Category: On The Job

An exciting, nervous hairball of a day arrived.  A day of suits, curled hair, eye makeup, clean nails, and quirky, irresistible Web Consultants paired with Corporate Titans.

Heads held high, swallowing the nerves, the crew of “internet experts” strode confident. Slow-motion in their mind’s eye, moving past endless cubes, taking in the smells of coffee and fresh paint from their client’s recent office remodeling.  Now breaching the door of a cavernous conference room, filled with about 30 Corporate stakeholders, their first job begins.

The Schmooze

Creating an inclusive sense belonging through well-designed camaraderie, they start with laughs. Light entertainment, leading into the “Dog And Pony Show”.  Marketing Mavens, the Corporate Communications contingent, even IT — the contract owners — started to loosen up in minutes.

“Dim All the Lights, Sweet Darlin'”

The projector glow lights up Paris, The Creative Director. Presentation at the ready, she takes the reigns and the Circus begins.  The Project Manager at her flank knows: this web design presentation could make or break the entire project… and budget… if it missed the mark with this picky Corporate crowd.

But in minutes they knew. The Creative was spot on — capturing the pure spirit and heritage of this historic soft drink conglomerate.

Every brand stood gorgeously presented.

This corporate website design fully represented the critical picture that the client wanted to portray to the whole world.

Lush “oohs and ahhs” filled the room.

Mid-table the Project Manager breathed a sigh of relief.  She thought: Our first preso to my biggest client so far. Again, I have arrived!

For that moment, the well-hidden nerves drained away. The training drilled into their Consultant heads, at one time seemingly self-absorbed, now suddenly seemed manifest:
We are consultants. We keep our heads high. We offer value. We are to be respected. And, every hour is a billable hour.

Afterglow

At the conclusion of the presentation, the client thoroughly satisfied, the Project Manager chimes in: “We’re so thrilled that you love the design! Let’s talk about next steps. We can begin building the site by tomorro…”

But her sentence would never complete, as Paris pushes in: “But if you really want a great site, you need to use Flash.”

Screeeeeeeeech.

The rubber tires skid, melting into the pavement. The needle is slapped over the grooves. The nails pass down the chalkboard. And now: a full stop halt, of wide and shocked eyes around the table.

“What?” the Corporate Comms lead says. “What is Flash? How so?”

Oh no.

Flames instantly spring from our WWW dumpster.

The Creative Director proceeds to explain: “It’s animation. Every banner on every page could move. Wouldn’t you like to see your little brand character dancing?”

<Hindsight moment>

Flash! Dear God. Of all things! A future self somewhere in another dimension understands that this moment is ridiculous. Because this once-coveted Web 2.0 technology has already met its (decommissioning) maker. Why did we blow up the meeting for FLASH?? But then again — in that moment, everyone just wanted a snazzy website. Sigh.

</Hindsight moment>

“Is it in scope?”, the stern IT lady says.

The IT group Project-Managing on the customer side starts to twitch. They brokered the project and budgeted it, knowing full well that their internal customer, Corp Comms, would be a handful to manage.

The other twitcher in the room, the web agency Project Manager, didn’t know that her Creative Director would become a handful to manage too! Why did this Flash thing not come up in the Internal Review?

It’s the agency Project Manager’s turn, to douse the flame with a big, fat fire extinguisher. With a trace of white froth forming at the corner of her mouth, she states with a wide eye: “No, that’s not currently budgeted in scope.”

Ugh.  And so began the…

Bait and Switch.

These words echoed across conference calls for weeks after the presentation. Indeed, straight through to the launch of the project.

Corp Comms ran wild with their Flash demands, given the Creative Director made them feel like they were getting a crap website. Not good enough, without that Flash.

Oh, it was bad. And the agency Delivery Manager pinned it on the one responsible for managing the scope: the Project Manager.

The Moral of the Story

On this day, a phase was forevermore coined: Designers Run Amok. A state of being, when desire for great(ish) design supersedes other project success criteria.

But it wasn’t an us-vs-them. The Project Manager had a design background too, and knew this phenomenon all-too-well. Heck, she even indulged in it herself from time to time.

But when playing a role, moments will arise when you further commit to your path: managing with the business in mind, not just the creative.

