Last Weekday of the Year

It's days like this that I'm glad I'm a buyer and not a salesman anymore. The last day of the month is always a stressful, crazy day. Multiply that by ten today because it's the last day of the quarter and the last day of the year. Salespeople around the country are busting their asses trying to get last minute deals to hit their number. If that means staying in the office to hit the phones until 7pm, so be it.
Unfortunately, if most buyers are like me and my team, the sales people in the online media biz are in trouble. We'll be out of here by noon and drunk by 2pm. Happy New Year!

Seven Shopping Days of Hell

Quick note from last week...

It's amazing the feedback I'm getting from my previous post. There are people coming out of the woodwork to thank me and compliment me on it. People I haven't spoken to in months, even years. Just goes to show you that I wasn't alone in how I felt about the way we were treated, how our accomplishments were ignored, and how disappointing the whole situation was/is. It's a shame what happened there. He was a shitty businessman lucky enough to have hired a lot of brilliant people that kept the company going. Only he thought he was the brains behind the operation, hence the $0.20 stock price. As fired up as I was in my post, it was nothing compared to what Bill (the comic that was berated for joking about butt play) replied directly to Steve. Highest of High Comedy.

Anyway, back to more current affairs...

Christmas is one week away and this year I'm actually finished all of my shopping. I decided to do all of it online. Did I miss out on some incredible deals at various retail outlets? From what I hear, yes. Is it worth paying $10 more per item to not have to deal with the malls and all the bullshit that's involved in there? Abso-fucking-lutely. This is what the extra $10 paid for:

1. No sitting in traffic - Inevetable in LA.

2. No scavenging for parking spaces - Is there a more frustrating experience than driving around a carbon monoxide filled parking garage looking for an open spot? Then you see someone get into their car, so you put your blinker on to claim the spot only to have to sit there for five minutes while you wait for the dumbass to figure out how to put the car in reverse and leave.

3. No fat women bumping into me and not excusing themselves - Are fat women so bitter about being fat that they want to take it out on everyone else? Shouldn't fat women try to win you over with their personality since they have nothing to offer looks-wise? To fat women everywhere: I'm sorry you have no self-control and have to eat everything in sight, then just lie around. The next time you bump into me because your waddling as fast as you can to the clearance rack and don't excuse yourself, I swear I'm going to kick you in the cankles.

4. No booger eaters (what I call kids) screaming and crying - All my close friends know how much I hate kids. I also despise their parents for not controlling them in public places too. Screw the "time out" shit. Fuckin smack the kid and tell him if he/she doesn't shut up, Santa isn't coming this year. If that doesn't work, they've done some amazing things with duct tape I hear.

5. No piped-in Christmas music - I haven't heard a new Christmas song in years. Was Bob Geldof's, "Do They Know It's Christmas," the last original Christmas song made? That was exactly 20 years ago. So we, the consuming public, listen to the same recycled songs year in and year out. Some of you hum and tap your foot, some of you sing along, and some go about completely oblivious. Either way, I think I'm the only one in the store looking for the self destruct button.

6. I slept in until 11:00am on Black Friday - My girlfriend, my mom, and apparently millions of others were in line at various stores at 3am the day after Thanksgiving. I was in my bed sleeping. And very warm. Very, very warm.

Oh Reeeeeeeaalllllllly?? Ya Think So, Doctor?

If you are one of my friends in LA, that means we've worked together at some point. That's the only way I've ever met people out here. And I if I did work with you, it was most likely at Infosearch Media. Of course, we had better days when it was just called Traffic Logic.

A large percentage of my identity for over three years was based on Traffic Logic. If I was having a good month, I was happy, partying, etc.. If I was having a not so great month, I'd stay in a lot, and even get sick more often. I'm a badass salesman, but we all have our ups and downs. My ups were pretty damn high, and my downs weren't really that bad.

This morning I was forwarded a couple of emails from my old boss at Infosearch. Yesterday, he resigned his position. Upon leaving he wrote an extensive email thanking everyone who helped get the company to this point. (It should be noted that the company isn't exactly in great shape, so I'm not sure where the positivity is coming from. I mean, he's resigning. Would you resign from a cushy job if everything was peachy? You've ignored your family for six years and now you want to focus on them? Come on. You've got another company coming, don't cha?)

Sorry for the rant. Back to the point...

