Down and Out In (Or Somewhat Near) Beverly Hills: The Dream Job Becomes a Nightmare.
A homeless man approached me as I briskly walked down the boardwalk in Venice and asked me for a dollar. It was the wrong day to ask.
“Look man, I just got laid off today,” I said wearily. “Not only that, but I haven’t gotten paid in two weeks. I got debts, dude. Big time. You? You’re at zero. How about you give ME a dollar.”
Well, something like that. I don’t sound like such a straight-talking badass in real life.
But the point of this story is…yes, I was laid off Monday from my previously described “12-year old’s dream job” as a so-called Video Game Specialist at the Media Data Corporation. But, no, it wasn’t my fault. In fact, the whole thing is part of a Huge Enron-like Corporate Scandal full of double crossings and intrigue. Let’s just say the mob might be involved. (Only slightly more interesting than the first time a company I worked for crashed. That one involved an ad guy who conned the owner of about $60,000 in fake advertising.)
Here’s a not-so- brief rundown:
Tuesday morning, at first, seemed like a normal workday. We were supposed to be getting our checks in paper form (direct deposit had *ahem* been malfunctioning the last few weeks) that day, but as usual I logged on my computer and headed to the kitchen for my favorite: Apple and Cinnamon Oatmeal.
Everyone got an email saying that there was a meeting at 10 a.m. in the board room, but most of us assumed it had to do with some silly new “marketing initiative” we had discussed the week before. Instead, our boss D.K., as I’ll call him here just in case my blog is subpoened, (hah!) drops a bomb.
More like a slow ticking grenade actually, because at first he gives us this half-assed rah-rah speech about how “we do things no one else does.” But when he finally got around to the actual news, it turns out that our company has zero cash because our main investor, Frank Russo, actually pretty much our ONLY investor, has pulled out completely with no warning.
Why? The answer lies in an article published recently by the Reuters News Service:
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=fundsNews2&storyID=2006-05-25T205830Z_01_N25203572_RTRIDST_0_FINANCIAL-FUND-MASSACHUSETTS.XML
There’s also a Boston Globe short here:
Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin filed an administrative complaint against a Wakefield man for failing to register as an investment adviser and other violations. Galvin's office said Frank J. Russo has refused to meet with regulators or provide documents despite subpoenas. He allegedly raised at least $1.5 million for two unregistered hedge funds, but then transferred the money between the two entities and wired large amounts to a California company for which he served as chief financial officer. Neither Russo nor his attorney could immediately be reached. (Ross Kerber)
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/05/26/ex_tufts_executive_to_run_health_insurance_authority/
Guess who the “California company” mentioned in the article is? Right.
In other words, this guy has been conning people and redirecting some of these “hedge funds” illegally into our company coffers. According to D.K., (who said Russo has been his friend for over 30 years) Russo began paying the companies bills late, or not at all since April. The new C.E.O. who took over at the end of the year, M.F. even invested $250,000 of his own money so that we could move to a new office in Culver City (which incidentally costs $38,000 a month!). Now that Russo’s a wanted man, he’s probably fled the country in a speedboat like in a Miami Vice episode carrying briefcases of money and cocaine.
Interestingly enough, rumors have spread through the company through the years that the company was being paid for by “mob money.” Apparently, D.K. or Russo had ties or worked for a former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island named Buddy Cianci. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Cianci
Cianci, in 2001 was busted on federal criminal charges of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, witness tampering, and mail fraud, according to the Wikipedia entry about him. Plus, I mean, it’s obvious that Frank Russo is a pretty good Italian mobster name.
Mob or not, why a company that’s been around almost 4 years is funded almost solely through a single guy on an as-needed basis seems beyond stupid. Nonetheless, the bottom line is the company doesn’t have any money to pay any of its 40-50 employees on payday. Thus, we were all being laid off.
I couldn’t help, at this point, to glance at some of the faces of those sitting around the table. Some were in stunned silence, staring straight ahead and not really hearing all the words being said. Others shook their heads in disgust, rolling their eyes at every reassuring comment from D.K.. A few others were on the verge of tears.
