Tales from Tech Sales

Dear Midwest, I Have A Crush On You

/ Courtney / 2 Comments

I just returned from a business trip to Omaha, Nebraska and I think I can say it… I have kind of a crush. Not on any of my coworkers – that would be weird and I think Gil might have a few things to say about it. No – I have a crush on the Midwest. Or basically everyone I met in Omaha.

I don’t even know if Omaha is technically considered the Midwest, but whatever. It’s not on a coast – it’s the Midwest to me.

And I mean, I should clarify – I didn’t fall in love with the city of Omaha itself. Although I will say they had a much cuter downtown area than I was expecting. It was yuppie and trendy enough to impress a Bay Area snob like me. Good eats, good drinks, good atmosphere.

Outside of that, it was definitely much FLATTER than I’m used to… you can see much further in one direction than I think is natural. And I know for a fact I wouldn’t survive a whole winter out there. My idea of a heavy winter coat is basically a sweater with a big faux fur collar.

But the allure of Omaha is the people. I can’t remember the last time I interacted with so many friendly people in a row. Everyone is nice out there… for NO REASON. It’s a little unnerving, because when people out here are that nice to you, it’s usually because they’re trying to scam you or they want something from you. I sound jaded, but it’s true. I’ve lived in the Bay Area, LA and New York, and whenever strangers are overtly nice to me, I go on high alert.

In Omaha, that’s just how they roll. I took Uber back and forth to the office while I was there (mostly because I can’t be trusted to drive company rental cars – you hit ONE WALL and it becomes a thing) and every single one of my drivers was friendly, engaging and had a story to tell. And I walked away with business cards from three of them.

There was the real estate agent who had lived in San Diego, Portland and all over Florida, but always came back to Omaha because it was in his blood. He spent a good chunk of our time together selling me on all the reasons why Omaha was the best place to live. I told him I wanted to leave California so Gil and I could afford a real house together, and he offered me his card and told me to consider Omaha for the quality of life. He’s the one that old me the Midwest (Omaha in particular), has such a strong sense of community because the winters are so miserable that they all have to pull together to help each other out to get through it.

Then there was the limo driver who was warm and friendly and felt like a family member I just hadn’t met yet. He told me all about the crazy shenanigans he’s witnessed as a limo driver – the worst of which was when he was driving all day for a wedding, when halfway through the reception the groom comes out with the MAID OF HONOR and fully gets it on right there in the limo, with the privacy partition down. He told me her hair was basically on his sleeve as her head was jammed between the front seats but that it wasn’t his place to get involved. I got his card too, in case I need limo or car service next time I’m in town. Or if I ever need a secret place to cheat, since apparently part of his fee includes minding his own business at all costs.

And on my way out of town, I met a stay at home mom who was driving for Uber to help pay off her car and supplement the family income while she is attempting to write a young adult novel based loosely on her son. We hit it off so much it felt like we were old girlfriends and she told me I was the perfect first passenger… flattery will get you everywhere. I have her blog info somewhere in one of my bags too and I will buy her book if she ever publishes it.

Out here in the Bay Area, it’s just not like that. People are much more focused on keeping to themselves. More interested in checking their emails and following up on the latest messages in Slack to actually speak to the person driving them around the city.

And I basically lump myself into that group too – I am the “them” who are too tied up in technology to interact with people on a more human level. Then I went to Omaha and realized that maybe it really ISN’T me… maybe I’m a product of my environment. I can take on the the personality of the city I’m in, and I liked what that meant for those 4 days out there in the middle of the country.

So I got sucked in you guys. I started to imagine our future together, the Midwest and I. Started thinking about what it would be like if we got to see each other more often… if things got more serious and we even decided to make it a little more permanent.

It was basically the equivalent of being so used to Tinder dates who pull out their dicks when you’re not looking, to going out with someone tall and handsome with broad shoulders who pulls out chairs and holds doors for you and kisses you so passionately your knees buckle, but doesn’t pressure you to go home with him the first night. You don’t really know anything about him, but you’ve named your future children with him before you fall asleep that night.

