Apr 26 2002
Trash Talking
I vaguely remember reading an article which made reference to dot-com blue. Sometimes referred to as french blue, this particular shade was synonymous with start-up zeal. �How true!� I shouted, tossing the magazine up in the air, clapping, singing. �I worked at a startup!� I shouted from my window, �our CEO always wore shirts that color!�
He did. He was in his early thirties, and he almost always wore a french blue button up shirt with gray pants. I noticed his choice of dress on several occasions. �Why does he always wear the same color clothes?!�
I spoke to him for around 7 minutes during my employment. Once when I was hired (employee number 80-something), and once after he laid off 15% of the company. �I think you did that very well,� I said, silently snickering at his shirt, �this sure is a nice bar-b-que.�
We were standing on the second floor balcony of the office building. We had a view of Cabrini Green, Chicago�s most ugliest former-projects now-terrifying �neighborhood�. It was raining, which was appropriate, and we were all huddled beneath something that kept us dry. I was leaning against the multi-hundred dollar, cool as all get out, bar-b-que. It was enormous and cold.
When the company finally collapsed, the Chicago Tribune ran an article detailing the company�s excess. Each employee sat on a thousand dollars worth of chair, we conferenced at twenty thousand dollars worth of table, we bar-b-qued on a month�s pay.
�We drink the kool-aid around here,� she said on my first day of dot-working. I didn�t know what she meant. �Like Jonestown!� She thought it was hilarious. Her job was to create a corporate culture for our dying startup. Her brother was part of the first 15% cut. She cried and cried.
Our CEO brought a woman to our Christmas party. She looked like a hooker. They danced like hookers. I had to buy a suit for the party. I ended up getting a french blue shirt, with a gray suit. �Looking sharp!� is what he should have said when we arrived. Instead, he danced with the hooker.
After the company shut down, the Chicago Tribune interviewed our former CEO. He referred to the failure as, �a bump in the road.� I saw him riding his bike in my neighborhood. I had read the article. I didn�t have a job. I thought it would be funny if he hit a bump in the road, and fell off his bike.
Someone told me our CIO did coke.