Honestly, I expected someone to yell and scream at the injustice of all of it, but the anger was kept simmering. One or two people simply walked out during the hour and a half session…Others wonder aloud how they are going to pay their rent (This was announced May 29, 2 days before most people’s rents are due.)
Of course, D.K., in his finest Bill Clinton-like form, feels our pain, and notes that he too has lost his fortune (On a side note, this is the same guy who told us we could be millionaires someday and that once you do “Making more millions is like learning to ride a bike. It’s not a big deal.”) and now has to try and figure out how to pay his mortgage. We have trouble doling out sympathy.
And then, D.K., not only asks us not to sue, he asks us to “volunteer” and continue coming to work for no pay in order for the company to pull off some sort of last minute deal with a big media company to stay afloat. (Legend is D.K. used to be ultra cocky in past negotiations, once turning down a deal with AOL because he claimed our company would become “bigger than AOL”, and turning down a $5 million deal with cable giant Comcast because we were “worth” $25 million.) D.K.’s theory was that there was no way he could pull off a deal to save the company without employees there to give off the perception that we weren’t a company that just laid off everyone. (And therefore couldn’t pay us what he owed us.)
He offered to pay us double and give us stock options if we were to stay around and “volunteer” until we got back in the black (according to him, it would take $127,000 or so). We’re then asked to pack up our stuff, turn in our keycards, and leave the building for the day. Game over.
Those 10 to 20 minutes of packing up and leaving were surreal. Anger and sadness intermingled. Angry because of the situation (and as a added slap in the face, they took our DVD’s we were working on and unplugged the Internet while we were in the meeting, afraid some would steal DVDs and put computer viruses on the server) and sad that our jobs, and the friendships and comraderies that we had were gone in a blink of an eye.
That night, many of us exchanged opinions, rumors, and the aforementioned newslinks to each other through a MySpace group some of us made a couple months ago. None of it made sense, or suddenly made too much sense in a way.
Today, about half of us came back “as volunteers” mostly to see what would happen, or to get emails, or because they had nothing else to do. I figured I had nothing to lose, and would spend most of my time doing job searches on the Internet, and filing for umemployment, etc.
Most of the time we spent talking to each other about our own situations (my department manager Dave was -$800 in the hole and had rent due in 2 days, and was able to beg for a check for $3,000 from a millionaire transvestite who claims to have once slept with, and was stalked by Prince. Yeah, I know, an even better story.) and figuring out what other people were doing.
D.K. was even more full of bull in this meeting. There was lots of reassurances and a lot of vague corporate buzzwords (I swear to you he used the phrase “Moving Forward” about 100 times, and “focus” about 1,000.) “We’re focused on moving forward with this company. We don’t want to focus on the negative, we want to focus on the positive. We want a new focus. Because of this crisis mode we’re in now, we’re even more focused. So lets be focused together moving forward into dominating strategic alliances.”
He even made bizarre metaphors about how our company has “all the ingredients” to be successful and that we had the potential to make “an awesome cupcake.” Following the meeting, in which we also discovered that 5-6 employees had their checks from a month ago bounce, we kicked out the bigwigs and had an “employees only” meeting.
I wish I could say we armed ourselves with pitchforks and torches and had a full fledged “peasants rebellion”, but we mostly debated about whether to sue, whether to keep coming to “volunteer” at work, or whether just to all go our own way. We never did come up with a clear consensus but maybe more importantly, we did schedule a weekend barbeque.
Anyway, that’s the jist of it. I’m going in at 11 a.m. tomorrow, but that may be the last time. I’ve updated my resume, and I’m moving forward. I mean, I just have to stay focused on the positives, ya know?
Just remember kids, dream jobs are just that, dreams.
A homeless man approached me as I briskly walked down the boardwalk in Venice and asked me for a dollar. It was the wrong day to ask.
“Look man, I just got laid off today,” I said wearily. “Not only that, but I haven’t gotten paid in two weeks. I got debts, dude. Big time. You? You’re at zero. How about you give ME a dollar.”
Well, something like that. I don’t sound like such a straight-talking badass in real life.
