On Thursday, December 5th of this year, previous 20 Questioneer and tech news enthusiast, Tom Merritt announced with grave sadness that his contract with the TWiT network was not being renewed and that on 1 January 2014 (today) he will no longer be an employee of TWiT.tv and done with the podcasts Tech News Today and Framerate (2 podcasts I listened to/ watched religiously). Much sadness, gnashing of teeth, Internet grumbling and general consternation ensued. I found my reaction to be surprisingly emotional and disproportionately strong, considering my actual interactions with Tom have been relatively few. I found myself having difficulty sleeping and so I tweeted at him my condolences. He responded and asked if I was interested in asking him 20 more questions… so here we are. Without further ado… Tom Merritt’s 20 Questions v2.0

Onto the Questions!

I was let go from a job of 9+ years back in 2009. That company was a victim of the economic downturn, so me and another 10% of that company found ourselves boxing out stuff up and going home early one day. About 9 months after that I got a completely different job at a large non-profit. The non-profit job was clearly a bad fit and just didn’t work out. Summarily I was canned from there rather quickly. After each of these changes in employment my wife and I went and had celebratory dinners together. These dinners were used to celebrate the release of the increasing tension associated with the obvious stress in both professional environments as well as the new possibilities for my future employment. Question 1: How did you and your wife mark this particular employment event?

Answer 1: On that Tuesday I found out and couldn’t tell anyone publicly I stayed up until she got home from work because she worked late that night , heh. Then there was the Thursday announcement and that fallout. Finally on the weekend, we found a nice place to have a cocktail and some delicious food. She has been unceasingly supportive and cheering me on to whatever comes next.

It is always nice when the support system really kicks in. I had the luck/misfortune of knowing that things were going to happen at some point in time at my previous employments. It really was a double edged sword... while I knew I would not be completely surprised when the hammer dropped and I was let go, I was also living in a world of anxiety. I had been absorbing the tension in my environment and knew that at some time, any time, maybe even the next phone call, something was going to happen. Question 2 Was there any indication that your contract was not going to be renewed or were you effectively blindsided by this?

Answer 2: It was unexpected right then. I really thought we were about to reach an agreement but they decided to terminate the contract which took me by surprise. Still, I knew it was always a possibility. I had heard Lisa offered my job to someone else in May and of course Leo had made it clear all along that he didn't like my having to move to LA and preferred to have his hosts in studio. So it wasn't a shock that they let me go, and I understood why. It was just surprising at the time how abruptly it happened.

I figured it was something similar to that, just from the tone of the announcement and people’s reactions to the news. It truly is unfortunate because one of the things I really enjoyed about Tech News Today is how it embraced the changing business culture and demonstrated how a team could effectively work together without being geographically constrained to the same office. It showed that telecommuting is a viable collaborative work environment. That will be sorely missed when only the guest is non-local.

Question 3: Was there a difference between how you thought/hoped your personal support network, friends, co-workers, etc... would respond to your situation and how they actually did? In what way, if any?

Answer 3: Somewhat? I mean I guess I hadn’t really thought about it but I had a core group of friends right beside me the whole way, texting calling and telling me things I needed to hear both good and bad. It was *extremely* helpful and I wouldn’t have handled it nearly as well without them. My co-workers were sweet too. In fact Jason, Sarah and Iyaz packaged up the show logo plaque that a fan in Hawaii had made for us and sent it to me. Plus a bunch of other little notes of support and facetime calls and such. Best of all was Eileen, my wife. Right there with solid support telling me not to worry and just keep on. She is the best ever in the world.

You seem like a very genuine person, at least the limited interactions I have had with you have been grounded and enjoyable, so it does not surprise me that your support system really, well… supported you. Question 4: How about your fan-base? Did you realize that you had a fan-base prior to this (because you clearly have a fan-base)? and how would you describe how this fanbase has reacted?

Answer 4: Yeah that blew me out of the water. I knew we had fans of the show and I love hanging out in the chat room and talking to folks. And back at Buzz Out Loud we had a great tight community of folks whom I still love. But I never was sure how many people were along for the ride with me because they were just TWiT fans in general, or NSFWShow fans or what. The response was overwhelming. They organized and began spreadsheets to help me keep track of everything and sold weird shirts with my face on them and all kinds of crazy stuff. I’ve always said we have the smartest audience in the world but they showed they were also the most supportive too. I am honestly not deserving of this audience. Too amazing.

There is something here to say about self-organizing systems, but that is the forte of my wife and her mates. I have to say that I was surprised with the rapidity and vehemence of the organization. I figured there would be moral support and a bunch of “Man, sorry that happens” kinds of messages, but the actual mobilization of a network supporting you and just getting shit done is pretty amazing. That is something I have never seen, and I have to say, I did not expect to be a part in. I am a proud owner of a Merritt Militia shirt and am awaiting my Current Geek perks. Having a fan-base must be both humbling and wonderful.

