Ethan MarcotteModify

2025-04-03 12:00:00

As the horse once said, everything happens so much. In my country, a far-right administration is waging war on students, researchers, activists, workers, immigrants, and every marginalized population you can name, all while strip-mining what remains of our already insufficient social safety net.

In short, the world’s on fire. So I want to suggest that — now more than ever — you need a union.

A union is many things: it’s an engine of democracy in your workplace; it’s a path to a contract; it’s a community. A union also provides a critical layer of protection and stability. And that’s something you could use right now.

Worried about layoffs amid the rollout of astronomical tax hikes that could crater the economy? A union contract can’t prevent a layoff, but it can determine the kind of layoff you get: how much advance notice you’re given, how much severance you’re given, whether or not you can be a priority rehire, and more. Sick of being an at-will employee that can be dismissed for any reason? Unionize, and fight for a contract with “just cause” protections. Want a say over whether or not you’re surveilled at work? Unionize, and get a contract. Tired of “generative AI” in the workplace? You can guess what I’m going to say here.

A union can be useful for other fights, too. When graduate student Rumeysa Öztürk was abducted by federal agents last week, her union took to the streets before launching a nationwide pressure campaign. Last year, Cornell University suspended Momodou Taal for participating in campus protests. In response, his union went to war: they held multiple mass actions on campus, eventually forcing the university to the bargaining table to fight Taal’s suspension. When people talk about “worker power,” this is quite literally what it looks like: it’s built by workers, standing together not just to win a better form of work, but also to protect each other.

You and your coworkers deserve that power, and you can start building it today. Have a quiet conversation with a coworker — discuss what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’d like to change. Invite some trusted work friends to join you at some organizer training. Start a book club at work, and leave plenty of time for informal discussion. The best time to start forming a union was five years ago; the second best time is right now. And there are so many ways to get started.

Nobody is coming to save us, except us. And together, we’re enough.

This has been “It’s time to organize.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-03-25 12:00:00

I recently rereleased You Deserve a Tech Union as a self-published title, featuring a brand new design. For those who didn’t catch the announcement, here’s how the book looks now:

I’m just so happy with how it came out. I hope you like it, too.

As I mentioned in the announcement, redesigning the book was part of the agreement I made when I reacquired the rights to my books: basically, if I wanted to keep selling any of my books, they’d need to look like my books. Easy enough, right?

Well, there’s a terrible trick here. You see, Jason Santa Maria created the design for my former publisher’s titles, and I just loved the visual language he came up with. I’ll never forget opening my box of Responsive Web Design, picking up one of the copies, and thinking just how right everything felt as I leafed through its pages. Frankly, there was no chance I’d improve on Jason’s work; but just as importantly, I didn’t want to erase it.

This new version of You Deserve a Tech Union attempts to split that difference. If I’ve done my job right, this design should feel like a noticeable refresh, while still connecting with where the book began. The color is the primary carryover, and the interior layouts haven’t changed too much.¹ The biggest departures were on the cover and — most importantly — the type. Here’s a short excerpt from the book’s colophon:

The text is set in Tiempos Text and Untitled Sans, both by Klim Type Foundry. The headlines and book cover use Cambon Condensed by General Type Studio, as well as Klim Type Foundry’s Söhne.

Longtime readers will be unsurprised to see some of those names — heck, maybe some of you are rolling your eyes a bit. But, hey, look: if someone told me that I could only use Klim typefaces for the rest of my days, I’d die happy. Tiempos Text, Söhne, and Untitled Sans are all old favorites of mine, and they’re often starting points for me when I’m doing type exploration. And together, I think they made the book’s new interior shine.

Here’s how the text of You Deserve a Tech Union used to look, and how it looks now:

Want a closer look? Well, here you go.

Ron Bilodeau and I spent a couple rounds finessing the text, but we were making small adjustments around the edges. The new type just felt solid from the very first pass.

But! We still needed a display face. Enter General Type’s Cambon, whose flared terminals I always feel I could get lost in. For the book’s more prominent numbers, like those in the lead-in for every chapter, Cambon’s condensed family felt like a natural fit — especially after seeing how well it sidled up to the Söhne-set chapter titles.

Cambon Condensed worked a treat on the table of contents, too. I really do love how it sits alongside Tiempos and Untitled Sans.

And of course, Cambon and Söhne felt like such a good pairing on You Deserve a Tech Union’s new cover. This is the one area of the book where the departure’s more radical than what came before — but if you squint, I think you can see where it all started.