The reality is, statistically speaking he will probably wind up to have one or more personality traits you can’t stand, like the fact that he always tries to order for you in restaurants, or that he starts to try to push his aggressive religious beliefs on you. Or that he always screams the name Wyatt when he comes. You know, it’s always something.

So I need to keep my shit in check… I need to stop searching Realtor.com and getting a lady boner when I see what kind of house I can afford in Omaha. I need to accept it for what it was. A vacation fling with a local that was only magical for those 4 days in that hotel when “real life” seemed so far away.

I’m Not Here To Make Friends

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

I spent my 2 hour commute home yesterday obsessing over an email I had sent to a co-worker right before I left the office. It had been a hectic day, and I was a little stressed and noticed something had been sent to a customer that shouldn’t have been, so I shot out an email asking about it and then packed my shit and hit the road. And then commenced a rather unhealthy obsession over whether or not I had come across as a total bitch.

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Which, in reflection 24 hours later, is completely ridiculous because A) I had done nothing wrong in the situation in question with the customer and B) The email itself wasn’t rude. Concise? Sure. To the point? Yes. A little cold? Maybe. But since when is that grounds to lose one’s shit for an entire evening??

Part of me wants to say it’s the struggle of being an assertive, vocal woman in sales who is constantly trying to find the balance between having a voice and wanting to be liked, but that would an unfair, completely oversimplified generalization. Plus in this case, I don’t think it had anything to do with being a woman, but more to do with the fact that I’ve been struggling with anxiety pretty heavily recently, and this was just something I happened to fixate on.

And in case you’re all wondering, the issue was resolved this morning – there was no fall-out. The entire office didn’t start whispering about me, and I wasn’t forced to bear a scarlet “B” to repent for my crimes.

But, it did get me thinking. Well, more accurately it got me talking, and I forced Gil to entertain the fact that people might think I’m a complete monster at work and hate me with the fire of a thousand burning suns. OK, he didn’t really entertain that idea, but he did challenge me to consider what kind of vibe I might be putting out there, and to make changes if that’s something that is important to me.

On a side note, can I just say, it’s INFURIATING sometimes to have a partner who is so calm and rational and logical and exists so solidly in reality. I live on emotions and rainbows and panic attacks and FEELINGS. So. Many. Feelings.

Regardless, his rational response to my wildly irrational meltdown got me thinking about how people perceive me at work, and whether it’s something that really matters to me.

On some level, of course it matters. It matters to all of us who have chosen to enter the professional workforce. We enter into an unspoken agreement to be generally palatable to the rest of the people we interact with and to shower on a fairly regular basis. Beyond that, there is really no obligation to be liked or make friends with those you work with, although countless studies will tell you that a big part of job satisfaction has to do with having friendships at work.

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And I work at a tech company in the Silicon Valley – a place where culture reigns supreme. There’s been countless resources and energy directed towards creating a workplace where people are encouraged to be very social, from lawn game Olympics to regular happy hours and karaoke nights, to company trips.

I think that’s fantastic, and I feel incredibly lucky to work for a company like that. I have realized however, that I’m a bit of an odd man out, as my general feeling when I go to work is that I’m there to make money, not friends.

Some of it has to do with the fact that I work in sales, and I make a good chunk of my salary on commission – which is to say, if I don’t close deals, I don’t get paid. So for me, work has always been more of a hustle, and less focused on the social aspect of it. Sales is not exactly a team sport.

And sales can be brutal, man. I’ve worked in other organizations where they purposely pitted sales people against each other, and we were encouraged to screw each other over. I’ve had managers spread lies to my coworkers about things I never said. Somewhere along the way in my sales career, I was taught that relationships at work were a liability. So I tend to be a bit more reserved and cautious about forming those friendships now.