And so, live each instance of creative-run-amok as an adventure. And with some luck, preparation, and targeted questions, you might just catch it in the Internal Review, before the client sees.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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How many dotcom-era web development agencies can you name?  Do you remember the slew of sprouts that “rose to the top” during the late 90’s web boom days?  Perhaps:  Luminant, Viant, Scient, Sapient, Rare Medium, Exceed, Agency.com, USWeb, Cognizant, Digitas, Razorfish?

Some of these sprouts still live to tell their tales, having grown into digital behemoths.  But alive or dead, what did they all have in common?:  Lofty, slightly intangible names. 

Perhaps a perfect reflection of the web product they peddled, which was vaguely understood at the time.  (Both technically and perhaps culturally.)  But we all knew, when we worked with one of these companies, that we were on-trend… so cool… so modern.

Enter the Dot-Com Web Agency Utopia

Arriving to work at one of these hot agencies meant moving from the scrappier side of town, a land of converted warehouses, into an actual office building.

It meant being plucked away from the obscurity of “no-name” clients.  And recognition (via a 4-part cross-functional interview process with peers) that you are indeed ready for the “big time” clients.

At one such place, in North Dallas, you find yourself at one of the best, most well-known dot-com agencies.

A land of modern facilities, smooth elevators, fresh paint, and grey berber carpet.  Where walls of white boards stood marked by multi-colored dry erase markers.  Where neon post-it notes formed networks across glass-enclosed conference rooms.  Where comfy clouds of beanbag chairs lined war rooms. And where floor-to-ceiling windows offered skyline views.

Training was not a “thing” here.  Because YOU were already an expert on the web.  That’s why you were hired.  Leads only coached in belief of capability, repeating a mantra when doubts crept in:

We are consultants. We keep our heads high. We offer value. We are to be respected. And, every hour is a billable hour.

It’s true: you’re a little too full of yourself as a result.  But that’s what you needed, when riding the wild west internet bronco.

The dot-com boom is here, and you’ve entered the utopia.  You busy yourself with your first proper client, getting ready for your first major presentation.  So it begins…

---

Learn more about the the dot-com agency experience. Check out:

You Shoulda Been There – Excellent interviews and stories from the high-profile trailblazers who built the early web. 

Kings of the 90’s Dot Coms

Wikipedia: the Dot Com Bubble

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

Please “like” if you did on social media (@DigitalDeliria), share, and post your comments.  What do you remember about early web agency life?

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"I'm coming out
I want the world to know
Got to let it show."
    -- Diana Ross

She’s in the sun, wind teasing her hair. Stepping into the street, the burger joint next door wafts a savory scent.

Walking out meant more today: it meant walking off the job. Freshly resigned, her brain tingled. On pure, involuntary impulse, she stuck her finger in the air, and looked up briefly. Then strutted down the street, and hopped into her sporty black car.

Windows down to embrace the fresh warm breeze, she peeled away with a music blast swirling in her wake. Off to meet with her girlfriends and celebrate a new day.

They left the same company not long before: on to bigger and better opportunities. Now she follows the same path.

Soon she strode into the high-ceilinged and high-energy restaurant. It felt like the center of the universe: booming with popularity and lively voices. A pure reflection of the sentiment of the day.

Her countenance no different, she headed to the bar. They catch each other’s eyes. Gal pals Dame and Beckums flash sudden, exhilarating smiles. The new arrival swings her arms above her head, beaming and singing:

“I’m coming out!”

The ladies bust out laughing, as they erupt into dance and exchange hearty high-fives all around their cocktail table.

The song matched the freest of feelings: of a new threshold, of achieving a higher goal. A sense of pride in self, and joy for what is yet to come.

Dame exclaims, beaming: “This the happiest I’ve ever seen you!”

And happy she was. Leaving for advancement, new challenges, a higher salary, and the opportunity to serve clients you’d know by name: it was all she dreamed.  A true acknowledgment of the endless work, the long nights. Of all she accomplished over years of trailblazing work in website development. 

These were the heady early days of the internet: dot-coms boomed, and demand for talent soared to a peak. She rode the wave of an employee market, where hiring was swift and competition by employers permitted her to take her pick of jobs.

In that instant, a sense of pride washed over her.  But yet in that exhilarating moment, her brain still nagged with a sense of regret and bittersweet. 