I still deeply love the original design, and always will: after all, it’s my first memory of the finished book. But I feel like this new design’s something that still stands on its own, while still feeling like it’s of a part with what came before.

If you’re interested, you can read more about this new refreshed version, or buy your copy of You Deserve a Tech Union anywhere books are sold.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

This has been “You deserve a new book design.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-03-16 12:00:00

A little over a year ago, I wrote a book called You Deserve a Tech Union. It’s a short book that describes the labor movement sweeping the tech industry, and shows that you — yes, you — can be part of it. That you deserve to be part of it.

Here’s what it looked like when it first launched:

But it doesn’t look like that any more. Now, You Deserve a Tech Union has a whole new look.

And here it is.

You might remember that not long after the book launched, my publisher closed its doors. Shortly after that, I reacquired the rights to the three titles I’d published with them. As part of that rights transfer, I agreed to remove the publisher’s branding from any books I planned to keep selling, and to make them look like, well, mine.

And after several months of work, I’m delighted to say that’s exactly what I’ve done: the redesign of You Deserve a Tech Union is finished, and I couldn’t be happier with it. What’s more, it’s available for purchase anywhere books are sold.

Prefer pixels to paper? Here’s a peek at the updated ebook:

Even cats love it.

Sorry for all the photos; I’m just really, really excited. As you might imagine, it’s been a heavy few months on several fronts. But throughout it all, working on this refresh has been a steady source of joy. I love looking at the finished product, and I hope you do too.

Much of that joy came from the folks who helped make this redesign happen. First and foremost, Ron Bilodeau turned my ramblings into InDesign magic, and expertly shepherded this book through production. Many of the authors affected by my former publisher’s closure fielded my questions while they were trying to rescue their own books, and I’ll always be grateful to them for that. Jason Santa Maria gave me some invaluable help as I designed the new cover, and throughout the entire process. And of course, She patiently weighed in on updated proofs, new cover ideas, and just generally made everything possible by being her typical wonderful, supportive self. Every book takes a village, and this little refresh is no exception.

And I do mean refresh. If you bought the earlier version of You Deserve a Tech Union, this is essentially the same book. It’s not a new edition. But at the same time, it’s much more than a simple visual update. The book’s design has changed, sure, but I’ve also made a host of tiny fixes throughout: typos have been fixed, outright errors corrected, and the book’s index has been completely redone.¹ All that’s to say I’ve been thinking about this as a refinement of the original version, and an important one at that.

Even with all those updates, this little book hasn’t changed in one important way. It still argues that you — yes, you — are a tech worker. It also argues that by standing with your fellow tech workers, you can build a tremendous amount of power together. And then, it shows you how to do just that.

I just don’t have the words to say how excited I am by this latest version, and what it’s turned out to be. And now that it’s out in the world?

I can’t wait to see where You Deserve a Tech Union goes next. Where you’ll take it next.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

This has been “Refresh.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-03-10 12:00:00

Note: This post gets into recent American political events. If that’s not your cup of tea, or if that’s a stressful topic for you, please feel free to skip this one.

Two weeks ago, 18F was abruptly and suddenly shut down. Around midnight on March 1st, the entire staff was informed via email that they were being placed on “administrative leave.” No chance to notify clients, no chance to wind down the flurry of projects they’d staffed — no chance for friends and coworkers to say goodbye to each other. Just one email, sent under cover of night, telling roughly one hundred hardworking people they weren’t welcome in government any more.

This isn’t my story to tell; I’d left 18F before this happened. Instead, you should read an open letter from the affected 18F staffers; Christian Crumlish and Matt Henry both wrote valedictions for 18F, as did Lindsay Young, 18F’s former executive director and longest-serving employee.

What I do want to share is that before it was shuttered, 18F’s regular all-hands meeting was called Team Coffee, held at the end of every other Friday. Now: if you noticed “all-hands meeting” next to “end-of-day Friday,” your eyebrow may have raised the same way mine did during my first week. I’ve worked in this industry for well over two decades, and I’ve rarely been excited about an all-hands meeting. But I always, always looked forward to Team Coffee. This was mostly because the humans of 18F were just, well, darned good people to spend time with. But it was also expertly run and moderated. It was a meeting filled with and focused on work updates, sure, but smartly peppered with jokes and visits from kids and cooing at adorable animals. Also? Jokes. (Good jokes? Well, sometimes. But the groaners were my favorite.)