He had a laundry list of people to thank. There were several key people left out. Allow me to publicly add these people to the list:

Jim Derwin
Kim White
Heather Schoenholz
Tom Elliott
Hannah Bubis
Shanti Braford

Mr. Former Bossman, while those you listed in your email were absolutely assetts to the company, to ignore the contributions made by the six people above is outright insulting. (I'm even leaving someone out, but totally on purpose because I LOATHE him.) Kim, Heather, and myself were responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue each month when you had NOBODY else to bring in money to pay the salaries of the people you mentioned in your email. Including your $300k per year of bullshit. We were also responsible for hiring and training Tom and Hannah who were top revenue generators in their own right. I should've expected this. You never gave us (actually just me) credit where credit was due while we busted our ass for you, why would you give it now? Did you know that all those people you did thank actually despised you and still do to this day? The only reason they ever agreed with you, or were pleasant to you was because you paid them, and promised them millions of dollars for their dedication. Well, we all were dedicated. And we all have nothing to show for it except new jobs. You know who else wrote a resignation letter today? Donald Rumsfeld. You're in great company, Steve. You have no idea how fitting that is.

The other email that was sent to me comes from my friend Bill who does sketch comedy in his spare time. He recently did a skit about eharmony.com, the dating site. Watch it here. He made a clever play on words calling it "Anal Harmony." I'm not gay or a gay-basher, but that's pretty funny. Maybe I just have a sense of humor. Well, our old boss happened across this skit online to see what his old punching bag, Bill, was up to these days. I guess he didn't enjoy the skit. Here is his email to Bill:
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"anal harmony"??? Bill - I know where you come from. This is not you. Don’t be lured by the glitzy lights of Hollywood. You are extremely bright and have a lot of creativity… use it for good, not this garbage.? Hollywood is not the lifestyle you want… just try to think of anyone in Hollywood who has gone down your path who ends up old and happy. I know you'll be upset reading this, but maybe some day you'll think differently.

Hope all is well,

Steve Lazuka
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Seriously, we all used to get shit like this from this guy all the time. He sat up on this high horse trying to be the moral standard. So I'm wrong when I make dirty jokes with my friends, but he is right to treat people like shit and violate almost every labor law in California? Just another hypocritical Republican. Steve, we no longer work for you and therefore don't have to pretend to like you anymore. In fact, we've all been able to carve out our own positions in the online world, where we actually have a better reputation than you. If I were you, I'd be kissing our asses now. You have to think Long Term Steve.

The Men's Room is Anarchy

I work in a professional building at the Howard Hughes Center in Culver City. I say professional because there are men that wear suits to work. I'm not one of them since I work in the Internet business and we save the suits for the VC guys. Anyway, my point is that given this professional attitude in the office, you'd think it would carry over to all facets of the office. This, unfortunately, is not true. It all breaks down in the Men's Room.

Anything goes in the Men's Room. It's complete and total anarchy. The social rules that allow us to co-exist fly out of the window. These are my observations.

1. Farting is not only allowed, but encouraged - Outside of the Men's room, farts are normally concealed or slipped out quietly where nobody except the farter will notice. In the Men's room, you can be standing at the urinal, or washing your hands, drying your hands, combing your hair, etc., and apparently letting one rip is just fine. Obviously if you're in the stall taking a dump, farts are expected and dealt with. But the deep sigh afterward isn't necessary.

2. Picking your nose - I can't tell you how many times I've either been at a urinal or sitting in the stall and I see dried up boogers on the wall. So let me get this straight. You were standing there with one hand on your rod taking a piss, and the other hand was up your nose digging for gold? Then you thought flicking the booger on the wall was the appropriate thing to do? Is that what Pepperdine teaches in their MBA classes? I thought so. That, and the current street prices of Arabian White.

3. Washing your hands is optional - The only thing between your hand and your shit-caked asshole was three layers of toilet paper. Seriously man, wash your hands. That goes for the guy pissing and picking too. However, I am under the belief that if you take a leak and don't touch your rod directly and don't flush, you should wash your hands before pissing. After all, I know where my rod has been all day. Safe and clean in my boxers. My hands have been touching all sorts of stuff. Why should I put my dirty hands on my clean penis?

What's it like in the Women's Room? Anybody have anything to add?

To Go, Or Not To Go? It's all about the Bubble.

Los Angeles. La-La Land. The City of Angels.

To quote Death Cab For Cutie:

I'm in Los Angeles today
Garbage cans comprise the medians of
freeways always creeping
Even when the population's sleeping.
And I can't see why you'd want to live here.

Today is my company's "Holiday" party. They can't say Christmas because that's too offensive. It's being held at Fox Headquarters on Pico. I thought long and hard about going and decided not to. Why? It's all about the bubbles.

I was born and raised in Maryland, but I definitely came of age in Los Angeles. This city forces you to grow up quick, or be swallowed by the sprawling jungle. I've made many friendships here and through those friendships, I've learned about the bubbles. The bubble is essentially the distance from your house to your limit in all directions for how far you are willing to go to see your friends, see a show, and even go to work. I found this very interesting coming from Maryland because I would drive 10-15 miles to hang out with my friends all the time. They would do the same. No big deal. Here in LA, if you live in Hollywood and you hear of a party in Santa Monica, which is about a five mile drive, you really have to do a lot of thinking as to whether it's worth going that far.

