughes said. "A part of you dies. I know that sounds trite. But it's true."

"I believe it, " I said.

"So you think a change of scenery will make you feel better, " Hughes said.

"I'm not aiming to feel better, " I said. "But you never know."

"It was my fault completely, " Hughes said. "It's crazy to think about that. We could still be together. I made it end."

"Maybe you're better off, " I said.

"I don't think so, " Hughes said. "But I think she's better off. I guess that's a good thing."

"Probably it is, " I said.

"Maybe so, " Hughes said.

The funny thing is that Red Hat is still around. I thought it would be gone within the year after I left. I still think I'll wake up tomorrow morning and hear that it's disappeared. Here one moment and gone then next. That's the way these things work, at least some of the time. More of then than you'd think.