In June, a former colleague of mine reached out and invited me to lunch. While dining at a newish Thai place on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, we caught up, chatting a bit on what was going on currently, with our own lives, as well as the state of the world. After discussing how being at Pogo was truly an amazing experience, he brought up an idea he’d been formulating of having a Pogo Picnic, where we invite everyone we could think of to have a picnic at Dolores Park in San Francisco.
I immediately loved the idea. I was absolutely in my element at Pogo, and even back then had an appreciation for how unusual and amazing my work life was, due to the people with whom I worked. It felt to me like a really collaborative atmosphere, where anyone could pitch an idea, and people would take it seriously. The success of Pogo certainly helped.
He asked me if I’d be interested in helping plan it out, and I was in. We’d keep it pretty simple, make it less of a “reunion” and more of a “hangout”, and have a moment where we talked about that time.
We ran through a bunch of different ideas that would compel people to come, hang out, catch up, and sort of “relive the magic” that was for many of us, the highlight of our careers. We’d have a piñata, we’d invite people to bring games, their families, food, beverages, and most importantly, themselves. With help from another Pogo colleague, Stacy, we made it happen.
And a fantastic afternoon we had. None of the games we brought got played, and the piñata acted more as a photography prop than its intended purpose. The balloons Rich bought escaped as he took them out of the car, I completely forgot to put out the dish I made, also forgetting to eat, and it was colder than we’d expected, as the weather app failed us. Being that Pogo began in San Francisco, we should have known better – the City loves to switch up the weather.
None of that mattered. We met, people brought or wore Pogo swag if they had it. We took a bunch of pictures, and then we floated about chatting with folks we hadn’t seen in 15+ years!
It was a healing afternoon. While there are certainly a few exceptions, by and large, the people who worked at Pogo were all working towards the same goal: delivering great games to a fantastic community of people who appreciated our efforts. For me, there was no awkwardness. I hugged nearly everyone, and mostly for the first time! We fell easily into conversations about how things are currently, and how much we appreciated our time at Pogo. Many agreed that Pogo had been the highlight of their careers.
And then it was over before I knew it. Those 5 hours felt like minutes. But the feeling has stayed with me since then, and my hope is that we do it again next year.
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