Almost exactly one week after 18F’s closure, I heard that the entire team decided to hold another Team Coffee, right on their usual schedule. I found out about the call a few hours beforehand — if I’d had any conflicts on my calendar, I would’ve canceled them.

I almost started crying when I entered the video call, and seeing my old coworkers’ faces again; I definitely started crying when team leads started reading out names of their reports, and thanking them for their service. I just thought I was going to have so much more time with these people: more projects, more discussions, more good/terrible jokes at Team Coffee. I’m trying to be grateful for the time I did have with them, while also wishing it hadn’t been taken away from me. From all of us.

But at least for a couple hours last week, I got to sit alongside my coworkers one more time. Whatever happens next — for me, for them, for all of us — I’ll be grateful for that.

Here’s to what was, and to what’s still to come.

This has been “Commencement.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-03-06 12:00:00

I don’t even remember when this redesign started. The Sketch file (shh; shhhhhhh) says I started it all the way back in January of 2024, well over a year and one non-collapsed government ago. I did find some paper sketches older than that, so who knows. But for the better part of a last year, I’d been picking at the new design here and there, and just idk like happily lazing away amid colors and textures and type and weird layout ideas. Figured I’d get it out the door when it was, y’know, time to get it out the door.

Well, I suddenly find myself with a lot of time on my hands, so it seems to be time to get it out the door.

How’s that old saying go? “When the world’s on fire and the fascists are at your door, stop waffling and just finish your redesign.”

Pretty sure it’s something like that. More or less.

As it happens I quietly pushed the redesign live last Friday, and then hopped offline for a few days with old friends.¹ Since getting back online I’ve spent the last few days fixing bugs, finding new bugs, and rethinking some old design ideas. The site’s not finished, mind you — when will it ever be? — but it feels like something I can build upon.

And this isn’t something I typically say, but I find myself happy with so many bits of the new design: I’m excited to have a little blogroll again; I like the bloop-y effect when I’m scrolling down the journal on wider screens; I didn’t think I’d be able to build any of the more angular pieces of this design, and I’m glad (proud?) I figured them out.

Anyway. World’s on fire, but I have a clean(er) slate in front of me, and a whole bunch of ideas I’m excited to try. Might as well get to work.

A couple colophon-y things, which I’ll lodge here until I have an actual colophon:

• Untitled Sans and Tiempos Text, my old Klim Type favorites, are back. The display type is YouWorkForThem’s Vermont, which I adore for its fussy little terminals as much as its name.²
• The flower artwork began its life as a photograph from Avinash Bhat on Flickr, and I’m grateful they made it available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

This has been “Parker.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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2025-02-18 12:00:00

Note: This post gets into the last few weeks of American politics. If that’s not your cup of tea, or if that’s a stressful topic for you, please feel free to skip this one. (Also, it’s a bit long. Sorry about that.)

Last week, I finished my tenure as a designer at 18F.

I want to state up front: I’m not leaving under a “deferred resignation.” I also wasn’t laid off. (Though it’s possible I almost was; more on that later.) Instead, I resigned from my position as a product designer, submitting two weeks’ notice…well, two weeks ago.

Before I get into any of that, I’d like to write a bit about 18F, and why it was so hard to leave.

While I was writing this post, I thought I’d revisit what I wrote when I joined 18F last May:

1. Every single person I’ve met this week — and I’ve met quite a few! — has been smart, kind, and really happy to be working where they do. As someone new to the organization, that’s so encouraging to see.
2. It’s, like, remarkably energizing to be around people who are really (really, really) passionate about making digital services work better for people.

Honestly, that holds up. Because really, the thread here is the people working at 18F, and the culture they’d built: I really, really liked showing up for work each morning. Everyone I met at 18F was inviting and kind, and excited to talk about what they were working on. (And just as crucially, what they did outside work.)

And my goodness, they were helpful — which, as a new kid joining the team, I’m always going to remember. Here’s one example: during my first month, I was grousing about some weird little computer issue, and a random coworker just offered to hop on a call to look at it with me. They hadn’t dealt with the issue before, and they definitely hadn’t dealt with me before, but they thought they might help a coworker out. And that impulse — maybe I can help someone out — sums up so many of my interactions with everyone at 18F. They were, and are, a remarkable group of people.

