Linden Lab/Second Life HQ by ilamont.com (CC)

Some things still amaze me after being a Second Life resident for the last 4 and a half years. Let’s say one of the workers of Linden Lab (knows by all the residents as Lindens because the traditional last name for Linden Lab employees) is fired, or decides to leave the company for any reason. Then a “choir” of voices raise, in Twitter, Plurk, blogs, Flickr, Facebook or in any social network related with Second Life in any way, and they even ask directly to Rodvik Linden (aka Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab) “Why? What’s happening?”.

And then i wonder: Why… you ask? Why is important to know about the personal or the corporative decision of a company when you are a simple costumer, not even a investor or stockholder? There may be two reasons for someone to stop being an employee of Linden Lab:

• He/she found a better place to work, or a better job conditions or simply a more interesting project for him/her.
• He/she was fired.

In the first case, come on, that’s great! I just can say “Congrats” and farewell. I just can wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything. In the second case… well, in this case i can’t know if is great or not, since i can’t know the reasons but i’ll wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything too.

I’m sure most of the people who seems to feel outraged when some Linden leave the Lab don’t know if that Linden was fired or simply decided to leave. And even in the case the Linden was fired i’m sure they don’t know the reason… maybe he was the one who was stealing the ballpoints, or maybe she was arriving late every single day… or even maybe there was no other reason than a corporative decision to close a department. In any case there’s no a single reason to feel outraged, except if that affects to the service that Linden Lab is providing to you, and of course, in the case you are have some kind of personal relationship-friendship with that Linden (nobody is happy to know a good old friend has been fired).

Don’t get me wrong, is not i’m happy when someone is fired, but i think sometimes a company needs to reduce the number of employees (and i’m sure that’s not a nice decision to take) and i think also some people in some cases totally deserves to get fired. In any case is a company decision and asking the CEO… well… seems pretty silly to me, unless you are a shareholder, of course.

And again i wonder: Why you ask? I have been talking about this with some other residents and it seems there may be at least three reasons: first, Second Life residents are passionate people, we love what we have in here, we love it SO MUCH that some may arrive to think that we actually OWN Second Life, and that means residents should have the last word over ANY decision and ANY change. Second, many Lindens have some like a “star status” and that can be a problem when they are not around anymore, even if it was a personal decision. And third, “evil corporation fires employees” is always a compelling story.

About the first, we don’t “own” Second Life. We are customers of Linden Lab’s services, we may like or not the changes on the services we are receiving, we can agree or not with the corporative decisions of Linden Lab, but we don’t own Second Life. As customers the only power we have is to stop buying the services but we don’t have power over corporative decisions unless we are shareholders, and even less if it’s the personal decision of someone to leave the Lab. About the “star status”, Lindens are only people who works in a company that offers services to us, they are not stars, they can be REALLY COOL people, creative and helpful but they are not stars, they are people who work for us as customers. And about the “evil corporations” well, that’s a real topic and not only affecting Linden Lab… and yes, some are pretty evil.

This is only my opinion, my point of view, and i would like to say again that i can’t never be happy when someone is fired… but i know the people who works in Linden Lab are talented, creative and good enough to keep me feeling i love to be a resident of Second Life and in the sad case they are fired i’m sure they will find a really cool work soon.