Spammer Chapter 4
By Bailey Armadale
Here's the final installment of the spammer series, or is it? I'm working on getting Bailey to give us a fifth, we'll see. Be sure to check back monday as I put up a beautiful but brutal story from my Cousin Andy, a retired NYC Cop. In the meanwhile I love to get comments, and I appreciate you all spreading the word about this site. Peace, KLJ
PS: If you're jonesing for more check out my other true stories and my fiction by clicking on my picture to the right.
2003 was the year that the entire email marketing industry fell apart. Spamming and email marketing still continue today and will be around for many more years, but it is on the decline and thanks to tougher laws and better spam filters, most spam is never even seen by its intended recipients. It was also the final year of operation for The Evil Email Company. In just a few months time, a barrage of problems would force the company to close its doors for good. Some were caused by the way the industry as a whole was changing while others were due to good old fashioned internal office drama.
At the beginning of the year it was very obvious that things were very different from how business had been just a few months month earlier. Business was slow during the holidays, as it typically is every year, but unlike other years it did not pick up in January or even February. An overabundance of email companies had finally burned out the effectiveness of the medium. Most of us didn’t care though. We were just weeks away from being sold, and that meant big bonuses for every employee, particularly those in management like me. I was expecting something in the neighborhood of $50,000 for just having been a loyal employee. Unfortunately it was not to be.
The first major blow to the company came in March when the large company that was in the process of acquiring The Evil Email Company retracted their offer. While their accountants were reviewing our books it began to dawn on them that their recent acquisitions of Spamabunch and other email marketing companies were not the profitable venture they were assumed to be. In fact, it had turned out to be a dire mistake. These email companies were only generating half of their projected revenue. After a few months the acquisition company realized that they had been taken, and did their best to stop the bleeding. They immediately cancelled all plans to acquire more email companies, and began severe layoffs to the companies that they already bought. Meanwhile the owners of all those acquired email companies were sleeping on pillows stuffed with hundred dollar bills. Chalk up another victory for the spammers of South Florida.
With the bid to purchase The Evil Email Company retracted, the top members of the company were at a loss. Everyone had assumed that it was a given, and that they would all be getting a piece of the pie and wouldn’t need to work anymore. Now everything had changed. With the industry a wreck, long-time clients having left the company, and no plans for the future the only thing the company had was a big pile of uncertainty.
Drug use had been a part of the company as long as I had been employed there, but for all the pot, coke, and painkillers that came through the office, it had all been done at a recreational level. With only one or two exceptions, it never interfered with anyone’s duties. Nobody played until their work was complete. However, with the business in a rapidly decaying state and a cloud of depression looming overhead, the drug use was becoming more common and more of a problem. Those who had been hiding their problems as functional addicts weren’t able to hide it longer. The best example, or perhaps worst, would be the company’s Executive Vice President.
The V.P. was one of the most likable guys in the world. He had that old Bostonian charm, but not coupled with the arrogance. He was friendly, funny, and the kind of guy everyone would want to hang around. Before coming to work at The Evil Email Company, he was also a manager of a popular strip club. How that qualified him to run an email company was never very clear to me. Then again, the company drug dealer had previously been his personal connection, and all the beautiful yet completely under qualified female assistants were his old employees and these were things that the owner appreciated. The V.P. had only been hired a week or two before I was and because of that I think he made an effort to look out for me. Whenever I had something bad going on in or outside of the company he was the first to help me out with a few extra bucks, time off, or whatever else I needed. For this reason it upset me to see what happened to him.
While he was a great guy, nobody would ever accuse him of being a saint. He liked to drink and he liked cocaine. Normally this was something he did on the weekends only. Once the offer to buy the company had been retracted that changed from a weekend activity to an after business hours activity. It wasn’t too long until his habit was something he was doing in the office, usually right off his desk. His drinking was even worse. It got so bad that after a while a couple of us got together to assign days of the week when it would be our turn to drive him home. I will admit that he was a fun drunk. He would become even friendlier and very determined to shake your hand. It did become a bit troublesome on the drives home though. Eventually his wife and a few of his friends in the office persuaded him to go to rehab. While there he was let go from the company.
With so many problems surrounding his company, the owner found solace by finally settling down in a monogamous relationship. Unfortunately for his wife, it wasn’t with her. For the better part of 2002 the owner has been sleeping with one of the top sales people in the company who had been going through a nasty divorce at the time. Once her divorce was final, the owner found the time to start up a more stable relationship with her instead of spending time and money chasing younger girls at the local bars. She wasn’t attractive or particularly pleasant to be around, but she was convenient and for the owner, that was enough. During 2003 the owner was almost never in the office, though the company’s suite at the Marriot got more use than ever.