Should I have given more notice to my old boss? 

But the other company wanted me NOW.

Should I have walked out on my last day? Such a strident snub, for this liquid lunch with my buddy colleagues?

But it’s time to CELEBRATE!

Am I too full of myself?

NO!  Well yes, maybe that’s a little bit true.

The push and pull swirled in her head. But one thing’s for sure… she was off to a proper Digital Consultancy. And it was all about to start on MONDAY!  Future, here we come!

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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“I got a funky job 
and I paid my dues 
on the good foot.  
Do it with the good foot."
     -- James Brown

Jitterbug jitterbug

Fingers poking the air

Funky feet, double time

Wave up the bod

And start it again…

Sass danced as Bone played her favorite James Brown tune. The fun-loving spunk of a girl, with dark eyeliner and a crop of blonde hair, just launched her first website.

Her design was chosen from a variety of options presented to the client. After a production long-haul, the fruits of her labor finally appeared on full WWW display.  

“Get on down,” she quipped with James, in that old warehouse downtown. A converted office space brimming with digital creativity, as if bits and pixels flowed out through the multi-colored window panes.

Pride and elevation pulsed in her veins.  And relief that it was done, after so much work!  Soon Dame and Asira joined in, with their own funky feet, in the middle of the concrete floor. Bone looked on with a grin, and popped up from his seat too.

This impromptu celebration lived on for years in Sass’s mind. It remained an unexpected and unlikely memory: achieving praise, surrounded by revelers in her accomplishment.

“Unlikely” because Sass had a secret, well-hidden from all. Her sparkling persona masked reality, and simply served as a construct of what she was not. Her mask reflected her future self: what she aspired to achieve. 

She purposefully transformed to a bringer of levity. A fountain of overt energy. A dance-down-the-street kind of gal. A force-field against her own dark history, one filled with the devastating pain of losing both parents when she was all-too-young.

It left her insecure about her next meal and place to rest. Crushing depression filled her, and turned her into a child gone wild.

As much as she tried, she never achieved enough… but life became a game to overcome her destroyed youth.  

Then she picked up a scent with a pivotal realization: this is my one chance. The web — a new and uncharted territory — opened a door for her. So she picked herself right up, followed electrified wires, armed with her firewall mask, and walked right down the bit-paved trail, into web design.

Never achieved enough? — Well, not until now.

This wasn’t only her first website launch. It was proof that she overcame.

Perhaps her outward persona projection finally drove itself into a new reality.  Surrounded by coworkers and friends — she knew she had arrived.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Have you made a mark yet?  Why make a mark?  Does your mark mean anything, to anybody, anymore?

Where does your mark persist? 

In one such place, a blue window pane remains.  Something easily missed by the passerby.  But look closely… it offers a story.

The tale of a sunny, new day’s arrival. When every pane of glass was colored as if by creativity itself: orange, red, green, yellow, and blue.

Peering through the windows, the internet rag-tags now had their own office!  Granted, a converted warehouse.  But all the sizzling dot-coms and web agencies were down there: Rare Medium, Exceed, Broadcast.com, and more.

The area was called Deep Ellum.  Home of the trendy and techie.  A place for the young and vibrant… for the high-velocity… for the dreamers and driven entrepreneurs.  A place where you could transform in a flash from working in the day, to partying at night.

A figure makes her way down the cracked sidewalk next to the windows, with rustling tutu.  A vision as bright as the multi-colored windows she passes by: hot pink leggings, a side pony with purple streak, green slouch socks, blue eye shadow, and a familiar yellow lump hitched to her side with yellow wires tangled in hoop earrings: The Walkman.

Into the warehouse she swishes, and coworkers’ eyes widen to see just how far she went “all out”.  She arranged this day, after all.  80’s day: a nostalgic throwback, and a bit of fun at the web agency.

The cavernous space filled with smiles and laughs all around. There’s Bone, resident DJ pumping out Duran Duran, with Presto.  There’s Sass, a spirited designer decked out in 80’s garb.  She always stayed “on the good foot”, perched next to the long-haired programmer who smelled sweetly of Herbal Essences.  Next to the phones stood sweet friend Dame, who threw her a wedding shower just weeks earlier at the subleased office.  There’s Boss, posed with his familiar smoothie, and distracted by the phones.  And lastly, there’s Hacker (reformed and hired to build the web, before his ilk became known as “security professionals”).

