I started working at Grafik in the summer of 1997. I had been freelancing at a (horrible) studio in Georgetown and the husband+wife that owned the studio were going on vaca and therefore their studio was basically shutting down for a week or two. I freelanced at Grafik during that downtime and was so impressed at the talent there. This was precisely the level of studio that I had been looking for during the previous two years and I jumped at the opportunity to work there.

During the first 3-1/2 years that I worked there, until I decided to leave, I worked with and became great friends with such a wonderful core group of people and it was definitely a fun collaborative effort and we all worked hard to produce great work. We traveled in a pack socially, taking out new employees for drinks and billiards and to industry events (“The Grafik crowd has arrived.”) It was one of the truly greatest periods in my life. I felt like I was accomplishing something wonderful and the icing on the cake was that I was achieving it with my friends.

I parted ways with the company after 3-1/2 years. Let’s say I didn’t agree with my supervisor and leave it at that. After I left I still maintained very close ties with those that were still at Grafik and established new friendships with those new Grafikers that started working there after I had left. I went to work at other studios and learned new things and made new friends.

In the summer of 2003 I received a call from Grafik asking me if I would be able to come back for a four-month contract. Work was slowing down at the studio I was at, and it seemed the perfect opportunity at just the right time.

I was ecstatic to be back working with the friends I had left and it was great to see everybody again. I was able to hit the ground running, already familiar with the studio’s policies and job flow. I set out on making myself a permanent resident and not just a freelancer. I brought in plants, had my Netflix delivered there and made sure I immersed myself so much within the studio culture that they would not be able to let me go when my four-month contract was up.

It worked. I was re-hired full-time and it was on. The love was a little short-lived although, due to some marriage infidelity and also to coworker/friends moving away to distant cities in 04 and 05. Kristin was the last of the old guard to be there, and she loved to the west coast in 06. It was only me left but that was okay, the work was still good and I still had many old and new friends there, but I feel I was definitely the last of our 90s brat pack.

It’s now 2008 and the country’s economy is in the toilet. Today I went to clear out my office. It took a few hours and I more than filled the trash cans/take home boxes that were left for me. I left small surprise tokens in friends’ offices. I took final views of the Potomac from our 7th floor conference room. I took pictures of the infamous coal pile next door and the DC horizon in the background. I added to our newly founded art wall. I left hidden gifts that no one will find for twenty years. I had a beer, just like I did with Joe B so many years ago after I had recently started. I mistakenly forgot to leave my “G” typeblock on the letter shelf in the reception area (I left this block out front when I left in 2000 yet quietly reclaimed it in 2003). I’ll have a friend sneak it back in there soon; that’s where it belongs.