At the same time, I was proud of the work I was doing. Alongside my coworkers at 18F, I worked with client teams to help them define requirements, refine their designs, and build better products. I even got asked to pitch in on a small branding project, and I’d be the last person to call myself a brand designer. But I mention that because I was often asked to stretch myself, and every single time I felt safe trying something new — safe, and supported by my team. I can count on one hand the number of times over my career that I’ve felt that kind of safety at work. I doubt that’s true of every job in government, but I know it was true for me at 18F.

I know it sounds pat, but 18F was one of the best places I’ve ever worked. Until it wasn’t, and I felt I had to leave.

Before I dive in, here are a couple points that’ll become relevant:

• I was considered a probationary employee because I’d been employed by the government for less than a year. Probationary employees don’t have most of the protections afforded to “full” employees, and can be dismissed more easily.
• Due to some idiosyncrasies of how our roles were defined, many (most?) people in my organization were legally not eligible to join a union.

So. After last year’s election, I was trying to decide whether or not I could stay at the job. A far-right candidate had won the election¹, and was threatening to reshape the government into something more partisan, more regressive, and more autocratic. My job involved putting rectangles on screens, and couldn’t have been further from any kind of political influence or impact. But despite that, I didn’t know if I could let myself be part of that government, even in a small way. (Also, as you might have guessed: I was panicking.)

During that time, a friend suggested that while things were calm at work, I should write down some lines I wouldn’t want to cross: things I’d want to watch out for that, if they materialized, might be a reason to leave. This was wonderful advice, and I’m grateful to them for it. Equipped with a plan, even a small one, I started thinking through what my lines would be.

I’ll spare you the whole list, but I’ll share three of the entries.

1. First, I need to work remotely. If the incoming administration made good on its promise to end teleworking for federal workers, I’d likely have to find another job. (This is, of course, why “return to office” policies happen.)
2. The second line was whether I’d be asked to work on a project that could kill or surveil people. I know precisely what governments are capable of — for good and for ill. But one of the things that drew me to the work at 18F was that I understood they tried to weigh individual workers’ preferences when projects were staffed. I figured if that ever changed, and I was asked to work on something I was morally opposed to, it’d be time to leave.
3. The third was being asked to meet with someone who didn’t work for the government, and being asked to discuss what I did for work.

The first two were things I looked into when I was first interviewing at 18F: some of the basic criteria I was screening potential employers for. The third was driven at least in part by the election, and by the billionaire they were putting in charge of “government tech modernization.” I expected that if things went south, he’d just try to run the same horrible Twitter layoffs handbook, and bring in employees from his other companies to rank — and cull — workers.

But it wasn’t just about that. Many things started happening to the federal government after the inauguration, none of them good. While the administration was conducting its vicious rollback of civil liberties and publicly funded research, this billionaire’s so-called “department” was sweeping through various federal agencies, pushing aside career civil servants and the law to hoover up radioactively sensitive data — our data, bought and paid for with our tax dollars, I should add.² And from what I’d read the group was acting on dubious legal authority, and with even less oversight or transparency. I didn’t want to sit down with anyone involved in that, and pretend like any part of their work was lawful, legitimate, or moral.

Anyway. The list was a tremendous help; I’ll always be grateful to the friend who suggested it. But given the speed at which government typically moves, I assumed I’d have several months before I’d have to wrestle with any of these questions. If not longer.

(I know, I know. I’m in the future, too.)

A few weeks ago, a member of the new leadership announced they’d be reaching out to workers to discuss their recent “technical wins”, in order to better understand how the organization worked. The stress on “technical wins” to a cross-functional organization felt significant to me; it also felt significant that most of the sessions seemed to be getting scheduled with folks who’d only recently joined government — probationary employees.

Just to state the obvious, this isn’t what you do when you want to understand how your organization works; it is what you do when you’re preparing to slash the size of your workforce. As you might imagine, this caused no small amount of panic across the agency, including within 18F. The new leadership hadn’t communicated these plans to anyone before making their announcement, which left 18F’s own leaders and supervisors frantically working to fill in the information void.

Shortly after the announcement, I started hearing about folks who’d had their meetings, but that they didn’t meet with the director who said they’d be conducting the interviews. Instead, they found themselves on a call with people who wouldn’t say where they worked in government; in a few cases, some people wouldn’t disclose their last names, or any part of their names.

And while I was watching these reports trickle in, I got a calendar invitation for my own interview. From the first email announcing the meetings, I figured one of my lines was in danger of being crossed; I just figured I’d have more time.

With only a few hours before my interview, I did a quick overview of my options. It looked like this:

1. I could do the interview.
2. I could refuse to do the interview.
3. I could delay: call out sick, take a personal day, whatever.
4. I could resign.

