Thread by @MarkSeifter

I'd like to talk to you today about why I am hopeful for Paizo and the future right now. Yesterday's thread might have seemed a little scary. Frankly it *is* scary, and it's all a little scary right now.

But when people have been saying that things have gotten better these last years, they were telling the truth. I am hopeful because of finding out how much *you* the fans, freelancers, and media friends love and care for us. But also because of the way things have changed.

I'm going to talk a little bit about it, but I'm feeling a bit awkward because it does involve some things I've done to help make changes and it feels odd to mention them myself. Change is not something that happens without a huge number of people reaching out together.

I can only tell things that are my story to tell, and it's true I was an agent of this change, but it took *everyone.* And many names of the people who did so much of what needed to be done aren't even on my list of people in the first thread because they're no longer at Paizo.

But here's what brings me hope: You saw, I hope, from my first thread how much the various teams at Paizo care for each other, in a way that felt better than the normal offices you were used to. It wasn't always like that.

I come from academia. When I was being interviewed, Erik asked me "Tell me about a time you had a major dispute with a coworker and how you resolved it" and I was like

"I've only really disagreed with fellow researchers about research points, not really had a full-on work place dispute, but my strategy would be to listen to what the other person is saying, see their point of view and what they want out of this, and try to reach a compromise."

Erik gave a kind of skeptical look at the beginning when I said I hadn't had a major workplace dispute but smiled and nodded thoughtfully at the rest. You might also be incredulous, and it's true academia can be extremely vicious

but for me the pains of academia were not born out in workplace disputes but in other areas. Regardless, I was somewhat of an ivory tower naif going in. Anyone who has worked at an office can see that I was in for an awakening, and I was.

I came to Paizo as a superfan of everyone at the office. I had come to PaizoCon and met many of them, and unlike most other fans I actually knew a lot of the names that would be the equivalent in 2014 of the list I gave in my thread.

I had moved cross-country an was ready to make friends with my heroes. But Paizo in 2014 was more like a typical office. It had a lot of "fiefdoms" between teams, politics of power struggles, and the things you have probably seen at your office that led to tension.

As you probably expect, it didn't work out like I hoped. I've already talked about my "vampire, invite me in" anxieties which didn't help either. But there was tension between teams. Things were stressful and Paizo in 2014 didn't band together across teams from that stress.

Each year, like most of you, I get annual goals on my performance review and then I get to write my own goals. Each year I would write "Increase amity and connections between teams." That was something we could work on no matter what the external factors were.

The Org Play team helped me start. The coordinator at the time, knowing I had been a prolific PFS GM and Venture Lieutenant, said I was always invited to the OP meetings. He and @Archaeotagh (and @erikmona who loves OP so much that despite drowning in meetings would always come)

Were always welcoming to me, and I would pass on my perspective from design to them and their perspective back to design. While it was more of an afterthought to invite me at first, after months of making sure I always came and both teams seeing the benefit...

I became known as the official liaison between teams. And OP was a trailblazer again by getting an edit liaison too. That worked so well that all of us across design and edit started thinking about implementing this more widely.

And another thing that helped was in 2015 when they hired Linda. Paizo actually has and had a fair number of relationships and married couples, some of them across teams or even departments.

For instance, two of the most talented people Paizo has ever known were @lissaguillet (tech team) and @amazonchique (development team). Linda and I were the only pairing that was on two different editorial teams at the time.

And this was extremely helpful in bringing things together because honestly the teams did not at the time hang out across teams, but if one or Linda or I had an invite, both did.

All of us started moving together, little by little, finding ways to support each other. There's too many to count because it took everyone...

But I will call out @leoglasswrites because he was someone on the editing team who was especially reaching out early and often, before either of us was managing and we were just one designer and one editor. He was a pioneer and ambassador.

What helped the most was when new people came in and joined up who hadn't ever experienced the times when it was worst, thanks to by the trailblazing of those who had come before. People like @legalizegoblins and @donatoclassic are just unfailingly positive and kind influences.

So the Paizo of 2021 is already not the Paizo of 2014. In 2014 I had zero friends on the development or edit teams. In 2021, my closest friends at Paizo are on the development and edit teams.

The teams in editorial are closely aligned and allied together to make the products you love: high quality, inclusive, and filled with passion. We build each other up. And I want to be clear. This contrast is a message of hope for the future, not a condemnation of the past.

The tensions, the power struggles, the politics that happened back in 2014 Paizo I believe that the people pursuing them were trying to do what was best in a bad situation and protect their people (even when it was at the expense of things I considered important like team amity).

I had the *privilege* of unique advantages allowing me to extend a hand (relative outsider to the industry but megafan of everyone, SO on another team) rather than build up walls, but sometimes building up walls is necessary to protect yourself and your team.

*Everyone* among the boots on the ground staff and lower managers was trying to make Paizo better. And in the end, we've come a really long way. And we stood on the shoulders of giants who aren't at Paizo any more to do it.

But I told this story not to get you thinking about "Wow, 2014 Paizo sounds really tense like my office" but to focus on the fact that 2021 Paizo has changed to become so collborative across teams. And I am still that academic naif before this

So the only offices I have seen are 2014 Paizo and 2021 Paizo (and all the intermediate Paizos) and not anything else.

But I can tell you those two Paizos are already very different, and that 2021 Paizo is overall much better, among all the teams and boots on the ground staff, those unsung heroes, than it was before.

I can't tell you if that aspect is now better than normal, but I think it is. Very much so. And we still have ways to improve even in that category I just said was doing so much better!

And Shelyn knows, there are things that are not so rosy! I don't want to take you on a rollercoaster ride where you thought yesterday maybe there was no hope (as I saw someone say on reddit to my last thread) and today where you might think "Oh well, sounds like all fixed."

It's *not* all fixed. But this one thing is so much better. I am sharing the fact that this one thing got so much better so you can know how brave (because interpersonal things are *scary* and this takes deep bravery) all the workers at Paizo have been and how far we have come.

That's what makes me think we can *also* work to a future where other things that *need* to improve get better too. Because it has happened before at Paizo. We have the brave, passionate, creative, wonderful staff members, all the unsung heroes who are willing to work for it.

Thank you for your support and love to those unsung heroes. It means so much. I deeply hope we will remember this as the time things were bad before they got better. Because right now, I need hope. I think we all do.