Chapter 6: An Uneventful Town Outside Philly, PA

It wasn’t long before I began working for another technology company. I should have seen the warning signs before I jumped on board. First, I was approximately 2 hours late for my interview due to a horrendous set of directions. It was late June and steamy. My car was not equipped with air conditioning and I was wearing a suit with a long sleeved shirt. I had to keep calling the poor corporate recruiter for new directions, apologizing profusely for my tardiness. By the time I arrived, I had large wet splotches under my arms and on either side of my crotch and my hair was stuck to the sides of my face and neck. I was feeling and looking less than professional. I almost blew it off, figuring that there was no way in hell they would extend an offer to someone looking like me. Rather than cutting my losses, I entered the building. It was a masochistic move, but I must have been hungry for complete and utter humiliation that day.

I waltzed in, trying my best to keep my sweat from becoming the main focal point. The CEO of the company greeted me in the lobby and escorted me into the conference room. Since I was certain that this would not work out, I thought I would take a smug approach, overcompensating for my appearance. I answered every question with such a self-important tone that I was beginning to make myself nauseous.

It turns out that this company focused on the back-end development and was just beginning to get their feet wet with visual design. This was a problem for me because I was far more effective in the front-end stuff. I figured that this would be the deciding factor. I was not a good match, plain and simple. In fact, I was very candid with them about my experience with back-end development to that point. When the interview was over, they thanked me and I went on my merry way. It was the worst job interview I had ever been on. I couldn’t wait to strip off the suit and hit the job boards again.

Two days later, I got a call from the corporate recruiter. Not only did they extend an offer to me, but it was a few thousand dollars more than my preferred salary. Suddenly, I started to view the opportunity through a sunnier lens. I thought that this could be a good chance to gain more than just the front-end experience. Little did I realize how much “back-end” know-how I was about to get.

The interview, I think, set the tone for my whole experience with the company. Something was not quite right. I never really felt as though I was actually accepted. My lack of savoir-faire with technical development always seemed to outweigh any solid project management skills I brought to the table. It prevented me from exuding true confidence. I felt like a phony.

After a day of acclimating myself at the office, I was off to meet my client. In preparation, my boss explained that they (the 2 main contacts) could be, at times, demanding and that they had unusually high expectations. Well, that was nothing new to me. How many clients could be described in as fair, easy-going and satisfied with the work you do for them? Very few.

As we boarded the elevator to the floor they resided on, I could only summon one word to describe the atmosphere in the cramped lift. Farts. An intense odor permeated the small space. This was another foreboding sign. I thought that perhaps my boss had let one fly by accident, but after a few rides, I came to realize that this was a constant aroma.

When I stepped into the client’s office, I realized that the line between my new company and the client’s company was blurred. We had a definite presence in their building. They paid us to essentially be their IT department. They sprinkled in a few of their own IT people, but we represented the lion’s share. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about it, especially after I was told that I would be spending most of my workweek on site as well. We were the “catch all” folks, and in a brilliant move by the client, we were forced to respond to every little IT task with a giant shit-eating grin. Any display of attitude or lack of urgency could hinder our company’s business.

The first person I met was Renee. I am still not sure what her title was, but if you could have cherry-picked the person least qualified for her position, it would be her. Renee, it was rumored, started out as some kind of glorified administrative assistant. When the company first heard about having an online presence, they treated it with triviality and tossed it in her lap. “While your making copies, how about working on this web site thing?” Little did they realize how significant this web site thing would be. She teamed up with competent folks and began the groundwork for the interactive arm of their business. I can only imagine how painful those initial days must have been for the web development people. For working with Renee was like pressing sharp nails into your temples constantly. She looked a lot like Meryl Streep, but with a greasy face. It was literally as though she substituted liquid foundation for a few pads of butter and smeared them about her cheeks, chin and forehead. Not attractive.