The first item wasn’t really an option, as sitting down with this “department” wasn’t something I could let myself do. Refusing to participate would’ve likely been seen as insubordination by a probationary hire; delaying would’ve just been, well, delaying the inevitable. (It also could have been seen as insubordination.) My math would’ve been different if I wasn’t probationary or, even better, if I’d been allowed to join a union. But given my lack of labor protections, and the options available before me, leaving 18F — withholding my labor — felt like my best and only option. I called a meeting with my supervisor, and gave two weeks’ notice.

In a terrible coda, a large number of probationary employees were summarily let go at my agency just before my last day.

Leaving was the right call for me, but I’ll never feel good about the decision. I mean, there’s the grief angle: up until about a month ago, I was working on projects that felt like they mattered, and working alongside people who cared about helping government services work better for the public. A few months ago, I would’ve told you I’d like to stay there for years, which is not something I’ve said about any other place I’ve ever worked. I am incredibly sad to leave this job.

And look, being able to leave is, flatly, a privileged option: I can’t not work forever, but I can not work for a little bit. Most of my coworkers didn’t have that option. Some had just bought a house; some returned from parental leave, only to learn they might be losing the jobs they’d counted on to support their families.

I’m also angry at what was taken from me. At what’s being taken from all of us. I’ve watched a wonderful job, a wonderful place to work, a wonderful team get pulled apart by rich men in ill-fitting suits, each of them parroting the same talking points around “realignment” and “right-sizing”.³

But what’s happening right now is not about “government efficiency,” nor is it about “cost-cutting.” I would gently urge you to look at the net worth of the people who are telling you otherwise. After all, there is no financial analysis; no review of possible downsides, no weighing of potential negative impacts. There is no discussion of what could happen if our math is wrong? Or even more importantly, no consideration of who might be harmed?

Instead, as Anil Dash predicted, the billionaire’s so-called “efficiency” “department” is best understood as a sprawling form of procurement capture, in which a group of impossibly rich individuals are trampling over the regulations — and the federal workers — that stand between them and a deep, deep revenue stream: your tax dollars. And as they do, they’re making an explicitly fascist move to roll back rights for every marginalized community in the country — for anyone who doesn’t look like them, or who stands in their way.

So, yes. This is a wholesale attack on the American safety net, led by billionaires and far-right politicians who are frighteningly comfortable with fascism and autocracy. The last month has been called a coup by politicians, researchers, and watchdogs alike. I don’t want to diminish the harm these people will do — the harm they are doing. I also don’t want to downplay the terror of this moment, because lord knows I fucking feel it.

At the same time: what’s happening right now is also a labor story.

If the American government is slow-moving, it’s because rapid change is deadly when you’re talking about healthcare, social security checks, market regulations, food safety, or any of the other countless critical functions it performs. Those federal agencies are, quite simply, infrastructure. And as Deb Chachra showed in her excellent book, infrastructure is how a society invests in its future: in its ongoing economic, societal, and political stability.

In government, that infrastructure is built by laws, policies, and regulations. But regulations alone do not infrastructure make. Regulations require workers to become infrastructure: those workers who labor to understand new policies, how best to enact them, and then work to make them legible and understandable to the American public — and, yes, to enforce them. Without those federal workers, and their labor, these systems fall apart. And the architects of this assault on the federal workforce are keenly aware of that fact.

The last month has, flatly, been hell. But even so, I wouldn’t trade away my time at 18F for anything. It was a fantastic place to work, filled with genuine, hard-working people who cared for that work and for each other. Even when things got rough, I saw the leaders of 18F scramble to answer their team’s questions; I saw coworkers reaching out to support each other in countless little ways. All while ensuring they got their project work in on time. I saw something wonderful at work, in my work. I’m always going to be grateful for that, and to my coworkers.

Resources

If this story’s moved you, I hope it moves you to action. Because the workers I mention above quite literally need your support.

A few resources, if you’re interested:

• Wired has some good coverage on the layoffs I described above, and on the billionaire coup more generally.
• Labor Notes also has some indispensable coverage around this administration’s attacks on the federal workforce, and how organized labor is fighting back.
• The Working Families Party and Emily Amick both had some great primers on what it means to call your members of Congress, if that’s a thing you’re able to do.
• If you’re looking for other ways to get engaged, Mariame Kaba has pulled together a massive list of actions that are not protesting or voting.

This has been “Moving on from 18F.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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