But it’s also about the fact that I’m in a different place in my life than most of my coworkers (I feel so old just typing that). I’m in my early thirties now, and many of my coworkers are just a year or two out of college. My current company has created this kind of fabulous extension of the same kind of social interactions from college that allow people to blur the lines of their social and professional lives until they don’t really exist anymore. They WANT to go to the bars with the people they spend so much time with,  to cut loose and talk about things they can’t share in the confines of the office. They WANT to catch up on Monday mornings about all the crazy shenanigans they got into over the weekend. Hell, they want to live with each other and commute to work together. I get it. I think when I was in my early twenties I would have wanted all that too.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want that now. I want to come home and take my pants off. I want to come home after work and hang out with my boyfriend. I want to have dinner with my friends and meet their their new baby. I want to come home and ice my ankle because I am an old busted down lady now who has permanent arthritis due to an injury.

Is there anything wrong with this? Nope, not at all. Is it actually pretty common in most professional situations? Probably. Am I acutely aware of how I am perceived, in such a culture-focused Silicon Valley tech company? You betcha. I struggle with it.

And I don’t think I’m alone. Especially here in the Valley, your assimilation into the culture is a huge part of your success at work and something you are formally evaluated on in many cases.

And last night, Gil very logically, objectively, and INFURIATINGLY, forced me to look at things a little closer and strive to find a better balance. The last thing I want is to be like the cliche girl on “The Biggest Bachelorette Survivor Housewives of Whatever” defiantly shouting at the camera, “I didn’t come here to make friends, bitches!!”

Images via Giphy, Giphy

That One Time A VP Threw Up In My Hand

/ Courtney / 1 Comment

She threw up in my hand. SHE THREW UP IN MY HAND. I had to look down again to make sure… was this real life? Yup, that was vomit, in my hand. I wasn’t babysitting one of my friends’ new babies (I don’t think I’ll ever be on the top of the list for that favor) or helping out a friend with food poisoning – I was in the hotel room of a forty-something senior vice president of a large national advertising firm, putting her to bed after she consumed her body weight in red wine.

OK, let me back up. This was a few years ago, but it’s one of those moments in your life you just don’t forget – no matter how hard you try, you can’t forget it. And honestly, the story is great party fodder so I don’t know that I’d really want to forget it anyway.

But to put this story in context, you need to know a few things first. One, I work in tech sales. I have for most of my adult career. Two, I am a pretty good go-to person in high stress situations. Typically I can get things done and have been told I can be a bulldozer, which I choose to take as a compliment, whether it was meant that way or not. And three (and most importantly), alcohol and sales go together like peanut butter and jelly.  If peanut butter could embarrass you in front of your co-workers and make you vomit on your shoes without noticing.

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And I think there is a lot of boozing that happens in the human resources industry in particular. Maybe it’s because they have to put up with so much shit during the day that they just need something to take the edge off – kind of like how I imagine most moms must just have a constant supply of wine on hand. In either case, you can’t really blame them. Anyway, I’ve worked for a few different companies that sold into HR, and the conferences were crazier that most of the frat parties I attended in college. You have to know what you’re getting into. You have to be prepared.

In my first tech sales job in the Bay Area, I was not. I wasn’t prepared guys. I worked in the coffee and tea industry in my early twenties, selling high end teapots and mugs. There were six of us. We had no money. We couldn’t even afford Diet Coke, let alone alcohol. We never hosted any customer events. There was no “culture” to speak of. It was a different world.

But in my first real sales job in the Silicon Valley, I learned very quickly part of the deal was socializing with the entire sales organization and knocking back a few drinks with them. Team events, kickoff meetings, happy hours, customer dinners. There was always something. But the most debauchery I ever witnessed was at the HR industry conferences, which we would attend with one primary goal: schmoozing our customers.  It was at just such a conference where our story really begins my friends.

I was in Las Vegas with a group of co-workers for a large HR conference. Most of the attendees at the conference were married with kids, and this was an event they looked forward to all year. Not only were they in Vegas without their kids or spouses, but they were there on their company’s dime, usually in a hotel full of other people in exactly the same situation. It’s basically freshman year of college in the dorm, where kids are finally away from their parents for the first time and have easy access to booze and each other – it’s a shit show.

