Tony Wright of Rescue Time and I had a major miscommunication over the past year. Tony used to come to the Seattle Open Coffee's regularly at Louisa's Cafe on Eastlake on Tuesdays at 8:30AM -- yes, the open coffee's are still going on. For about 6 months straight, we'd have coffee every Tuesday. We became quite friendly.

At an Open Coffee about a year and a half ago, Tony asked me to invest in RescueTime. I can't remember exactly why -- but I chose not to invest. Shortly thereafter, he stopped attending Open Coffee. At first, I didn't think anything of it -- I thought he was just busy. But as time wore on, I began to wonder if it was personal. I emailed him.

In April 09, I wrote Tony at his gmail address:

I've pinged you a couple times without a response....thought I'd try again.
Not sure how to interpret your lack of response....would welcome the opportunity to talk to you.

The only reason I'm making this effort is because I liked you and your sudden absence strikes me as odd. Perhaps I'm just misreading the whole thing ....just let me know.

In July 09, I wrote Tony again at his gmail address (You can tell I'm starting to get annoyed):

Tony,
I found myself talking about you the other day to a mutual friend. This is what I said -- "he (i.e. you) used to come to open coffee all the time and I thought we were friends. I'm sure I must have done something wrong -- probably around YC or his fund raising. I've pinged him a couple times to talk to him and get feedback....because I actually really liked him (i.e. you). It's one thing to have the sense that you've hurt or bothered someone or done something wrong ....it's another, to ask and to get no feedback. "

I prefer to deal directly with disconnects and miscommunications among people....your lack of response is discouraging. I thought higher of you.

If I did do something wrong -- I'd like to apologize for it.

If you want to not respond, that's your prerogative.

On Jan 5, 2010, Tony wrote me an email congratulating me on TechStars Seattle and said how great he thought it was.

Turns out, Tony had created a Gmail filter on my name to filter out my weekly reminder emails about Open Coffee -- he didn't want his inbox crowded with regular annoying emails. But the filter (accidentally) filtered out all emails I sent him. Thus, he never got any of my emails asking him what was going on.

Kind of funny. Kind of sad. Be careful about modern day email miscommunication -- happens all the time!

Tony is now a regular again at Open Coffee -- Glad to see you there.