Let me tell you a little more about these bubbles. LA is divided up by several bubbles. I'm not going to go into all of them because, well, most of them aren't very important. I'm lookin in your direction, Inglewood. Anywho...

1. The Westside Bubble - As far north as Wilshire, as far south as LAX, as far east as the 405. (The sand would be the Western border, ofcourse.) This is my bubble. Westside Mothafucka! N What! Seriously though. Venice, Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey? This bubble rocks.

2. The South Bay Bubble - West to East from the Ocean to the 405 and North to South from Rosecrans to the Redondo pier. I have several close friends in this bubble. They are the reason I even realized these bubbles existed in LA. Not only do they not leave this area but once a full moon, but they subconsciously will only associate with those that live in this area to prevent them from ever leaving. If, for some reason, they develop a relationship with someone outside of the South Bay Bubble, that person outside the bubble is left with the responsibility of going to them.

3. The Hollywood Bubble - West to East from Doheny to Vine and North to South from Sunset/Hollywood Blvd to 3rd St. Due to my love of independent music I'm forced to hit this bubble to see my favorite bands. Luckly I only have to do this once a month or so. Seeing as though all my friends that lived in Hollywood moved out of CA, I have no reason outside of music to enter this bubble. The H-Dub as we call it on the Westside, is really only an option when you know exactly where you are going, can find parking easily, and have somewhere to crash after partying. Otherwise, it's really not worth it.

Other bubbles include Silver Lake and The Valley. Unless you live there or work in the entertainment industry, who the hell cares about The Valley?

So there you have it. If you're outside of LA and reading this, you're probably thinking what a crappy place LA is to live. How can you judge who your friends, significant others, and co-workers are based on your bubble? If you live in LA and you read this, you're not learning anything new, but it probably helps to see it in black and white. Don't take it personally if your friends don't show up to your party. They really wanted to go, but in the end it just wasn't worth leaving the bubble.

It's been a while. Let's catch up.

I haven't written a blog for six months. Can't say I've been really busy, just really lazy. Let me sum up the last six months:

June 8, 2006: Quit job at mobileStorm to take AE job at HydraMedia. Why? It's a long story going back to my days at InfoSearch Media. I was being paid way below industry averages for a promise of long term financial windfall. ISM promised and promised and never came through, leaving me with some money in the bank, life-time friendships, yet a bad taste in my mouth. While I find the CEO of mobileStorm way more likeable, and more trustworthy than my old boss, I couldn't put myself through another roller coaster ride of being underpaid and hoping things work out. So when my friend at Hydra offered me twice as much money to work for them, it was a no-brainer decision. Plus, my commute from Venice to Beverly Hills was much more convenient than my 50 minute ordeal to and from downtown Hollywood.

June 29, 2006: Hydra fires three badass Account Executives... I'm one of them. My longing for financial independence since being promised the pie in the sky at ISM gets me in trouble. Logging in every day to Hydra's system to check on my campaigns' status I realize that a lot of their publishers are making money hand over fist for doing little more than pressing their "Send" button every day. I say to the AE next to me one day, "I should get a list and run some of these campaigns." Might sound like a conflict of interest, but nowhere in the terms of my employment contract did it say I can't become a publisher on the network. The AE to my right, whom I said this to in turn IMs the AE to my left, and before you know it the three of us are conversing on how we can make this happen. So far, no wrong doing has been made. Little did I know, the two gentlemen I thought I was entering an honest relationship with were scheming to tap into Hydra's suppression list to build our subscriber list. Word got out that the three of us were planning on being a publisher (you know who you are you bastard), which again wouldn't have been a problem, but upon further investigation found the plot of the other two to use the company's internal list and it was assumed that I was apart of this and the three of us were let go. In a matter of minutes I was unemployed with hardly any money in the bank, and no prospects for another job.

July 2006: Spent the first week of unemployment feeling sorry for myself and drinking myself into a coma every day. Luckily my girlfriend is a wine & spirit distributor so this binge cost me nothing out of pocket. Once I regained my sense of self worth and clarity I jumped on the job search wagon. It is extremely hard to find the right job for me. Very few openings in Los Angeles for a mid-Senior level leader like myself. I've been in the online space for over four years and had very few contacts to show for it. Goddamn you, Infosearch Media! Why'd you have to screw over the 450 solid clients and relationships I worked so hard to build? Now I look bad and have only a limited number of contacts in the industry.