One of the nights we were there, we hosted a VERY fancy cocktail hour and dinner for some of our larger customers and partners. We had a private room in a 5 star restaurant and an open bar. It was a formal dinner, and actually the first time in my 25 years I’d been to a place with a choreographed wait staff – one waiter for every person at the table, all working in unison to create a beautiful display, like that scene from Beauty and the Beast where all the plates come to life. I didn’t even know that was a thing. It was fancy as fuck and a little intimidating. I was doing my best to sound sophisticated while talking shop with our customers but little did I know, sophistication was not the theme that night.

One of our partners, a senior vice president of a national advertising agency, had already clearly had a few before we all gathered at the restaurant. And before we go any further in this little adventure, keep in mind some of the customers at dinner were her customers too.

I watched her go through multiple glasses of red wine over appetizers. I didn’t think too much of it though – like I said, there is always quite a bit of booze flowing at these things. She was flirting with the VP of a major hospital to her right, who was clearly uninterested in anything but business with this woman. Not only were they both married, but the hospital was a customer of this advertising agency. Frankly, I was kind of enjoying the show and only marginally trying to run interference – he was our customer too so I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable.

I turned to talk to my own VP across the table when out of my periphery, I saw her lean over to him and in slow motion, like a car crash with smeared lipstick, she shoved her tongue into his ear. At the dinner table. In front of everyone. Holy shit. He must have had some experience with hammered 45 year old women, because he handled it like a champ. He disentangled her and immediately engaged the rest of the table in conversation to distract her. She was a persistent little beaver though, and eventually he excused himself to the other end of the table. Dinner hadn’t even been served yet.

When it was, she immediately spilled red wine all over her $60 steak and her white pants and got into a tug of war with the waiter trying to clear it. “I can eat it out of the wine!!” she protested. I really didn’t know whether to laugh or leap up to try and help her poor waiter.

This VP wasn’t actually my customer and I had no prior relationship with her, but luckily our advertising rep who did was at the dinner as well and she finally took Drunky McTongue to the bathroom to compose herself and clean up. The rest of us politely pretended it hadn’t happened and continued on with dinner. Until I felt a frantic tapping on my shoulder and my co-worker desperately whispering that she needed my assistance in the bathroom. Fuck.

Once I got into the bathroom I saw that she had locked herself in a stall and was refusing to come out. I could see through the crack that she was practically passed out. I immediately started trying to put together a game plan. I couldn’t crawl under the stall door because A) I’m not a small girl and B) Those fancy 5 star bathroom doors went all the way to the ground. The only way in was up. I took off my heels and stood on the toilet in the next stall so I could see her and thought, You have got to be kidding me… I am going to have to scale this wall in a cocktail dress. They do not pay me enough for this shit. 

Suddenly I had an idea though – I told her McDreamy from the hospital was still at dinner and was waiting to go get a drink with her. BAM! Door unlocked. I’m a genius. I led her out to a table in the back room and pulled my own VP into the mix. We had to figure out how to get her out – we could NOT take her through the main part of the restaurant. So while he went to talk to the kitchen staff about dragging her out the back way, I tried to get her to drink some water and eat some bread. She was face down on the linen table cloth.

When I finally got her to look at me, she stared at me blankly and then slurred, “You drugged me!” Awesome. I should have just left her there. But I found her purse, and dug through for her room key. She was staying a hotel down the strip. Myself, my VP and my coworker essentially carried her out and caught a cab to her hotel. Once we got there, my VP looked at me and said he didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be in her hotel room. Based on her behavior at dinner and her apparent propensity for making wild accusations, I agreed. But that just left me and my coworker who, frankly, was completely overwhelmed with the situation.