With the owner almost entirely absent from the company, coupled with the downward spiral the industry was going through, things were going to hell very quickly. The talented sales and IT people were leaving left and right for better jobs. The ones that remained were too dumb to get a job elsewhere, or like myself, were just too lazy to look for employment elsewhere. At the beginning of the summer our office had thirty people working in it. By the time September rolled around only 15 people were left, and each week someone else would head out door, either getting fired or finding a new job.
The office, oddly enough, was still enjoyable experience in those depressing times. Those of us that remained did our day to day jobs, but with fewer clients and an executive staff that either quit or stayed at home, most of us found ourselves with a lot more free time than before. So most of our time was filled with playing PC games, watching movies, and occasionally drinking.
The day after the company’s accountant finally quit we found a giant half-empty bottle of Sky Vodka that three people managed to kill before 1 PM. That was probably the only time I had ever been completely drunk at the office. In my inebriated state though I finally came to grips with certain undeniable truths, with the primary one being I needed to get the hell out of that office and find a new job. Why I avoided the truth and put off finding a new job is still something that confuses me. I suppose it was just comfortable. Whatever the reason a new job was the immediate goal. It didn’t take too long for me to find one either. I called up an ex-coworker who owed me a favor and moved on to new e-mail company, and luckily this was one of those rare occasions when I got the favor paid back. An interview was set up at this new company and I was hired on the spot.
With three days notice I gave my resignation to the head of the two-person IT department since he was the closest thing the company had left to management, and said goodbye to the other three people who remained. I probably didn’t even need to give those three days though since at that point we were doing almost nothing. The week after I quit the owner finally returned to the office and announced his intention to close down the company in the next two weeks. That didn’t matter to me though. I was headed off to a new company that was growing and headed in a positive direction, or at least so I thought. Little did I know that the new email company I was headed for was going to make my old corrupt company look like the Red Cross.
Read chapter 1 HERE
Chapter 2 HERE
and Chapter 3 HERE
Will there be a Chapter 5? Spam me with requests for it and I'll pass the requests on to the Spammer himself.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE.
Or Check out Becca Costello's madcap adventure with dolphins in Gay Hawaii HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
Here's the final installment of the spammer series, or is it? I'm working on getting Bailey to give us a fifth, we'll see. Be sure to check back monday as I put up a beautiful but brutal story from my Cousin Andy, a retired NYC Cop. In the meanwhile I love to get comments, and I appreciate you all spreading the word about this site. Peace, KLJ
PS: If you're jonesing for more check out my other true stories and my fiction by clicking on my picture to the right.
2003 was the year that the entire email marketing industry fell apart. Spamming and email marketing still continue today and will be around for many more years, but it is on the decline and thanks to tougher laws and better spam filters, most spam is never even seen by its intended recipients. It was also the final year of operation for The Evil Email Company. In just a few months time, a barrage of problems would force the company to close its doors for good. Some were caused by the way the industry as a whole was changing while others were due to good old fashioned internal office drama.
At the beginning of the year it was very obvious that things were very different from how business had been just a few months month earlier. Business was slow during the holidays, as it typically is every year, but unlike other years it did not pick up in January or even February. An overabundance of email companies had finally burned out the effectiveness of the medium. Most of us didn’t care though. We were just weeks away from being sold, and that meant big bonuses for every employee, particularly those in management like me. I was expecting something in the neighborhood of $50,000 for just having been a loyal employee. Unfortunately it was not to be.
The first major blow to the company came in March when the large company that was in the process of acquiring The Evil Email Company retracted their offer. While their accountants were reviewing our books it began to dawn on them that their recent acquisitions of Spamabunch and other email marketing companies were not the profitable venture they were assumed to be. In fact, it had turned out to be a dire mistake. These email companies were only generating half of their projected revenue. After a few months the acquisition company realized that they had been taken, and did their best to stop the bleeding. They immediately cancelled all plans to acquire more email companies, and began severe layoffs to the companies that they already bought. Meanwhile the owners of all those acquired email companies were sleeping on pillows stuffed with hundred dollar bills. Chalk up another victory for the spammers of South Florida.
With the bid to purchase The Evil Email Company retracted, the top members of the company were at a loss. Everyone had assumed that it was a given, and that they would all be getting a piece of the pie and wouldn’t need to work anymore. Now everything had changed. With the industry a wreck, long-time clients having left the company, and no plans for the future the only thing the company had was a big pile of uncertainty.
Drug use had been a part of the company as long as I had been employed there, but for all the pot, coke, and painkillers that came through the office, it had all been done at a recreational level. With only one or two exceptions, it never interfered with anyone’s duties. Nobody played until their work was complete. However, with the business in a rapidly decaying state and a cloud of depression looming overhead, the drug use was becoming more common and more of a problem. Those who had been hiding their problems as functional addicts weren’t able to hide it longer. The best example, or perhaps worst, would be the company’s Executive Vice President.
