You do you, kid

We celebrate each other’s individualism with gusto. We’re all about game nights, book clubs, film watch parties. We’ve got Slack channels devoted to cats, bike maintenance and “The Bachelor” (just to name a few). We champion each other’s interests because we cherish what makes each of us unique, and we know that in the end, our passions are what help feed our creativity and deliver innovative work.

But we also support each other when we’ve got views on topics that are grander than a favorite cat meme. We all have those indelible moments when our well-grounded point of view, or even our lived experience, crashes up against the inertia in the room. Maybe our cheeks flush a little when we know we’ve got to speak up, but it’s going to rattle some folks. We open our mouths anyway.

It doesn’t always land. We dust ourselves off, we get back up.

We’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially when it comes to the people we hope to call our future colleagues. We look at the graduating high school and college seniors of 2020 and the crappy hand that they got dealt, with no pomp and circumstance. No winning the year-end prize in front of all of their peers. No graduation party cakes with their faces printed on them (although we hope in earnest that this still happened).

They’re embarking on their post-diploma lives in an uncertain time. And we see the efforts they are making already to stand apart, whether they are making a graduation speech from a backyard, starting their own business, or speaking out to demand justice and a better future.

We feel reassured as we stick to our beliefs, knowing that the generations behind us are coming to give us a boost — reinforcements that are principled, 2020-tested and ready.

When we see what they are up to, we’re most proud. And, we’ve got their backs.