After 14 years, I’m leaving FXHOME at the end of this month.
14 is not an insubstantial number of years. One of my colleagues was 10 years old when I started working there. Back then, the Internet (and thus, the world) was very different. No Facebook. No YouTube. Google was still just a search engine. The iPhone hadn’t been invented. George W Bush and Tony Blair were getting ready to carve up the world. Nobody had seen the battle for Helms Deep. Half Life 2 was still two years away, as was Steam.
Anyway.
Over the years I’ve met great people: both customers and colleagues (it’s a fuzzy line between the two, to be honest). Friendships have been forged which will continue long after I’m no longer at my desk.
My work at FXHOME has made a difference to young and new filmmakers around the world. That’s an incredible thing. It feels like mission accomplished, for my part. Time for something new.
When a job is comfortable and secure, it can feel risky to move on. But as the great Brian Blessed said when asked about climbing Mount Everest at age 75, the only danger is in not taking the risk.
Simon Sinek talks about understanding your Why. About how people are drawn to organisations which represent their personal Why. I want to be creative and help other people be creative: that’s what has driven everything I’ve done in my adult life. FXHOME has always aligned pretty closely with my Why.
Finding marketing roles that fit my CV isn’t hard, from a box-ticking perspective. Everyone is looking for digital marketing experts. Far harder is that Why – finding an organisation or product that resonates and which is worth my time – worth my life. Because that’s what it comes down to: when you spend 8 hours a day working somewhere, that’s where your life is going. The stakes are high. You’re not getting those hours back, so you’d better make damned sure the place deserves it.
Which brings me to Writers’ Centre Norwich. That’s my destination. It’s a charitable organisation that works to explore creative writing in all its forms and how it impacts socially and artistically on the world.
I’ve been taking my writing more seriously in the last few years, especially with the launch of my A Day of Faces serial. When I redesigned this website a few months back it wasn’t by accident that ‘Creative writing‘ became the main blog category.
My new role at WCN, which begins in June, is a perfect intersection of my professional experience and my personal interests. Digital marketing combined with creative writing. Community mixed with literature. The universe rarely aligns quite so neatly. Best not ignore it when it does.
Big changes. New mountains to climb. It’s going to be a good year.
In the meantime, a big thank you to everyone who has helped along the way. And also thanks to these lovely people for being lovely, and to Michael Miller for compiling this incredible trip through my memories:
7 Comments
Martin · August 14, 2017 at 12:16 am
Thanks Simon. Your tutorials helped me a lot with my post production editing.
Best wishes for the future.
Paul · October 11, 2017 at 10:06 pm
thank you Simon..i had the pleasure of speaking with you via email and tech support.. Always enjoyed your tutorials…you will be missed.. Good luck in your adventures
Simon Jones · October 11, 2017 at 10:44 pm
Thanks, Paul! I still pop up occasionally with a new tutorial. 😉
Thomas Corriher · June 2, 2021 at 8:01 pm
You are definitely missed. FX Home isn’t the same. I wish that you could go back and clean it up. Your wisdom and charming personality made them. Now it acts like just another virtue signaling and ‘woke’ company that doesn’t give the slightest damn about its actual customers; except for nine-years-olds sometimes. Oh my gosh is all that I can say about their new tutorials. I’ve looked, and then looked away in horror. (There’s something seriously wrong with that guy.) I really miss seeing Axel too. He seemed like a really decent fellow himself. I believe that you were the heart and soul of the company, and maybe the biggest part of its brains too. I’m guessing that you were the Christian in the crowd, for it would explain a lot. It’s usually easy to spot the Christian in a crowd of Brits. I wish you well, and from the hours that I have spent watching your work, I feel like I almost know you.
Simon Jones · June 2, 2021 at 9:05 pm
Hi Thomas, thanks for the comment. I’m still in touch with the FXhome guys and I know they work just as hard as ever to make useful tools for filmmakers of all ages and backgrounds and are still driven by similar goals to when I was with the company in the early 2000s.
I should also note that I’m a left-leaning atheist, and always have been.
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