We got her to her room and I sat her on the bed and forced her to drink some water. Once I could establish she wasn’t going to hurt herself or try to go find the bar, I planned to put her to bed in her clothes and get the hell out of there. Her eyes started to clear up a bit and she told us she was feeling better. I grabbed the trash can from the bathroom just for good measure. As I walked up with the trash can and gestured to my coworker for something, the senior VP of a national advertising agency chose that moment to throw up. In. My. Hand.

I never got an apology from her, and somehow, she didn’t lose her job. But a couple weeks later, I did get a gift and a note thanking me for helping her when she had a “bad reaction to something at dinner.”

It was a pink Las Vegas shot glass with the $3.99 price tag still attached.

How To Survive A Shitshow At Work

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

Ah, the shitshow. It comes in many forms and can strike at any time. It can be as minor as a dinner party gone awry, or it can play out on a national stage, like that time in 2013 when the federal government shut down for 2 weeks because they didn’t want to play nice with each other.

What I’m talking about it somewhere in between. The mini disaster at work that isn’t going to cost you your job, but requires damage control.

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Personally, I am at the tail-end of just such an event. I, unfortunately, was the catalyst for this particular event. I misunderstood something that a customer wanted, and it set off a chain reaction of events that quickly escalated into something much bigger. Much shittier.

The details would bore you, but it wasn’t good. There was just a breakdown in communication. Which, incidentally, is the cause for pretty much most problems is it not? Gil works with 8 year old kids all day long and has taught them to resolve conflict with rock paper scissors so everything is fair and there are no misunderstandings. Maybe we should implement that in corporate America…. but I digress.

Anyhow, a work shitshow takes many forms: A new boss doesn’t understand your process at all and slams you in a review. You messed up a purchase order that is going to impact inventory in your store for weeks. You almost gave the wrong dosage of medication to a patient. Your panties fell down in front of a group of high school students as you were dancing on stage as Minnie Mouse.

These are all things that have happened to people I know. It’s not fun. But there are some things you can do to mitigate the damage and survive the situation with grace. This happens to be my personal list for just such an event.

1. Own up.

I’m listing this as number 1 because not only is it the first thing I think you should do, but because I actually think it’s the most important. And what is that saying – the hardest part is admitting there is a problem? Once you identify it, own up to your part in it.

The minute I realized my mistake with this customer, I let my boss know and took full responsibility. You know, after that gut punch feeling had passed and I had bolstered myself with caffeine and chocolate (which you may want to skip so you’re not vibrating down the hall).

2. Wear a power outfit. And fierce eyeliner.

This one sounds silly, but stay with me on this. Basically, do whatever you can to build up your confidence and keep yourself feeling good. I went into work today with a killer outfit on and perfect cat-eye liquid eyeliner. Head held high. Because whether it’s an incident meeting you have to attend, or you’re just going into the office in the midst of the drama, you owe it to yourself to be kind even if everyone around you isn’t.

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Plus, if you don’t go in with your tail between your legs and your head down, people will be less likely to try to pile on blame and will instead see you as the confident, capable employee you are, who just happens to have made a mistake. People tend to use your behavior as a cue for how they are allowed to treat you.

3. Be loud. With intent. 

The squeaky wheel gets the grease right? If there were other issues in play that contributed to your own personal shitshow, be vocal about them. But beware – timing and tact are critical here. This is not about using outside circumstances as an excuse. Remember number 1 – OWN IT.

However, if there are other issues that need to be evaluated that may have contributed to the problem, point them out. But make sure you are bringing solutions and ideas to the table, otherwise it just sounds like a complaint. If you can approach your team with the attitude of “Hey, I know I dropped the ball here, and in the interest of making sure it doesn’t happen again, I’ve been looking at our process and I think there are some simple improvements we can make,” you put yourself in a much better position. You’ve now made yourself an active part of a solution. Sweet.

4. Agree on a plan for the future. 

Once you’ve brought your suggestions and insights to the table, make sure everyone is clear on how similar situations will be handled in the future. Maybe there is a process change that needs to be implemented – agree on  how is that going to be communicated, who is going to enforce the change, etc.

