Chapter 5: City of Beans, MA

Right before the crash, I left my comfortable job for an opportunity at a start up. My father thought I was insane. “What are you going to go and do that for? You get paid to sit on your ass all day! What’s better than that?” My boyfriend’s former colleague, Chad, left their large company and began working at a small, but promising technology gig downtown. They were looking for project managers.

My initial interview was a casual phone conversation between Chad and me. Chad was social, extremely driven, and a bit ostentatious. In groups, he would talk over you or sometimes refuse to acknowledge your comment. Unless, of course, there was some kind of subtle praise for him buried in it. His large ticket purchases were no secret, either. Before long, I knew all about the new furniture, the new car, and the posh new condo. He kept a picture of the girl he slept with on his desk, in a sleek frame, for the world to see. He bragged not only about her looks, but also her anorexic body. This seemed to him, her most coveted attribute, which struck me as odd, considering the pooch he carried around. Despite the chip on his shoulder, though, Chad was an okay guy. He got me into the start up, after all, and he was never downright mean to me. Once I had been there a while, he even grew to respect me.

Our space was a bit tattered, but by no means the worse I’d ever worked in. To me, it was entrepreneurial, pioneer-like. I thought: Someday, when we are all rich beyond our wildest dreams, we’ll look back at this space and think of it fondly. I mean, the Beatles had to start in a dumpy Liverpool practice space, right? Behind every great success, there was a humble beginning.

After familiarizing myself with the corporate methodology (which was, essentially, a paraphrased version of every other internet start up company out there), I became the project manager on the redesign of a web site for a Fortune 500 company. This was a lucky break for me, mainly because their corporate headquarters were in Miami. I had visions of myself powering up my laptop underneath a beach umbrella, resting my cell phone by my cooler. I dreamed up personal theme music for myself (I’ll Take You There, The Staple Sisters), reserved only for the times I would travel to the Sunshine State on business, designer sunglasses a permanent fixture on my face. The music would follow me everywhere from the moment I stepped out of a cab.

The reality, although far from my fantasy, was not exactly bad. We had an aggressive timeline with our project, and a modest budget so rather than staying at The Delano, we opted for The Doubletree next door. We still enjoyed wonderful Cuban fare and phenomenal mojitos, but this all came with a price. Flights scheduled at 6:00 in the morning, extremely long work days and humiliation sessions imposed on us by the client.

The head of the client’s e-commerce department, Jill, was a strong, bright woman who knew how to work every tool in her toolbox, especially when it came to interacting with members of the opposite sex. In low cut blouses, and with a throaty voice, she would flirt shamelessly with the male members of our team. Perhaps to fill a place plagued with self-doubt, perhaps to move us gals down a notch or two – who knows? On one occasion, she reprimanded us for attempting to manage the scope of the project in front of her higher-ups. Incensed, she found it was necessary to get up in the middle of the session and inform our client partner to “talk to our team” during the break. Evidently scope management was in her court, but we forgot to pack our crystal ball that morning and therefore we were punished. Once alone with us, Jill yanked a swivel chair into the middle of the room, leaned back and pivoted around while warning us not to cross the line again. We were ashamed, but also confused. Scope management was part of our job. Adding to this chaos was the fact that she was not only the director of our project, but also the wife of a bigwig in our company. This is how we got the account. Naturally, this was not disclosed to our team right away.

After this exhausting day, we went out for a nice meal, and attempted to relax. We did impressions of Jill, slouched in our chairs, conjuring our best Demi Moore voice and running our hands over our bodies. Suddenly, Jill arrived at our table with her husband. Psycho Jill, though, had somehow managed to propel herself from “don’t fuck with me” to “hey, we’re all friends here, right?” mode. It was very unsettling. This was not the only time Jill joined us unannounced. The motive was a mystery. Did she really think we were excited to see her? Was she truly out of her mind, or was this some kind of control tactic? Maybe the underlying message was: don’t get comfortable while my company is footing the bill.

Once a week, the CEO of our company would gather us all in the lobby for a pep rally. At first, I was as on board as one could get. I listened intensely as he and other executive level folks swished their pom-poms in the air, telling us about all the great projects in the works, just waiting for a few minor details to get sorted out. We were lead to believe that we were always on the verge of a massive flood of work crashing through the door. A number of these perky sessions came and went, and never were we actually awarded any of the great big projects we had bid on. I began to grow very skeptical.

One day, we were informed that we would be moving to a new building, which I took as a positive sign. As we toured the space, our mouths were agape. It was gorgeous. Evidently, it was the home of another start up that had met its demise. It had beautiful hard wood floors, giant ceiling to floor windows with a spectacular view of the city, cozy little side rooms for small meetings, large conference rooms for more formal ones. We ran in and out of the rooms like children at recess. This was such an amazing upgrade – we could hardly contain ourselves. During pep rallies, we were given updates on our new home and projected dates for the move. The details were becoming more and more vague. This, combined with rumors about venture capitalists refusing to give us more money, was starting to raise doubts.

Finally, we were asked to pack up our desks for the move. One minor revision, though: The location had changed. We were heading a few street blocks away to occupy the first floor of another abandoned office space. When we ultimately arrived, I was shocked. It was worse than the place we were coming from. No new hard wood floors, no elegant conference room, no beautiful view. Instead: Crummy carpeting, peculiar smells, grimy furniture and best of all - no working phone lines. Initially, we were told that the phone lines would be active once we settled in. Wrong. To conduct our business, we were expected to use our cell phones. This is back when there weren’t a heck of a lot of economic plans. Reception wasn’t the greatest either, so often my calls with the client would break up during crucial moments. And forget conference calls, altogether. Mercifully, we had internet access.

In the old building, I shared a private office with one other colleague. In the new building, we had an open space, shared with half the company. Directly in front of my desk stood the ping-pong table. Aggressive ping-pong matches were conducted as some of us tried to concentrate on our work. I lost my patience quickly. After an especially heated match, I stood up and walked out the door. Fuming, I marched into a nearby sporting goods store and purchased a wiffle ball and a plastic yellow bat. To the dismay of the ping-pongers, I sauntered in, stopped in the doorframe, threw the ball up and smacked it hard at the table with the bat, officially ceasing ping-pong during work hours.

Next, we were handed “salary adjustments.” Pep rallies went from “We’re going places!” to “It’s not so bad” to “Okay, we’re fucked.” Those who didn’t get salary adjustments were laid off. It was a truly pathetic time and also very sad since many of the folks the company employed were quite talented. After the salary adjustments came the “sorry, but your checks are going to be a little late this month” spiel. This was the last straw for me.

Meanwhile. My boyfriend was offered a job by one of his clients, a solid financial company outside Philadelphia. After 6 years of being back in Boston, I figured that it was time to give Philly another shot. My project was winding down, so I quickly made plans to reunite myself with the City of Brotherly Love.