Plagwitz in 2014 was old cotton mills turned into studios, a canal you could kayak on, and rent so low that a flat share of five people could each have a room and a bicycle in the hall. Ours was on the Karl-Heine-Straße, above a bar, which explains the years and the sleep.
The first job was a startup in one of the mills. Eight people, a ping-pong table, a founder who paid in Club-Mate and 'exposure' and, eventually, a salary that arrived on the fourteenth of each month like a rumour. I learned Rails there, and Postgres, and the thing about deadlines, which is that they're where the founder's confidence and the calendar have a disagreement.
It folded in 2018, on a Tuesday, in a meeting that started with 'so' and ended with everyone at the bar downstairs. I moved to Berlin the next month. The ping-pong table is in a friend's garage in Grünau.
I don't drink Club-Mate any more. But I still push to production on the fourteenth when I can, out of respect.