- Damage scale [1-10] - How big of a nutshot the event is to my life
- Recovery period - the expected amount of uneventful time that would result in me returning to normal*
5 weeks ago - Dumptown. Population: me.
I'd been seeing a girl for about 5 months, just over month seriously, when out of nowhere, she cuts it off. How abruptly you ask?
- 5 days prior: We were walking Manhattan Beach - dinner, pier, ice cream shoppe - constantly flirting. The night ended in her car, Best Buy parking lot, making out like two 17-year-olds. The only thing that would have made it better would be if a mall cop had rolled up on us.
- 3 days prior: Dinner at Ruths Chris in San Diego. And when the bill arrives, I found out she slipped her card to the waiter completely under my nose. How many women have bought me a dinner like that? -2 (I count when a girl pretends to want to pay for a dinner like that as negative - women, you're lying, we know you're lying, and it's insulting that we take you out somewhere nice like that and you try to act that way at the end)
- 1 day prior: 4 hours of "I just wanted to say 'Hi'" phone calls. Yeah...
- 2 hours prior: We're having a fantastic tapas dinner and she's talking about how she thinks the best couples have a healthy mix of similarities and differences and notes specific things about us.
- And then...
I'm not going to dive too deep into this, but the assessment from every person I know who knows me/her/us was the same: she got scared. Look, fair enough. I'm the first person to tell anyone (including her) that I'm no the easiest person to be with. I intentionally look at the world differently. Not necessarily right or wrong, but different. We are who we are; and while I don't believe that people change, they do evolve. Eventually I will evolve to the point where women aren't tuned out when being with me. Or at least that's my hope.
Still though, talk about throwing me under the bus: Apparently, I'm not dependable and I don't think this relationship will go anywhere. Well, thanks for telling me. I'll leave now.
Damage scale: 5
Recovery period: 3 weeks
4 weeks ago - RIP Brad Adwers
This is actually the one part that's still hard to write. I was playing hookey from work to help some friends when I got a call from my lead engineer, Kevin. I was almost done, so I ignored the call and got the voice mail a while later. Kevin's message was simple: "Keith, there's a situation. Call me back as soon as you get this." I immediately thought I had screwed something on the system and now Kevin was calling to chew me out on it (a highly likely situation). Instead, I got the worst piece of work news I've ever received: Our team's tech lead, Brad Adwers, had been found dead in his home. I still don't know cause of death, but it was no foul play. He had missed some time about a month prior due to having a seizure. He had been to the hospital, analyzed, and by all measure cleared with a clean bill of health. We can only assume he somehow had a relapse.
Now, not only was it simply the loss of a person, this was a member of my team of 6 people - the smallest in the company who heavily rely on each other. Brad was an awesome dude. Genial, gregarious, smart as an owl, and adapted faster than a chameleon. There's nothing about his passing that isn't just straight-up tragic. His Mom came to our office to collect his things and thanked all of us because her son talked about how much he was enjoying working with us. On the business side, he was spearheading an initiative with Kevin to move my product to the Amazon Cloud. We were going to cut costs, improve performance, become infinitely scalable, and serve as a model for future products at my company.
Brad, we were lucky for the time we had with you. Our product will make it into the cloud, and I've already started to develop a product that will follow in its footsteps. You helped set a foundation the will have a legacy.
Damage scale: 10
Recovery period: 8 weeks (but we have only days to replace the worker...)
3 weeks ago: A false positive
Alright, not all of the last 5 weeks were bad. I actually had one shining moment; a glimmer of hope; a ray of sunshine; a...OK, I'll stop now. Seriously though, I arranged our bi-annual team meeting at the Omni hotel, downtown LA, private board room, french-fusion bar, fantastic dinner and rooms for everyone - in a word: Awwwesome. Why downtown LA? Because the next morning we had to meet with LA County, our largest client representing 89 of our 136 facilities, to present at their quarterly user group.
For a little perspective, the first LA County user group I went to (as a lowly assistant at the time) was pretty brutal. Some dude on his blackberry constantly berated the product while never actually looking up to address us. Our champions in the room were very quiet. 18 months later, I'm in charge, I'm in the front of the room addressing 43 clients on the latest updates to the system, and I have complete control of the room. It was E-P-I-C. In my very short professional life, I have never had such a spectacular moment. Not only had we addressed their problems, not only were they salivating over the features I have planned for the second half of the year, but they were openly calling out the people in the room who weren't making use of the system. I've officially stolen Nextels' dead tag line: How Business Gets [D-U-N] Done.
