The Quiet, and a Trip Down My Corporate Memory Lane

An update, from the Desk of the Last Romantic: I went quiet. I should explain. Vulnerably, of course. The only way I know how.

There’s a kind of silence that looks like absence and is actually the opposite — it’s everything happening at once, where you can’t photograph it. Where updates didn’t make sense. When BTS (no, not the band) happens so quickly, so chaotically, overflowing with magic, grit, and pain that even a monthly update felt disingenuous. Every minute I could spend on the update was a minute I could’ve spent building.

But I’ve been reading your messages. And I’ve been saving them in a log to get back to. And I’ve been seeing the subscribers join, and leave — and I understand. To the paid subscribers still here, I have something special for you soon.

So, that’s where I’ve been. Not gone. Just buried in the part of the process that doesn’t make for good content.

Yet.

Well, let’s actually scratch “that’s” where I’ve been. Here’s where I’ve been.

An incredible soul and badass filmmaker, who probably filmed that fancy doc you’re watching on Netflix, and is committed to creating something very, very special with me, at our first pop-up event/shop.

I have a few weeks left at my big tech job. Was I expecting it? Like many folks in tech right now, no. I was truly not.

I keep turning that sentence over in my hands like a stone I found on a walk, not sure yet if I’m going to keep it or set it back down. I had an assessment with another FAANG company and I left the exam on so long it timed out. I just stared at it, trying my best to tune into my gut; brain fogging, alerting my body that I was still simultaneously surviving and healing. Yeah, you need this job, but you must grieve. You must process.

Don’t judge my dusty computer. But this has been my reality for years. Working, then studying. As a minority in Tech who’s here with no degree, I have always had to work what feels like 5x more than my counterparts. But I never gave up. And there’s my dog, Love, waiting very patiently for me to take a break. (Or for her peanut butter ice cream treats that I make, I’m not quite sure).

There’s a particular vertigo to counting down the end of something — even something you’re ready to leave. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t start that way. I will miss my teammates more than I could possibly explain. The past few weeks have been non stop crying sessions — together; alone, and staring at the last words from my manager. “That’s just how the leaves turned out.”

And there’s not much left to say then, is there? As women, we can’t be emotional, or dramatic, or disruptive, or noisy, or human. We can be honest, but not too honest. We can be hurt, but only in perfectly scripted Times New Roman.

I had a lot of thoughts about those words after that interaction. I stared at that sentence for a lot longer than I’d like to admit: It’s kind of easy to say that from a distance. But a lot of things swirled in my head, and none of them were beautiful leaf imagery: Why am I even here, in Texas? How do I cover my medication and doctors without insurance? It’s not comparable coverage. I’m in between apartment hunting. Do I need a job to get a new place?

Wait, I have important dog-clothes-and-books-at-the-office-and-I…

Love then started crying (we are very much in sync), and we went on a walk, and I replayed the past two years.

Everything that I’d miss was the people; not the work. The laughs and late nights debugging. The inside jokes and silly ways I tried to gamify our progress. The shier folks that took me hours of 1:1s to crack open. The tougher folks that pushed back and made me go home and think, “Maybe they’ve got a point.” Earning trust to be the person to vent to and ask advice to. Opening my mailbox and finding Pokemon cards and thank you notes. Letting our dogs talk to each other through Zoom. The coworkers who watched my dog while I was traveling. The list goes on and on…

But most of all, this is a love letter to the sheer brilliance I was able to witness. And the validation that the brightest and most inspiring of them all were the ones who built up my courage to keep building. The ones who sensed my self-doubt as soon as I was shut down, and convinced me to do it anyway.

Me, with no degree. Me, talked down to by so many men and managers in tech throughout my career, I couldn’t even tell you in one sitting. Men who will likely never understand what it feels like to rehearse systems designs and figure out twenty creative ways to present something before doing so, just in case we come off a little too ~something~.

Memory lane even went a bit further back —

Wait, not that further back, but that’s exactly how I felt at this time, lol:

Me, as a Senior Sales Supervisor at 19, managing 40 year olds who laughed at me and made my life a living hell hazing me as I tried to figure out team bonding, KPIs and coaching — all while navigating being married to someone from a different culture, a decade older. I look back at that year with so much regret and laughter, now.

I made my first huge career mistake: I was leaning on the counter of our showroom, and said out-loud: “But we’re meant for more than this, right? Surely, we can dream bigger than this. A full career. You have it in you. We all do.”