Such was the fun of youngsters, driving the early internet all day and most of the night, in that warehouse in the arty district in town.

So, where’s your blue window?  Your mark?  And what does it stand for?  Maybe it’s just reminiscent of a simple day of fun with coworkers… and nothing more.  But if we weren’t there, creating, and you there, consuming… would the internet exist exactly as it does today? 

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Bone arrived from a respectable digital consultancy, lured away by a rag-tag bunch of startup geeks.

His tall stride made him the most elevated person in the room. His hawk-like gaze down a chiseled nose meant business.

He came for battle, ready to bring the first-ever digital workspace collaboration tool to life in glorious PHP. He planned to convert T&E into something sexy, with an application well before its time in the late ‘90s. 

His armaments included music of all eras, to keep the cramped production room hopping. Often dueling in the air with 1940s Swing from colleague Presto.

Bone understood his assignment, and stood ready to dive in.

But to his surprise, Day 1 slammed him with a different task: entanglement in a staff departure fiasco. The proverbial “review this other guy’s undocumented code and figure out how it works”. A favorite task of developers, before “code refactoring” became a way of life.

Ugh… better get out the AC/DC, he thought to himself, needing a caffeine jolt. Bone peered down his nose at the tangle of ASP code on his monitor.

Within moments, something caught his attention amid the green lines of the shopping cart system:

If Erica = A Bitch

What the hell is going on here?, Bone thought and winced as he scratched his head. And why did I take this job?

Knowing a little something about the departed programmer, Bone was unsurprised by his passive-aggressive animus toward an ex-girlfriend. But to find it in client code and subsequently have to clean it up? — oh boy.

Ok follow the trail, Bone. Sleuth this sucker.

If Erica = A Bitch, then pull library functions… 

Ok, there’s a variable “Poop Cookies”… 

Uhh… Poop Cookies? What?

Woah, there’s a giant set of if/then conditions in “Poop Cookies”… 

Dig, Bone, dig.  Get into this guy’s head.

If Erica is a Bitch, then the shopping cart is in a foreign currency…

Then, look at Poop Cookies to determine exchange rate and shipping defaults…

Almost there, Bone. Keep looking.

If Erica is not a Bitch, then it’s US Currency…

So ping USPS module for shipping info.

TaDah! Mystery unraveled, and all before the second cup of coffee.  But eww, what an utterly gnarled mess on so many levels.

Now what?, Bone pondered, remembering a similar techie atrocity and the consequences if ever found by the client.

And so continued the Wild West coding practices of the early internet… hidden in digital bowels (literally)… pre-“Me Too”. No wonder we have code reviews, nowadays.

Time for a clean-up on aisle 9, Bone concluded. 

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

Please “like” if you did on social media (@DigitalDeliria), share, and post your comments. What inane coding atrocity have you come across?

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A faint elevator bing pokes through her computer focus.  She can sense who is coming, without even looking.  A bent woman, with a cane, a cardigan, a shawl for extra warmth, and a fistful of paperwork in an arthritic hand.  She moves like a miniature on the horizon, toward her door, down an extraordinarily long hallway.

The woman makes her way with bluish upswept hair. Her floral skirt brushes her calves as she ambles and sways.  A cream and mauve vision, juxtaposed against the burgundy walls and smoky berber carpet.

Moments pass, and now she knows the woman is passing through the fruity air freshener puff, that wafts invisibly out from under the bathroom door and into the hallway.

Several moments again pass, until crooked fingers rattle the bronze doorknob on her redwood-stained door.  Swinging it open slowly, she brings the fruity air cloud with her, trapped in the numerous folds of her skirt, cardigan and shawl.

“Can you help me register my pet?”, she sweetly warbles.

“Yes ma’am,” her most professional voice coos in response. “I can help with your pet.”

---

You’d think finally making it from the apartment into an actual office building would be a boon for our startup digital agency.

But alas: “moving up” in our case meant “moving in” – to a sublease.  We shared office space with our client, no less!  A risky move to be sure, with potential to spin into a quick nightmare. But thankfully unlike other clients, they were our fans.  And, they had us right where they wanted us: at their beck-and-call for challenging web projects. 