This is when you will really learn a lot about your colleagues’ personal communication styles. Some may prefer to be completely non-confrontational and need to be handled more gently than others. Some respect blunt directness more than anything. Take note of how everyone handles the shitshow and the plan for moving forward, and make note so you know how to best approach them in the future.

5. Move on.

Open a bottle of wine. Get a massage. Go test drive an entirely impractical car. I did all 3 of these things over the weekend. I didn’t think about work once. And while there will still be some fallout from this particular shitshow, it’s manageable and it’s not some shadow looming over me.

That frees me up to keep doing what I need to do and bring in business, which is my number 1 priority. And for me, I’m lucky enough to work for a great company where people want to collaborate to make things better, and this is just a blip on the radar. A learning experience.

If you happen to work for a company or a boss who has no interest in actually working through this process with you, then moving on might actually mean moving on from that job or that boss.

I’ve been in that situation too – I had a boss whose idea of conflict resolution included hurling a teapot in my general direction and screaming at me in front of the rest of the office.

I quit. His company went under. So sometimes things work out the way they’re supposed to. Because while we are all going to experience a shitshow at work every once in awhile, it should definitely be the exception, not the rule.

Silicon Valley Tech Employees Are EXACTLY As Spoiled As You Think We Are

/ Courtney / 3 Comments

You’ve read about us. You’ve seen stories on the news about us. We travel in packs. And ride company shuttles. And eat free, catered lunches every day and ride company bikes around different “campuses” of our offices.

We are the tech workers here in this California mecca known as the Silicon Valley. And we are EXACTLY as spoiled as you think we are.

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I wish I could say we all realize it, and live every day completely grateful for our situation and the abundance of resources and opportunities we have at our fingertips. But the truth is, that’s not really the case. It has become our “normal” and we just want more.

I’m guilty of it myself. When the bar has been raised and you live in the type of world we do, it’s easy to start taking these privileges for granted. Because while free breakfast, lunch and dinner is all well and good,  and our in-office masseuse and chiropractor are awfully generous, many of us find it easy to forget that’s not normal. It sounds crazy to even type that sentence, but it’s true. I think it’s even harder for those employees who have just recently entered the workforce.

They are the lucky ones who graduated in the last few years, when we had already started to recover from the recession. While those of us who were already in the workforce felt the full impact of what was happening in 2007-08, they were still in college (or high school for that matter), with a vague understanding of what the changing economy meant to their job prospects and still trying to get every ounce of enjoyment they could out of college. I don’t blame them. College is often a comfortable bubble that exists outside of the “real world” where you can skip the classes you don’t like, stay out all night partying and still feel ready take on the world the next day. So they did, these lucky ones.

And when they graduated, they were able to land jobs at the tech behemoths of the Bay Area: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Salesforce.com and Twitter, among others. Places where “company culture” reigns supreme and employee benefits and satisfaction are serious business. When THAT is your first experience out of college, it’s hard not to come to expect that from all your employers. When you’re 23 and part of your job entails drinking free booze all night while staying at 5-star hotels in San Francisco and getting a private tour of AT&T Park, it’s easy to lose touch with reality.

Hell, it’s easy to lose touch with reality even if that’s NOT your only experience in the professional world. I graduated college in 2006 and started working for a company in Los Angeles that made coffee and tea accessories. Basically, I sold mugs and teapots.

There were 5 of us when I started. I was sales, I was marketing, I was part-time warehouse supervisor, part-time copywriter and catalog editor, and store merchandiser for our biggest customers. It was an amazing growth experience but I worked my ass off and made a grand total of $34,000. Which, when rent for my apartment in LA was $1,300/month, didn’t go very far. But I learned to hustle. And there was no free soda in the break room. No free lunches. No “perks,” just work that needed to get done.

