I haven't updated my web pages in nearly a year. A while back I heard that a never-updated page is called a "cobweb" page. "Yes!," I thought, "That's exactly what mine is!" So, why am I bothering with it now?
Insomnia - the inspiration for much art and drug abuse. After watching the ceiling for a while, I got out of my restless bed to write and smoke more cigarettes. You decide if this is art, a glance at my ashtray says it definitely is drug abuse!
The cause of my sleeplessness is the complex mess of an employer who has declared bankruptcy. Just this past Friday, the company fired everyone and told us we weren't getting paid. Two weeks of working for free. Great! Further, I have it on good authority they've got more than enough in checking to make the payroll.
But there will be a last laugh for some of us. It appears the company is so incompetent they can't even cheat their employees efficiently: I know several people on direct deposit who saw paycheck money show up in their bank accounts on Saturday. Mine didn't, but my credit union doesn't process direct deposits on weekends. I'm going to call in as soon as they open up at 7am. Right now, it's 5am. If the money is there, I'm going to take it all out in case they send out a correcting transaction. Given the way laws are, I might wind up having to give it back. If so, so be it -- it would still delight me to keep it out of their hands for a while.
(Note inserted on 4/4/97: No such luck for me -- my paycheck hit the account and was followed seconds later by a "correction". GRRRR!)
The name of the company is IFusion Com. They're a computer startup and not even two years old, so I didn't sign on expecting job security. However, I also didn't expect to get outright cheated. I worked 100 hour weeks and I produced for them. We made the product -- a web push system called ArrIve. I wrote some of the servers that track clients and route contents, and I'm proud of the work I did. The product itself is pretty cool, but it looks like the content isn't good enough to attract a wide enough audience.
That's a problem that's fixable, given time, but upper management burned through the time available by squandering money at an incredible rate. The ex-CEO, Michael Recanati, comes from an extremely wealthy family that makes big bucks off shipping. Much of the initial money came from The Prudential. I figured Recanati for a wild-eyed dreamer, but what other kind of person starts a new business? I also figured that the Prudential was minding the store. Well, the first thing I figured was even more true than I thought, and the second totally wrong.
It's such a shame. I still think the concept was sound. Further, we did it. We made the baby, and it was good. Not as good as it needed to be, but I think a few more months could have fixed that. For an example of what I mean by "squandering", I think that if they'd simply made it a flat rule that you had to book travel at least two weeks in advance, we would have had those months. Instead, I've got friends who were ordered to fly around on no notice, and are now stuck with some of those bills.
Sigh. Well, it was an interesting job and I'm glad I took it. The technical team was, with few exceptions, top notch. A real treat to work with.
Last modified: 4/10/97