The V.P. was one of the most likable guys in the world. He had that old Bostonian charm, but not coupled with the arrogance. He was friendly, funny, and the kind of guy everyone would want to hang around. Before coming to work at The Evil Email Company, he was also a manager of a popular strip club. How that qualified him to run an email company was never very clear to me. Then again, the company drug dealer had previously been his personal connection, and all the beautiful yet completely under qualified female assistants were his old employees and these were things that the owner appreciated. The V.P. had only been hired a week or two before I was and because of that I think he made an effort to look out for me. Whenever I had something bad going on in or outside of the company he was the first to help me out with a few extra bucks, time off, or whatever else I needed. For this reason it upset me to see what happened to him.
While he was a great guy, nobody would ever accuse him of being a saint. He liked to drink and he liked cocaine. Normally this was something he did on the weekends only. Once the offer to buy the company had been retracted that changed from a weekend activity to an after business hours activity. It wasn’t too long until his habit was something he was doing in the office, usually right off his desk. His drinking was even worse. It got so bad that after a while a couple of us got together to assign days of the week when it would be our turn to drive him home. I will admit that he was a fun drunk. He would become even friendlier and very determined to shake your hand. It did become a bit troublesome on the drives home though. Eventually his wife and a few of his friends in the office persuaded him to go to rehab. While there he was let go from the company.
With so many problems surrounding his company, the owner found solace by finally settling down in a monogamous relationship. Unfortunately for his wife, it wasn’t with her. For the better part of 2002 the owner has been sleeping with one of the top sales people in the company who had been going through a nasty divorce at the time. Once her divorce was final, the owner found the time to start up a more stable relationship with her instead of spending time and money chasing younger girls at the local bars. She wasn’t attractive or particularly pleasant to be around, but she was convenient and for the owner, that was enough. During 2003 the owner was almost never in the office, though the company’s suite at the Marriot got more use than ever.
With the owner almost entirely absent from the company, coupled with the downward spiral the industry was going through, things were going to hell very quickly. The talented sales and IT people were leaving left and right for better jobs. The ones that remained were too dumb to get a job elsewhere, or like myself, were just too lazy to look for employment elsewhere. At the beginning of the summer our office had thirty people working in it. By the time September rolled around only 15 people were left, and each week someone else would head out door, either getting fired or finding a new job.
The office, oddly enough, was still enjoyable experience in those depressing times. Those of us that remained did our day to day jobs, but with fewer clients and an executive staff that either quit or stayed at home, most of us found ourselves with a lot more free time than before. So most of our time was filled with playing PC games, watching movies, and occasionally drinking.
The day after the company’s accountant finally quit we found a giant half-empty bottle of Sky Vodka that three people managed to kill before 1 PM. That was probably the only time I had ever been completely drunk at the office. In my inebriated state though I finally came to grips with certain undeniable truths, with the primary one being I needed to get the hell out of that office and find a new job. Why I avoided the truth and put off finding a new job is still something that confuses me. I suppose it was just comfortable. Whatever the reason a new job was the immediate goal. It didn’t take too long for me to find one either. I called up an ex-coworker who owed me a favor and moved on to new e-mail company, and luckily this was one of those rare occasions when I got the favor paid back. An interview was set up at this new company and I was hired on the spot.
With three days notice I gave my resignation to the head of the two-person IT department since he was the closest thing the company had left to management, and said goodbye to the other three people who remained. I probably didn’t even need to give those three days though since at that point we were doing almost nothing. The week after I quit the owner finally returned to the office and announced his intention to close down the company in the next two weeks. That didn’t matter to me though. I was headed off to a new company that was growing and headed in a positive direction, or at least so I thought. Little did I know that the new email company I was headed for was going to make my old corrupt company look like the Red Cross.
Read chapter 1 HERE
Chapter 2 HERE
and Chapter 3 HERE
Will there be a Chapter 5? Spam me with requests for it and I'll pass the requests on to the Spammer himself.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE.
Or Check out Becca Costello's madcap adventure with dolphins in Gay Hawaii HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
1 Comments:
At 2:51 PM, Phelpsy said…
"Little did I know that the new email company I was headed for was going to make my old corrupt company look like the Red Cross."
No way, there can not have been a worse company to work for.
You have to get a chapter 5 out of this guy. Hell, I want his life story of jobs now. I read yours and his are just as good
Do it for Phelpsy Keith, Do it For Phelpsy.
If not for me, just do it so I have something entertaining to read at work.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home