August 11, 2006: I have two offers to ponder. The first offer is from Intermix Media, aka Fox Interactive, aka MySpace as an Online Media Buyer. While the salary and bonus structure wasn't extremely lucrative, it was an opportunity to rebuild my rolodex, learn some very useful marketing tactics, and begin to brand myself as a "go-to" guy in the industry. The other offer was from Eforce Media which coincidentally was started by several former Intermix guys. Their offer was very flattering and financially rewarding. Another plus was their office was not only in a cool spot on Main Street in Santa Monica, but I could ride my bike and save gas money. With dollar signs in my eyes, I accepted Eforce's offer to start on August 22nd.

August 23, 2006: One day into my employment at Eforce I realized I made a mistake as this was not the opportunity I planned on. I won't go on a rant about how I was treated (since you asked, it was like being a freshman, aka plebe, at the Naval Academy), nor will I talk about the quality of the product. By accepting this job, I went against one of my core criteria in what I'm looking for... high quality of life. You can be making a five figure income every month, but if you have to force yourself to get out of bed every day and have to go across the street to do two double shots of Kettle One just to get through an afternoon, you're in the wrong job. Hence my decision on...

September 1, 2006: Literally dragged myself into the office at 10:00 am as I was hungover from the Foo Fighters acoustic concert at the Pantages the night before. I walked straight into my boss' office to quit but he was in a meeting. Rather than hang around my cube where I feel about as comfortable as Allen Iverson in Philly, I wrote a very cordial resignation letter via email and walked out. To my amazement, I received an email to my personal Yahoo account from their VP telling me how sad everyone is to see me go and if there was anything they could do to change my mind. I stayed professional and told them I was firm on my decision. As relieved as I was to not have to go to that job anymore, it then dawned on me that I was unemployed and without money once again. I crossed my fingers and tried to get my Intermix offer re-sended. Of course they had to be smug and act like they didn't want me since I turned them down. It was a good thing I had a friend in there on my side who convinced them that I was serious about taking the offer and they would be remissed to not hire me.

September 21, 2006: First day of Autumn. The leaves are so beautiful Everyone in LA knows there is no such thing as Autumn. I officially am re-offered the Online Media Buyer position at Intermix and accept to start on October 2nd.

October 2, 2006: So much for training. I'm thrown into the deep end to see if I can swim. If there is one major strength that I'm proud of, it's that I do not get flustered in stressful situations. I manage to negotiate a few deals with some partners Intermix hasn't worked with in a while and they become rather profitable.

October 31, 2006: The Fox calendar ends on 10/30 and the results are in from my first month. I not only hit my goal for the month, I beat it by 240%.

November 6-8, 2006: My entire team, sans myself, is off to NYC for adTech. Had I taken Intermix's offer over Eforce's back in August, they would've budgeted for me to go. Yet another dagger in my belly for that dumb ass decision. Since every decision maker in the industry is at this show either speaking or getting hammered, there is literally zero work for me to do. I spend the three days at the office perfecting my dart game (Need a triple 20? Give me a call.), and finishing my first attempt at a screenplay. If you're curious, the script is about online dating. I'm doing my best to make it a nice twist of "Must Love Dogs," "40 Year Old Virgin," and "Swingers."

December 4, 2006: The Fox calendar ended on 12/3 and the results are in from my second month. I once again blow out my goal by 180%.


So that pretty much sums up the last six months of my professional life. Why am I back to writing today? One of my best friends has been in town for the past two weekends. Since he left town last year to start his own company, we usually just get blown out when he visits. This latest visit was the first time since he left that I've been in a position to fully appreciate what he does and how he does it.

Tom and I met at an Infosearch Media recruitment event. I saw a hungry and likeable guy that I wanted on the team and made the recommendation to hire him. He made his presence known early and often to say the least. We became friends shortly after since he actually moved in with a close friend of mine and I got to know him outside of the office. As one of the main people at Infosearch, I had a lot of respect. Mostly because I was Employee # 6 and my numbers were decent. Tom came in and earned it easily (well, he made it look easy.) One of ISM's biggest faults ( make that one of ISM's CEO's biggest faults) was not respecting his workers. The ones on the front lines not only need to be heard from, but actions needs to be taken to show that you heard them. Tom saw opportunities for multiple revenue streams for the company that were ignored and essentially laughed at. While I understood the importance of what Tom was saying, I was on my way out and really didn't care whether they listened to him or not. I had an idea for the next big thing in social networking and that was going to be my ticket. Tom's idea may have been wonderful, but I'd still be making money for someone else. I'm not going to get into the many mistakes I made that led to the downfall of my idea. The biggest mistake I made was the same mistake the former CEO of ISM made... I didn't listen to Tom. Here was an opportunity to work with a guy that is so fired up to succeed and more importantly enjoy life, and I plugged my ears. I'm very thankful for the job I have right now because of everything I'm learning. I also keep learning from my errors. That's the silver lining I need to focus on