And I got promptly written up (rightly so), because Who The Fuck Do You Think You’re Talking To? This IS A Career, You Aloof Dickhead. We Deserve Your Job, We Don’t Trust You. You’re a Horrible Leader. Just Because You Know Numbers And You Know Process Doesn’t Mean You Get Us.

I tried to explain that I’m numbers-driven because I can prove we’re the best team. But it was futile, and I messed up.

Years later, as a seasoned Technical Program Manager, I remember writing a letter to our CTO to fire me instead of three engineers, because I knew I could bounce back faster than them. They don’t know it to this day, but my peers and managers do.

In a matter of just a few years, I evolved into a completely different person, changed by the experience of time, and a sharper understanding of my values.

Love, absolutely ecstatic that I’m leaving.

In change like this, you start asking the big, embarrassing questions again. The ones you’re supposed to have answered by now. What is this all for. What am I actually for.

So I did what I always do when I don’t know the answer. I started writing things down. The good, and the bad. And the bad, was truly really bad. I paid with my health. I spent more time trying to prove myself for a job I already got. It was doomed from the start, and I couldn’t see that, even as my health kept declining.

I’ve been trying to take care of myself. Trying is the honest word. Change is hard for anyone, but for a neurodivergent brain it’s a particular kind of hard: the rerouting, the loss of the old scaffolding, the way every small transition costs more than it looks like it should. I won’t pretend I’ve got it handled. What I will say is that the community I’ve built has carried me through it in ways I didn’t know to expect. I am held, even on the days I’m barely holding.

Like quite literally, at the pharmacy. Lol.

I sat down and wrote out every problem I actually wanted to solve in the world. Not the impressive ones — the true ones. I wanted it to be a compass, something pointing me toward a purpose that sits closer to my values than a title at a company ever could. And the needle kept settling in the same place: indie business owners. Artists. Students. The people making the most original, alive work, who get locked out of the tools that would let the world find them. The people canceled over using AI and the people scared of AI, and scared of tech, and confused about data centers and furious about how communities were being destroyed.

That’s not a market to me. That’s personal. It’s why I offer very subsidized rates to artists, students, and indie entrepreneurs — and if I believe in you, I do it for free. Even at this position of my life, I am currently committed to two clients at zero cost. (If you want to see what the work looks like, or compare what things actually cost for my actual consulting prices and services, it all lives at sukisong.com.)

Doing it this way isn’t a discount strategy. It’s the whole point. I firmly believe that my life decisions, even the most difficult ones were easy to make because I have values that I can’t compromise on. And I believe that everything will work out, if I keep following them.

Now beyond this hurdle, the rest of the season has been louder, in the good way. I’ve been working with my artistic business partner on pop-ups, and we have a brand in the works. I’ve been doing new things: going to fashion shows. I’ve said “maybe” to modeling again.

I’ve been making tangible things — real books, real art, objects you can hold. And yes, also job searching, because the unglamorous truth is I need health care, and pretending otherwise would be its own kind of lie. With less than two months left on my Austin lease, I genuinely don’t know yet where I’ll land next. I’m letting that question stay open a little longer than is comfortable.

But discomfort is something I’ve faced many times before. As a matter-of-fact, this photo was taken by Homeboi, in his then insane living situation amongst chaotic people. Alas, I managed to pick up book.

If you only know me on Substack, this is your invitation to come see the rest: thelastromantic.co. That’s where the worlds meet — the writing and the building, the romantic and the technical, the two halves of me I spent a decade trying to keep in separate rooms. The site itself transforms into its own experience. The shop is being loaded. It’s also where you can request a meet with me and see if you qualify for my volunteer or discounted help in launching a site that’s AI-ready, indexable, and revamp your SEO landscape for you.

To my subscribers: thank you yet again for your patience. For bearing with me through the quiet. There’s only one thing I’ll actually ask of you — if you’re willing and able, share my work with your network. A relocation (even overseas), or networking for any facet of the businesses I’m currently building: those are the unromantic things that make the romantic things possible, and a single introduction from the right person can change the shape of a year.

But mostly, just stay. Bear with me a little longer. Because here’s the one thing I know to be true through every hardship I’ve ever lived: art, writing, and the projects I build have always been my vice — the place I go, the thing that saves me. They’re not going anywhere. And I can’t wait for you to watch it all unfold.

Thank you. All of you. Truly.