This particular client registered pets across the city.  And walk-ins were welcome.

We packed our bodies into every available space that winter – sales people working the phones in hallways, and a single production room at the back for developers.  Inconveniently for me, a “Project” and “General” Manager of all trades, I took up a nook right near their front door.

Which meant that I became a defacto Pet Registration Guide, ushering people from all walks of life into the bowels of our client’s office for assistance.

Mostly, I received confused “Am I in the right place?” kinds of looks, as incomers peered at our web agency signage emblazoned on the adjacent wall.  I found myself explaining “yes, yes” most of the day, whilst simultaneously guiding creatives in producing web designs.

Recognizing the customer’s confusion, our client soon placed a rightful “Pet Representative” by the front door.  I moved into the production room: notoriously cited at one point for being a fire hazard, given the masses of designers and web developers packed into the space. 

But I felt I had arrived: overlooking a beautiful treed Texas landscape, with no more responsibilities for watering plants (except for my own small cactus on a spacious window sill). Surrounded by up-and-coming talent, and fast friends: Bone, Presto, Sass, Beckums and Dame.

This experience created a powerful lesson learned: when it’s not your job, just help.  Greet the occasion with professionalism, and treat every circumstance with graciousness.  You can’t go wrong.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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“You better take that down.”

What?

What does that mean?

It’s hard to understand, but one thing is pretty clear from the tone of the voice on the other end of the line.  You do not want to hear this voice at the start of your day.

Take what down?  Take it down from where?  Did the intern inadvertently launch the website too early?

Your mind races, until your drying mouth finally croaks:  “What?”

“On the FTP site,” the simmering voice continues.

Now with a palpitating heart, you begin looking.

---

Before this story continues, allow me to share some context.  Imagine your worst client.  The belittling one.  The one that sends 12-page faxes tearing your company up and down.  The passive-aggressive, but mostly aggressive.  The never-happy one.  The one that could drive employees to take extreme measures to retain their own sanity.

Yeah that one.  The Assistant of said client is our morning caller.  And this morning is about to go bad. Really bad.

Looking around the FTP site… what, oh what, could be so objectionable to receive this urgent call?  And what could be so inflammatory that there’s only dead silence on the other end of the line while I search?

And then… I saw it.

---

A folder.  An otherwise innocuous entity.  An omnipresent defacto of computing.  But, it was the folder’s name… oh lordy mercy, the name.

I start to sweat and heat rises in my cheeks.  I begin to wonder, why is our client in our FTP site?  File Transfer Protocol:  a tool used heavily by web-techie-folks to move files from one server to another.  Why, oh why… and HOW did our client get in there?  And how did they happen to find this insolently-named folder?

Well, maybe insolent is an understatement.

---

Look, I’m not a prude to late 90’s web developer shenanigans.  Including swearing in the code, protected by the overall lack of web technical knowledge in the general population.  In the early days, putting a dirty message in the client’s website code was a common bit of fun.  No harm done: the client would never see or even know it was there.  Only other web developers could get in on the “inside joke”, earning you brownie macho points. No wonder we have “code reviews” nowadays…

Anyway… this was no such hidden transgression, buried deep in website bowels.  This folder name took a cheeky practice to a whole new level.  And its presence on an FTP site made it much more discoverable.

Today, the client and I had perhaps encountered the first example of wholly digital passive-aggressive behavior.  Surely a precursor to the web-world we live in now.

Well, Tell Me Already !

OK. So, one might ask: how could an employee so eloquently equate the client’s very name with a sex act, and put it on display via an FTP folder name?  Through a few twists and switches of letters and syllables, that a person’s name could become an entirely new and novel term for oral sex?

Well — I’ll leave that to your imagination for the sake privacy for those involved, but I’m happy to share offline over an adult beverage.  However as a hint, the client’s name was Richard (which of course has an unfortunate short form).

And I knew who did it, too.  Gotta give the gal credit: she was a Creative, after all.  But… Oh My.

She was the one you wouldn’t expect.  The one who gave up a job at a “proper dot com” to come work with us rag-tags in our shabby, scrappy digital startup in an apartment.  The one that everyone looked up to as a result.  And the one who equally was distraught by her decision to enter into this world of ridiculous working conditions and clients with flame-throwing mouths.