I remember one of my first big business trips out to Chicago – I was so excited. And so green. At 23, I hadn’t done much travelling. My boss booked my travel arrangements. I was flying into Midway because it was cheaper, but the cheapest hotel he could find was next to O’Hare, so that’s what he booked. And there was no money for a rental car, he told me. No, I would just need to figure out public transit, even when it meant a 2 hour train ride and 20 minute walk in the snow to the outskirts of the city to visit a customer.

I remember that trip vividly, schlepping around Chicago in March with my suitcase, asking people for directions and trying to keep a smile on my face and not freak out about all the things I needed to figure out. In hindsight, I realize the company was mismanaged and bleeding money and I was put in some situations I shouldn’t have been, but it is what it is. I’m grateful for those experiences.

I’m not sharing this to show how much harder I had it than the recent grads working at tech companies (well, maybe a little) but rather to point out that those experiences helped shape me. They helped make me stronger. And I AM proud of how I handled those situations, and how I was able to get things done without a smartphone, and without company support. I worked there for almost 4 years, and by the time I quit and moved to the Bay Area, the job market was picking up. And when I landed my first tech sales job, I could see things were going to be different.

And even having had those experiences, it’s easy to be seduced into the world of free food, free booze, and free travel, and forget all about those days.  Big name tech companies and start-ups alike are battling it out for talent. Talent that is way beyond my pay grade. I mean, yes, they would like to attract the best sales talent, but who they’re really battling for are the top notch engineers and developers, and once Google set the bar, the rest of the companies who wanted those “A players” needed to step up with those big perks or lose the talent war. And the rest of us get to take advantage.

I remember the first time my boyfriend came to visit my office last year. We had 2 kitchens in the building (all free food), a pinball machine on my floor, and a mini golf course set up around the office (part of a team building activity from the week before). When I got home that day, he told me I was never allowed to complain about work EVER again. And he had a point. While I definitely considered my job to be somewhat stressful at times, it’s all relative. He’s worked in retail, as a logger, and in nonprofit, rebuilding homes in New Orleans. He has always had to buy work supplies out of his own pocket. Seeing that world was like walking into an alternate universe for him.

And it’s a good reminder for those of us lucky enough to live in it that we really should be consciously thankful every day. Because I’ve seen it all too often… people forgetting how ridiculously lucky we are. It happens more often when your friends and social circle all work in tech too. Because you all live in the same world – you become a silo. I’ve seen internal company discussion boards where people COMPLAIN ABOUT THE FREE FOOD THEY’RE BEING SERVED. I’ll give you a minute to process that.

At one of the companies I worked for, once a quarter they would cancel our catered lunch and simply ask that we bring our own or go out to lunch with coworkers. The money that was saved in that ONE DAY across all of our offices was astronomical,  and they donated it to the less fortunate. Once a quarter. Four times a year. No big deal, right? Wrong. Without fail, every time that day rolled around, someone would complain about how that impacted their work day, that they couldn’t be productive if they had to go out for lunch, etc. BULLSHIT. Total bullshit. Even if you can make the case there is no convenient food nearby (which you can’t, you entitled, privileged a**hole) then get up 10 minutes early and make a fucking PB&J.

I’m using a harsh example to make a point… most people were not so extreme. And I think most DO try to be appreciative of what we have. But it’s a competitive environment that we’re working in, and we do work hard. So companies keep upping the ante. If it’s not more stock options and work from home flexibility, it’s sailing lessons and free gym memberships. Which is great for those of us already working in this industry, and for those lucky college grads who find a spot on one of those teams right out of school. But the more perks they pile on, the further and further detached from reality we become.

At some point, some of these companies are going to fail. Some of these people will lose their jobs, and may not be able find a new one as bright and shiny as the one they had before. Some of us, like myself, are going to willingly walk away from this world at some point, as painful as it might be to give it up.

And when we come out on the other side, we’re going to have a hell of an adjustment to make. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll get much sympathy when we complain about our sushi withdrawal and how much we miss having a personal “ergonomics expert” to set up our desk area to fit our delicate needs. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now, I need to go play a round of mini golf and grab a free Perrier.