Renee’s communication skills were atrocious. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would put her at a 3. She was great at raising red flags, but became overwhelmed and flustered when she was expected to articulate the reasons behind them. More often than not, she came off like a pouting, frustrated 7th grader. She would identify a problem with their web site (whether minor or not) and immediately call me and a few other IT people into her office to work it out. She cried wolf incessantly. I remember feeling like we were at Defcon 5 and in the middle of chemical warfare – everything was an emergency, all the time. I am sure that it is no shock, too, that Renee would change priorities around several times a day. You might set up your team resources to begin a project or troubleshoot a problem when Renee would call and ask that everything get shifted around to make room for something else (that could easily have waited). If you tried to explain that you had already set priorities for your team, Greasy Face would retort with “We really need you to be flexible. It’s one of the requirements of working here.” It was amazing. We ran around treating every little thing as though it were a stick of dynamite, about to explode in our hands.

Renee’s boss was Hugh, the 2nd coming of Don from New Jersey. A self-described hard ass, Hugh thought he was the hottest shit going. When I introduced myself to him, he asked, “So, are you any good?” No “hello,” no “pleasure to meet you.” Evidently, before Hugh came on board, there was a lot of corporate fat in desperate need of cutting. Hugh was the perfect axe man. He was unapologetic, insensitive and arrogant as hell. I am not sure if he was respected, but he was definitely feared.

Hugh was up at the crack of dawn. I knew this because he made a point of dropping this tid-bit often. I suppose it was to insinuate that he was not lazy and if you wanted to be viewed as anything but a slacker, you’d better be up at the crack of dawn, too. Waltzing in the door at 8:00 was certain to raise brows. First, you would receive pity eyes from others. Someone might grab you into their cube, and strip off your jacket while another sympathizer would dash to your computer and turn in on, placing a mug of coffee by your mouse pad. If the evil dictator spotted you, you would be subjected to public ridicule, regardless of your reason. “Oh, look who decided to get out of bed this morning! Hey, thanks for coming in!” he would shout, only half kidding. Or perhaps not at all. Then he would casually mention it to our company’s CEO.

Hugh began scheduling bi-weekly conference calls at 7:00 to get up-to-speed on all the IT initiatives. It was painful. As you would expect, Hugh was never satisfied with what he heard and made no bones about telling you so. Constant criticism was never really the problem. It was the swearing and explosive fits of rage that annoyed me. The funny thing is, no one in my company really talked about it. I thought that if I brought up my dissatisfaction, I might be seen as a wimp. I was dumbfounded at the unwavering tolerance of this man by my teammates. Through his battery of abuse and sophomoric banter, they remained stoically determined to keep eating his shit sandwiches.

Soon, I realized that I was nothing more than a patsy. Instead of seeing the sweat stains on my suit that day, they saw a sucker. For good measure, they threw a couple of thousand dollars extra into the deal. It seems that every project manager that had been hired to deal with these folks was either canned or left immediately. It was the position with the highest turn over rate at my company. During a one-on-one meeting with Hugh, I was told how he felt about all the fuck-ups our company dealt him over the months. This was a warning, of course, that I’d better not disappoint him or I might wind up like the others.

I felt that I had made a huge mistake in accepting this job. I began to dread getting onto that fart elevator every morning. I knew that I would be subjected to the agonizing jolts of Renee’s numerous and indistinct requests. I also knew that I would have to paint a huge smile on my face or feign concern. It was exhausting. I could actually see the wires in her brain overheat, then burn out. Hugh, Mr. Let Me Chew Your Ass Out, actually defended the nincompoop. At least in front of us. In private, though, I guess that he must have read her the riot act more than once since, sitting on her bookshelf were self-help titles like “Take the Bully by the Horns.”

I finally decided to ask my CEO for support. He didn’t act at all surprised to hear what I had to say, but he wasn’t very helpful, either. “Be patient,” he said. He also advised me to “hang in there,” but there was nothing specific about his plan to help. Hang in there for what?

During one excruciating 7:00 conference call, I decided that I had had enough. As I remember, one of our employees dared to defend work our team had done – work that Hugh and Renee were not pleased with. I remember bracing myself for the inevitable blast. And boy, was it bad. I immediately called my supervisor and gave my notice. I did not have a job to fall back on and I did not care. To this day, I don’t regret leaving, even though my tenure was approximately 3 months. It felt like an eternity. My leaving was an act of self-preservation. Needless to say, there is a 12-week hole in my resume. [Incidentally, September 11th occurred during this short period. How poignant.]