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The Dot Coms Are Killing Me
Shewire's
Jennifer King tells us why she's working for a dot com, even though
it may do her in. |
by Jennifer
King | november 18, 1999
When it comes to
work, I don’t like to waste my time. If I’m going to sell my soul to
sit in front of a computer all day, then I want my work to be
productive -- or minimally interesting, at least. That’s why I like
working for an Internet startup.
The last temp job I worked
was a four-month stint at a vitamin manufacturing company that
swindled its predominantly elderly customers by making fantastic
claims about the powers of its pills. I spent about 95 percent of my
time websurfing, talking on the phone, and making paperclip and
Scotch tape sculptures -- and the other five percent doing
“substantive” work. Interestingly enough, several of my fellow
employees informed me that I was one of the best workers in the
company.
While one may argue that working at a startup is a
colossal waste of time (compared to, say, helping the homeless or
working to save rainforests), you can’t deny that the online world
is revolutionizing the way the world works, shops, and entertains.
Startups are easy targets for criticism because they combine
the very best and worst elements of work. Sure, you can take your
dog to work, dress as casually as you want, and drink soda and scarf
junk food (provided free of charge by the company) until you sport
the worst case of post-adolescent acne imaginable.
But these
“perks” obscure the reality of the situation -- namely, you’ll be
spending so much time at work that if you had to leave your lonely
dog at home, wear uncomfortable dress clothes, and actually leave
the office for a snack, you’d never finish the obscene amount of
work that awaits you.
Frankly, many of these perks are
overrated. Take the whole dressing down issue. Much like wearing a
uniform to work is a sure sign that you’re getting paid a crappy
wage, the luxury of wearing jeans and a sweatshirt to the office
usually means you’d better be comfortable because you’re going to be
there all day and most of the night.
So, perks aside, why do
I like working at a startup? As my boss aptly put it: It’s
addictive. The whole "business at the speed of light" concept is
really true at a startup. Case in point: I was the 16th employee
when I started back in June 1999. This week, we’re pushing 60 -- a
275 percent increase in three months.
And I definitely don’t
spend my days trying to discover new and imaginative ways to waste
as much time as possible. That’s because at a startup, you make up
everything as you go. There’s no bureaucracy, no superfluous layers
of middle management to wade through in order to get anything
accomplished. I hit the ground running each morning and go as far as
I possibly can before the soda and chips run out.
There’s
also no dead weight at startups, no fossils sitting in the corner
cube wasting space (think "Office Space"), no 75-year-old white male
CEO looking up your skirt. You tend to work with people that you’d
actually want to socialize with after work; that is, if any place
were still open once you left the office.
Yeah, I work hard.
And I have friends at older, more established startups who work
longer and harder, putting in 12-hour days and weekends. But isn’t
everyone working more these days?
Ever since the tide turned
against labor unions in the '80s and robber-baron CEOs became
accustomed to accumulating obscenely large profits, we’ve all been
working longer to line the pockets of the uber-wealthy.
We’d
all like a sinecure -- a cushy job that pays you tons of money for
doing nothing. But few of us are lucky enough to be Tori Spelling.
And like most overachievers, I was brainwashed at an early age to
invest my ego in my work. So while my ass grows flabbier and
flabbier and my skin paler and paler from lack of exercise and
sunshine, I still leave work each day with a sense of accomplishment
that I’ve contributed towards building something that’s never
existed before.
Startups might certainly be the new
sweatshops that are powering the new economy. But as far as
sweatshops go, they pay relatively well, keep you fed, and let you
use the bathroom as many times as you wish.
Humans have
always had to work to live; and while we now may be living to work,
at least I don’t have to wear heels and hose!
Jennifer
King is a freelance writer and web researcher living in Oakland,
Calif., with her pet cat, Mars, and her pet husband, Adam. In her
free time, she enjoys subverting the dominant paradigm and dreaming
up ideas for her soon-to-be-developed webzine, Knowitallgirl. She
last wrote "Jonesing for
Electronic Juice" for Shewire.
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