Damage scale: 0
Recovery period: -2 weeks (earned time back)
2 weeks ago: The re-org
Well, that was fast (TWSS). 2 weeks ago I had a team of 6. At this point we were a team of 5 hearing rumblings from IT that that wasn't going to change. OK...but the current IT team has little-to-no bandwidth...something is up. The week starts with a call from on-high that the "product of the future" we've been speculating about for years is finally going to happen. And they're going to wreck my team to do it (OK fine, a few teams, but again, we're the little guy, WE feel the biggest impact).
By Wednesday, I'm hearing all kinds of rumors. Kevin is being shifted, then Brian is getting pulled away, Heather is dropping sales. People are casually throwing other project ideas at me. Finally, Thursday, I'm able to corral our COO and CFO [my product's Exec Champion] in a room and lay it all out for me. Let me quickly preface that the COO and CFO are by-far my favorite company Execs, but they're still the Execs and my job is still to fight for the product.
The COO says Brian (our Client Service Exec) has to move to our main product because of client needs. Heather is being forced to drop her sales pipeline and return to services. VP of engineering is asking about Kevin's availability to move to the future product, which maybe would have been possible if they'd bothered to listen to Kevin and I for the last 10 months ask for someone to cross-train on our platform so he COULD be replaced if/when the time came.
[Side note - When I heard Kevin's name floating around, I asked him what he thought and he point blank said, "They've been talking about the future product for 2 years. I'll believe it when I see it." He also added, "they operate [like a fart in the wind] most of the time. I've been trying forever to get them to work like you and I to actually plan feature builds."]
Thank gawd my CFO was in that meeting because I was not happy. The few things I said I delivered calmly and tried to make it clear that the COO was border-line gutting our team and setting Heather and me up for failure. That night at home I considered drafting a resignation letter. If the product is going to fail, so be it, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let the company just roll over onto us. We've put in too much time, too built too many relationships, and won too many battles to just walk away. Talk about killing ALL the momentum of the past week. I was PISSED.
The thing that held be back from the ledge Friday morning was that the COO agreed to come to our team meeting [which she has a standing invite to every Friday, but never attends]. She walked in, I addressed how there was a lot of information flying around and that the COO was here to clarify the situation, and turned over the floor. To her credit - and this is why in spite of being mad I still had faith she wouldn't hang us out to dry - the COO came in and immediately talked about how she was going to help us become more effective with less resources. She took to heart some of my ideas and already had things in the implementation phase. It still sucks for Heather and me, but at least we're a team of 3.5+ instead of a team of 2.
Damage scale - 7
Recovery period - 6 weeks (but the next 5 months are REALLY going to kick my ass)
Last week: I learn why it's called "The Mistake by the Lake"
By this point, I realize I'm in a rut. I'm not sleeping during the week and passing out on the weekends. I'm losing legitimate track of days. I attend the wedding of two good friends from business school and barely last 2 hours. The little time I do spend there, I joked that "going Cleveland has to be rock bottom, right?" I had no idea...
This isn't necessarily a story as it is an experience. I have been to some dumpy towns in my life. Kansas City, MO. Staten Island, NJ. Pisa, Italy. The thing about dumps is that they all have at least some redeeming value, kind of like dive bars. Dive bars always have something that you love: a bartender who knows you by name; a beer you can't find anywhere else; the right music always playing through the joint. Kansas City has good BBQ and a decent nightlife. Staten Island has real bagels and easy access to NYC. Pisa has a tower and gelato.
Cleveland, OH, has NOOOO redeeming value. It is far and away the deepest, darkest, shithole I've ever been to in my life. The city oozes depression, despair, and dysentery. And I was there on a non-triple digit, non-humid Summer weekend. The food, when it wasn't disgusting, was bland and boring. The city - and I was in the MIDDLE of downtown - was DEAD at night. We found out from a cabbie that occupancy in downtown Cleveland - commercial and residential COMBINED - is 40%. I think this number is high. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is kind of cool, but it's not very extensive and left me very unsatisfied.
