Hit the road, Jack…

Jack Linden finally bows out of Linden Lab, and many are sad to see him go. I confess to being somewhat lukewarm in my response to the news.

Jack started out in customer support where he was noted for having a “sexy” accent (or more usually, a “sexy British” accent), and enjoyed a somewhat meteoric rise through the ranks. Which has been both good and bad – and occasionally ugly.

The good is that, despite everything else, he at least made the effort (mostly) to engage with users through his office hours – something that put him in the minority within the Lab. The bad was that all too frequently, this engagement actually came in the form of obfuscation, denial or near-to misrepresentation.

Jack was also the front man for some of LL’s most unpopular actions over the last few years: he took charge of Mainland, and promptly oversaw a massive dumping of sims into the environment that ravaged the market; he was “lead” on the OpenSpace  / Homestead fiasco that bordered on a bait-and-switch policy; he was very much involved in the Adult Changes; more recently he has been “heading up” the commerce side of things and also had input into the ongoing Search debacle. His office hours were frequently mired by accusations of behind-closed-doors deals and outright favouritism towards certain LL “clients” (aka estate owners).

Now, it would be unfair to blame Jack solely for all of these woes: at the end of the day, all of these policies originated far higher up the management chain than good ol’ Jack. But what isn’t so forgivable is the manner in which Jack all-too-frequently went about his work – for which many of those now wishing him a fond farewell in the comments following his final blog post seem all too keen to forget; which is odd given many of them were often driven to distraction by his antics. The way in which he often seemed to delight in creating upset, confusion and outright disbelief always suggested to me that he was not that concerned with assuaging the worries of residents. In this, I’ve always felt that he took on these unpopular polices simply because he saw them as a means of furthering his career within LL, and that dealing with resident anger and genuine concerns was simply not, at any time, on his agenda – other than the rare occasions when it suited him to give the impression he was trying to help.

So… I find it hard to shed a tear and wave goodbye as he goes; although I’m not exactly gleefully waving a finger or two at his departing back. Jack played the residents as much as he engaged with them – but at least he *did* engage with us.

With his departure, I rather fear that all we’re going to face now is a resounding wall of silence.