---

“We will address that right away.”  Click.

My next challenge had arrived:  How do I tactfully yet forcefully convey to the Designer that this was not acceptable?  That she’s been found out… not by her boss… but by the client himself?

I mustered all my grace, all my calm, all my stormy force.  I called her name.  (In that apartment, voices quite easily carried from my “office” squished next to the front door, to the “bull pen” in the adjacent family room.)

Enter said Designer into my desk area.

“Uh, you better take that down,”  I said simply, pointing to the offensive file folder on my screen.  “The client called me.”  I put on my best stony face.

Within a second, I watched the color completely drain from her face.  Followed by a sweeping beet red flush over her cheeks.  A bead of sweat formed at her hairline.  I’ve never since witnessed such a remarkable transformation in someone within seconds.

I felt horrible.  I empathized with her. She was utterly ripped and ridiculed by this customer only late yesterday.  We, the far-from-perfect, often deserved a firm critique.  We were all trying to just “figure out” how to build this new thing called the web, and fails were common.  But the level of abuse that she and others regularly endured from this client was unwarranted.

She turned away, acutely embarrassed, and within seconds the folder name returned to the client’s actual name.

Gotta admit now, the whole episode was pretty traumatic yet amusing… one of those “sear-into-brain-forever” moments.

What are the lessons learned?:

• Don’t swear in the code.
• Don’t mock your client’s name via objectionable FTP folder names.
• And, face the business challenge with professionalism and tact, even if others around you do not!

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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The carport offered shady relief for my classy Cutlass Supreme. The Texas heat would otherwise transform my ride into an oven. Between the T-Tops and black paint, I had already lost one cassette to “summer melt”: Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits.

It was the summer of my first job as a newly-minted college graduate.  After locking the car door, I fiddled for another key.  This would let me into our “office” before anyone else arrived.

This was an important role. Opening up shop was a responsibility I was used to after working at a video store years earlier.  And now, I could apply this skill to the coolest of jobs: a startup digital agency. 

I unlocked the door, employees went in, and websites came out.

But this was no gleaming, prestigious office downtown. Our digs were not “sexy” in the least. But the scrappy notion of starting a “tech shop in an apartment” was the stuff of lore and excitement for us.  It was “morning” in more ways than one at our digital startup. We were going to make a big mark… building the early internet and changing the entire world in the process.

But today, unlocking the door and passing through the apartment threshold, you had to first get past the wall of musty odor. The old stucco exterior must’ve seeped the outdoors in. In the darkened space, my desk was crammed near the front door. Another desk sat opposite, in what should’ve been the dining room. A tiny, barrel-shaped kitchen lay ahead, and what would become our “production room” was at the back. 

My boss, an ADHD poster child, would be in various states of distracted readiness upon my arrival.  From time to time a bathrobe was seen, but shorts and t-shirts were the casual norm.  Often, a smoothie blender whirred away.  Thankfully I never arrived so early that he was still brushing his teeth.  Today he was nowhere to be found.

Instead, something more than the cramped quarters, musty smell and casual boss caught my attention.  There was something strange in the middle of the carpeted floor: a red can of RAID bug spray, with its overturned cap next to it.

Why is that there?, I thought.  I’d never seen anything like this out-of-place anomaly before.  Pondering that, I quietly went about my morning routine.

Days started with decidedly non-digital activities, like watering the plants.  To be honest, it was my favorite part of the day:  retrieving a watering can from the kitchen and pulling the plants outside for a good drink. If I didn’t do this first thing in the morning, the busy day took over and plants were ignored. 

Taking a moment to stand in the balmy sun, letting the water drain onto the concrete step before bringing the plants back in, was pure refreshment. And a welcome respite for my nose, otherwise perpetually twitching with pent-up apartment mold sneezes.

Some days were so slammed that I forgot the plants outside. Realizing my folly later in the day, I would rush to collect them. By then, the wet dirt dried to a desert and leaves drooped in the baking sun.