Now, enough of the dour past and how that chapter of your work life has finished, let’s get into more enjoyable topics of what you are doing and what you will be doing in the near future. You have announced a few items that you will be generating as you ramp up your independent productions. But before we get into what will be new in this year of 2014, Question 5: What from your previous undertakings are still continuing? Many people know you from your TWiT properties, but that is not all that you have been producing.

So, you have all these different properties that you are associated with and you have books that people can buy on your website tommerrittbooks.com. You have audio podcasts, video podcasts, print media, you are on the radio… Question 6: What aspect of media have you not done (interpretive dance?) and is there a type of creative product you want to focus on or enjoy more?

Answer 6: I have not now, nor will I ever inflict interpretive dance on the world. That is a comment on my own dance skills, not on the form. I quite like a good interpretive dance when done well. I really enjoy writing fiction these days. I don’t seem to be able to stop. I woke up this morning and wrote the beginning of a story. I’m not certain I’ll ever be any good at it, mind you, but I do love to do it right now.

I have never found interpretive dance to be very good… if it is just dance in a broader narrative it makes sense to me, but just interpretive dance does not work work for me… much to my wife’s chagrin. I have a copy of “Lot Beta” on my Kindle app right now, but due to my class readings, I have not been able to get into it just yet. One of these days I will finish the book I started a handful of NaNoWriMo’s ago. Lot Beta is in the chamber as soon as I am done with DogBoy: Den of Thieves by the delightful Bill Meeks.

I have a love of the words “whilst” and “ergo” (as well as some others) and have been trying to reintroduce those somewhat archaic words into everyday vernacular. You are clearly a lover of words and quite capable of stringing together wonderful sentences in both the spoken and written word. Question 7: Is there a word that you want to reintroduce and bring back to popularity? Could you use it in a sentence?

Answer 7: Luncheon. Lunch is a verb. The proper usage of luncheon is for the event we attend whilst we eat. Ergo, I would like people to say I lunched on sandwiches but say I went to luncheon. This is a sad and pathetic dream that will never occur and likely serve only to annoy people if pressed. But it is my dream.

That is honestly something I did not know. I always thought of “luncheon” as a specific kind of lunch event, usually in a larger room and with a speaker droning on about a topic no one there is truly holds any interest. The speaker's name is usually Carl or something like that and the topic is usually some new data collection method… at least that is how I see it.

You clearly enjoy the history of tech…. You had a mini-podcast called Tech History Today where you outlined significant tech history news everyday for a whole year. You are producing tech history books monthly illustrated by Scott Johnson (Scott was also 20 Questions Tuesday: 219) Basically you are generating multiple methods for people to consume tech history. Question 8: Is there anything specific within tech history that you gravitate to more than other aspects of tech history, or is it the whole of tech history for which you find yourself fascinated?

Answer 8: I’ve always loved history. I love to discover how people did things in the past, how they changed and didn’t changed in the future and how our world came to be as it is today. I also have always been a sucker for anniversaries. I always had those “Today in history” books when I was a kid. And I obviously am very interested in technology. So this is just me combining all that into one happy package. It started with me helping Molly Wood research her tech history show on CNET way back in 2009. Then I kept doing it for my own fun. Then I did the podcast you mentioned for about three months, but they couldn’t figure out how to sell it effectively and it was a lot more work than it looks to gather all the video and stuff so I retired it. But I decided to turn it into a blog post and then that made me want to make a book and then the rest has just cascaded out from there.

Question 9: So where do you consider the beginnings of “tech” history to be? Is it the advent of the modern transistor, is it the creation of the Gutenberg press, is it the creation of the astrolabe by the Greeks a long long time ago? Where does “tech” start for your consideration in the historical context?

Answer 9: Fair question and one I don’t have a definitive answer for. I kind of center my attention around computers and the 1950s. Anything that sprang from that obviously is fair game for the chronology. For prior stuff, anything that was essential goes in, like the development of electricity, audio recording, video recording, anything that was necessary to have the things we all love to mess with today. The grammophone is the ancestor of the iPod. Then there’s also the stuff that’s just geeky or fed our technological mythos, like the Library at Alexandria which is sort of the ancient idea of universally accessible information. But to answer your question, “tech” starts March 30, 240 BCE with the first recorded observation of Halley’s comet. Astronomy bloggers FTW!

Heh, I have never thought of ancient texts as the equivalent of blogging… this changes the whole idea of what I am doing right now… The idea of this being an artifact as a legacy of this century is a little chilling. Chilling indeed. Scares me a bit. Hellooooo archeologists, how’s things?

Question 10: You have a bajillion podcasts, write books, do a radio show, etc… what do you do with down-time? Do you have down time or are you addicted to the workahol? Does the amazingly prolific Tom Merritt have any hobbies?