I was there for my sister-in-law's sister's wedding (we were the Best Man/Maid of Honor at Steve's wedding). I flew across the country to attend and be with my brother. I did not get an invite to the rehearsal dinner. And what fine dining establishment was I blocked from? A BOWLING ALLEY!!! Apparently, me attending the rehearsal dinner was going to break the bank at the damn bowling alley. Instead, I setup at a Cleveland "hot-spot" down the block called Chocolate Bar. Now, this place kind of had it going on - nice decor and killer martini's - but we're in Cleveland. The vibe was very demure. There was a group out that looked like a bachelorette party, but I've never seen a pack of women with such bored faces. Lame. My personal highlight was looking over the menu and noticing crab cakes, which led to this exchange:
Me: "I see crab cakes on the menu, but where do you get them. Crabs don't come from the lake right?"
Bartender: "Yeah, I don't know. I think their supposed to be fresh."
Me: "Ringing endorsement. You ever had them?"
Bartender (as face kind of sours): "They're not very good."
Me: "So are any of the dinners good or should I just get a sandwich?"
Bartender (perking up): "Oh yeah, the sandwiches are great. I'm having a club on my break. It's great!"
It was average. At best. Ladies and Gentlemen: A high-class meal in Cleveland! At least I had a Sapphire Dirty to wash it down with.
Steve eventually snuk away from the bowling alley to join me. "Dude, it's so lame over there. I had to get away and hang out with you." Night in Cleveland, FTW!
The wedding was the type where the ceremony happens 3 hours before the reception. It was held in a very nice cathedral and, to the catholic priest's credit, the fire and brimstone was pretty moderate. My bro had to stay behind for pictures, so I returned to the hotel. An hour later my brother returned and found me in my room.
Steve [seeing me as he walked in]: "Hey bro. You doing alright?"
Me: "No. this town sucks. I just want to leave."
I nearly called American to see if there was a flight home that I could catch. Reception be damned. Steve kept me there. I now hate him.
The reception was OK. We did meet Uncle Jeff, the gun/hunting/fishing enthusiast who I got into a few drunken business discussion with. Still though, even my cab ride to the airport at 4am was depressing - the cabbie going on and on about people leaving town or ignoring the town, etc. Look, here's the bottom line: Your town is what you make it. All you people with love for Cleveland - as irrational as it seems to me - do something with it. No one is going to solve Cleveland's problems but Cleveland. You'll find a way as soon as you have the stones to look for it.
[Note: Just don't expect anything from me. I'm coming back for 3 more hours of my life to fulfill the life goal of seeing a NFL game in every NFL city and that is IT. Best of luck.]
Damage scale: Total
Recovery period: 0 weeks
That's the thing about moments like that. There was no more amount of shit on this planet that Gaia could have thrown on me to make me feel worse. There was nowhere to go but up...
Epilogue:
When I landed back in SD - a shell of the person I once was - I could have kissed the fat bearded guy working the skyway. Seriously, the sky was never so blue, the bay never so pristine, the smell of the ocean never so sweet. I've never been so happy to be out of a city in my entire life.
At the end of the day, I still have a massive uphill battle in front of me. Everyday I feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock for all eternity. Will crest the top of the hill? I'll know by December. Until then, I've cancelled all my Summer plans and am hunkering down for a long Fall. Why? I love my product. I love my clients. I love my [small] team. We love the feeling that what my product does for hospitals really matters. I just don't know if it matters to anyone else. I'm going to pose the question to my CFO when we meet and hopefully he cares [I believe he does]. I've already thanked him for being our lone voice in the boardroom, but even then I doubt it carries very far. Regardless the outcome, you can bet I will go down swinging.
Final count:
Total Damage points - 32+
Recovery weeks - 15
All compressed into a 5 week span. F$%k.
And if I do fail? Well, EFF it. I've survived a layoff once, I'll do it again. Hell, it'll actually be better that next time. I won't be racking up $40K in debt. But until then, I've still got a kick-ass job, I'm surrounded by spectacular people, I live in a place where Summer lasts from March to November, and have a room in a gorgeous house 1,000 feet from the break of the Pacific Ocean. There's only one way to hit back at life: In the face of anything and everything, live like you mean it.
Of course. that doesn't in-and-of itself motivate me or garnish a result. I still need a goal for me, right? I've got far too many sticks driving my life. I need a carrot. There's only one thing I know that will do the trick: Conquer a continent. Australia, you're on notice. I'll be on my way after Christmas. #5...
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