Today I did my job properly and brought them back into the apartment. Still no sign of my boss, I turned my attention to the RAID can again.  Befuddled, I thought it would at least make sense to put the cap and can away before others arrived.  Innocently I approached and scooped up the cap.  To my horror, there was a gigantic roach under there!  I staggered back, expecting it to lurch at me.  Thankfully, it stayed on its back, unmoving, legs folded up into the air.

Suddenly I could imagine the scene the night before… the chaos that lead to this critter being trapped and ushered to its death, and the post-battle exhaustion that left the evidence behind.

With this, I learned one of my greatest life lessons (especially for living in the South).  If you have a can with a cap… keep that cap.  They come in handy as bug trappers.  Spray the bug, follow as it runs, and trap him under the cap.  Scoop him up later with the cap to dispose.  No squish, no mess, very little chase.

Not the first lesson you’d expect from the cool digital startup world, but one of the best. 

And certainly not the last.  The ring of incoming client calls jolted my thoughts and my workday began.

Please “like” if you did, share, and post your comments.

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The morning sun flickered across the gleaming Texas skyscrapers, sprinkling glitter across my eyes. Highway momentum marked the start of a milestone day. The customary humidity of early summer hung in the air, hinting at the heat to come.

I was off to my official first day of work as a young professional — and a newly minted graduate of a prestigious school. Granted, my selection of a Creative major was not the most obvious bankable choice. However, I was lucky enough to snag a full time position after working part time at the same company through my final years at university.

The hire was immediate. I had no celebratory break to take a breath and explore my freedom after achieving the degree. Rather, the job started so soon that my Grandmother and Father were still in town after attending my graduation.

On this day, they and my Mother decided to mark the occasion by driving me to my first day at work.

Granted, I had been to work many times before during my part-time work pre-graduation.  So to me it seemed more of a continuation than a milestone. However, on this day my parents beamed from the front seat with excited pride to drive me… as if it was as thrilling as my first day at Kindergarten. I was a little embarrassed.

On we flew through the balmy air, as I gave directions from the back seat. Next to me, my Grandmother marveled out of the window at the light flickering off the high-rises. She looked on with similar anticipation to see my first place of real work. After years of encouraging me that I had the power to do anything I wanted with my life… to achieve more than she ever had opportunity to do as a woman in rural America… this was momentous.

We swept through the sparkling downtown and kept moving. With each turn, business districts turned into tree-lined lanes. Next, we passed warehouses and aging gas stations. Those then turned into a dense residential apartment district in the cheaper side of town. 

Pulling into one of the lots, we were greeted by lines of car ports, and a run-down, low-ceilinged apartment built with 1970’s flair (or lack thereof).

“This is it!”, I announced cheerfully. But I noticed the smile drain from my Grandmother’s face.

Wrinkled lips pursed slightly. She blurted, “Is this it?”, mirroring my words with an incredulous tinge. Meanwhile, craning to see whether the building was any taller than 2 stories.

Ok, this place clearly was not the high-rise, gleaming office building she had envisioned. This wasn’t a proper office at all. I was going to work at someone’s apartment??

This was not her expectation.  Her disappointment, and nearly dismay, was apparent. I saw her worry rise, as if wondering whether this was even a safe place for me.  Immediately I was self-conscious, though my parents still had smiling pride on their faces. Just to have a full-time job immediately after graduation — well, this was a feat not many could claim.

But for Grandma… how could she possibly understand that I was entering the forefront of digital? That this environment… the proverbial “technology start up in an apartment”… was the way so many thought leaders started their empires and soon built their fortunes?

That was sexy. And I was going to do the same. But it went beyond that… we were going to CHANGE THE WORLD through the internet. We, the web builders, had visions of how the internet would become more than rainbow bars and patterned backgrounds… how we and it would change society itself. For better, no less. 

This was the 90s. The new world of the digital startup had begun. We were on the threshold of greatness!

But this place…  it was not sexy. AT ALL. From the tile roof and burnt orange stucco walls, to the streaky mold stains near the foundation, and the leaning car ports to protect against the Texas-sized hail. Not sexy enough for Grandma.

But yet I swallowed my awkward pride and left the car to head to my adventure.  And with a wave over my shoulder, that was it… the beginning of my Digital Deliria. A world of hot summers and floundering file servers, to scooters whizzing ‘round concrete floors, and in-office zen gardens. A burgeoning existence my Grandmother would never live to understand.

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