battle creek park!
I was told an amazing dot.bomb story today by this guy who works in the same building as I. His name is James Brown, and he could very well have run with the godfather of super heavy funk back in the hay day. JB works on the same floor where this young educational software company rose to power and collapsed within the same breath, leaving behind a trail of smoke and broken mirrors.
According to JB, this company came and took over his floor (he was the first tenant there over 20 years ago) and subsequent floors like a hyper cancer, performing amazing build outs at untold costs, renovating elevators and installing huge glass installations to the amazement of everyone else who watched the e-commerce stampede.
JB found the new company hard to swallow. “They never talked to anyone”, JB said. “Everyone in our building is really friendly, everyone talks to each other on the elevator – I know just about everyone in the building.” Which was proven true as JB gave me a tour of the dot.bomb remains and said good morning to every maintenance worker and office dweller by name. “But these dotcommers never said a word, like they were better than everyone else”, JB exclaimed. He thought the influx of Californians to the upstart was the problem but he wasn’t sure.
Well, this software upstart goes on to hire and import about 150 employees giving them each amazing custom built workstations and gets them all working on bleeding edge educational tools, which, I’m sure if they could have raised just one more round of financing would have revolutionized the way children eat chalk and plagiarize college essays. But they didn’t. sadly.
Instead the management of the company decides to closes up shop one day right after the yuletide holidays and locks every employee out of the office.
JB was happy that day because for the first time he actually got to hear some of these employees speak. But speaking wasn’t the only thing these employees did. They all muddled around for about 45 minutes yelling and screaming obscenities at the management before they realized the management wasn’t home! So they Rioted! Yeah, they smashed the glass windows, tore into their Herman Miller workstation and looted the joint. “not just staplers and stuff, everyone was running out with lap-tops, large computers and monitors, statues, and lots of toys”, remembers JB, “It was hysterical”. I bet. I wish I could have seen it with my own eyes but JB’s tour of the carnage, which is still pretty fresh, was impressive enough. I am left wondering just how many stories there are like this one. Apparently, JB remembers after finally getting the chance to speak with one of the employees, “they hadn’t been paid in months”. Damn. That is one fucked company.