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susandennisSo... the new job at the little PR agency? Pretty much a fail. I was not at all comfortable there and did not enjoy the work or the people. The guy who owned the agency wasn't impressed with me or my work. So when that 3 months came up we could not agree to part ways fast enough.
But... he said 'so why don't you go home and work for yourself? you can have all of my web clients and consult for our web stuff plus just take John's work.'
It sounded like a good idea to to me so I did just that. His work turned out to be a couple of odd jobs and then nothing more but John's project had legs.
The John in this case was a real estate guy who worked in the offices next to ours. He had this whacky idea and had been talking to the PR guy and me about it for a couple of weeks. He wanted to put a kind of multiple listing service for commercial real estate on DVD's and sell it around town by subscription.
It quickly morphed into a website and for the next 2 and a half years, I worked out of my living room building and running Office Space Online. It was quite an adventure. I used skills I did not have. I interviewed with Jeff Bezos himself before Amazon was even a thing online. I was trying to find out how they were going to catalog their books so I could replicate it to catalog office space. He told me to use something called ColdFusion which is exactly what we did. (He saw right through my job interview ruse and turned out to be very helpful.)
This photo is from a newspaper article the Seattle Times did about this new thing called websites.
That cat is Bubba. I got Bubba as a tiny kitten when I lived in Rochester. He also enjoyed California. But, he, too loved Seattle best. He was the best cat ever. A big ole hunk o' love. He would actually give me hugs. He lived until he was 18. That expression still cracks me up today.
The work on Office Space Online was fun and interesting. But the fledgling company had a hard time financially and often I did not get paid. Then they hired a guy and paid him way more than me - and actually paid him. So I decided to move on. They had, at one point in lieu of some pay they owed me, given me stock in the company. (About 15 years after I left the company - and about that long since I'd actually even spoken to anyone there - I got a check for $15,000 and the next year $2,000 more. They had sold the company. It was a pleasant surprise.)
Meanwhile, I hunted around for a job and decided that it would be fun to work at Microsoft and I conned this very cool guy there into hiring me.
To Be Continued
But... he said 'so why don't you go home and work for yourself? you can have all of my web clients and consult for our web stuff plus just take John's work.'
It sounded like a good idea to to me so I did just that. His work turned out to be a couple of odd jobs and then nothing more but John's project had legs.
The John in this case was a real estate guy who worked in the offices next to ours. He had this whacky idea and had been talking to the PR guy and me about it for a couple of weeks. He wanted to put a kind of multiple listing service for commercial real estate on DVD's and sell it around town by subscription.
It quickly morphed into a website and for the next 2 and a half years, I worked out of my living room building and running Office Space Online. It was quite an adventure. I used skills I did not have. I interviewed with Jeff Bezos himself before Amazon was even a thing online. I was trying to find out how they were going to catalog their books so I could replicate it to catalog office space. He told me to use something called ColdFusion which is exactly what we did. (He saw right through my job interview ruse and turned out to be very helpful.)
This photo is from a newspaper article the Seattle Times did about this new thing called websites.
That cat is Bubba. I got Bubba as a tiny kitten when I lived in Rochester. He also enjoyed California. But, he, too loved Seattle best. He was the best cat ever. A big ole hunk o' love. He would actually give me hugs. He lived until he was 18. That expression still cracks me up today.
The work on Office Space Online was fun and interesting. But the fledgling company had a hard time financially and often I did not get paid. Then they hired a guy and paid him way more than me - and actually paid him. So I decided to move on. They had, at one point in lieu of some pay they owed me, given me stock in the company. (About 15 years after I left the company - and about that long since I'd actually even spoken to anyone there - I got a check for $15,000 and the next year $2,000 more. They had sold the company. It was a pleasant surprise.)
Meanwhile, I hunted around for a job and decided that it would be fun to work at Microsoft and I conned this very cool guy there into hiring me.
To Be Continued
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-09 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-09 02:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-09 04:33 am (UTC)Bubba has this kitty intensity to his expression - major alert for the camera!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-09 12:30 pm (UTC)This is so great! You've alluded to your professional past on the cutting edges of tech, now it's fun to read along and see the whole of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-09 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-11 09:17 pm (UTC)