But the point of this story is…yes, I was laid off Monday from my previously described “12-year old’s dream job” as a so-called Video Game Specialist at the Media Data Corporation. But, no, it wasn’t my fault. In fact, the whole thing is part of a Huge Enron-like Corporate Scandal full of double crossings and intrigue. Let’s just say the mob might be involved. (Only slightly more interesting than the first time a company I worked for crashed. That one involved an ad guy who conned the owner of about $60,000 in fake advertising.)
Here’s a not-so- brief rundown:
Tuesday morning, at first, seemed like a normal workday. We were supposed to be getting our checks in paper form (direct deposit had *ahem* been malfunctioning the last few weeks) that day, but as usual I logged on my computer and headed to the kitchen for my favorite: Apple and Cinnamon Oatmeal.
Everyone got an email saying that there was a meeting at 10 a.m. in the board room, but most of us assumed it had to do with some silly new “marketing initiative” we had discussed the week before. Instead, our boss D.K., as I’ll call him here just in case my blog is subpoened, (hah!) drops a bomb.
More like a slow ticking grenade actually, because at first he gives us this half-assed rah-rah speech about how “we do things no one else does.” But when he finally got around to the actual news, it turns out that our company has zero cash because our main investor, Frank Russo, actually pretty much our ONLY investor, has pulled out completely with no warning.
Why? The answer lies in an article published recently by the Reuters News Service:
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=fundsNews2&storyID=2006-05-25T205830Z_01_N25203572_RTRIDST_0_FINANCIAL-FUND-MASSACHUSETTS.XML
There’s also a Boston Globe short here:
Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin filed an administrative complaint against a Wakefield man for failing to register as an investment adviser and other violations. Galvin's office said Frank J. Russo has refused to meet with regulators or provide documents despite subpoenas. He allegedly raised at least $1.5 million for two unregistered hedge funds, but then transferred the money between the two entities and wired large amounts to a California company for which he served as chief financial officer. Neither Russo nor his attorney could immediately be reached. (Ross Kerber)
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/05/26/ex_tufts_executive_to_run_health_insurance_authority/
Guess who the “California company” mentioned in the article is? Right.
In other words, this guy has been conning people and redirecting some of these “hedge funds” illegally into our company coffers. According to D.K., (who said Russo has been his friend for over 30 years) Russo began paying the companies bills late, or not at all since April. The new C.E.O. who took over at the end of the year, M.F. even invested $250,000 of his own money so that we could move to a new office in Culver City (which incidentally costs $38,000 a month!). Now that Russo’s a wanted man, he’s probably fled the country in a speedboat like in a Miami Vice episode carrying briefcases of money and cocaine.
Interestingly enough, rumors have spread through the company through the years that the company was being paid for by “mob money.” Apparently, D.K. or Russo had ties or worked for a former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island named Buddy Cianci. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Cianci
Cianci, in 2001 was busted on federal criminal charges of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, witness tampering, and mail fraud, according to the Wikipedia entry about him. Plus, I mean, it’s obvious that Frank Russo is a pretty good Italian mobster name.
Mob or not, why a company that’s been around almost 4 years is funded almost solely through a single guy on an as-needed basis seems beyond stupid. Nonetheless, the bottom line is the company doesn’t have any money to pay any of its 40-50 employees on payday. Thus, we were all being laid off.
I couldn’t help, at this point, to glance at some of the faces of those sitting around the table. Some were in stunned silence, staring straight ahead and not really hearing all the words being said. Others shook their heads in disgust, rolling their eyes at every reassuring comment from D.K.. A few others were on the verge of tears.
Honestly, I expected someone to yell and scream at the injustice of all of it, but the anger was kept simmering. One or two people simply walked out during the hour and a half session…Others wonder aloud how they are going to pay their rent (This was announced May 29, 2 days before most people’s rents are due.)
Of course, D.K., in his finest Bill Clinton-like form, feels our pain, and notes that he too has lost his fortune (On a side note, this is the same guy who told us we could be millionaires someday and that once you do “Making more millions is like learning to ride a bike. It’s not a big deal.”) and now has to try and figure out how to pay his mortgage. We have trouble doling out sympathy.
And then, D.K., not only asks us not to sue, he asks us to “volunteer” and continue coming to work for no pay in order for the company to pull off some sort of last minute deal with a big media company to stay afloat. (Legend is D.K. used to be ultra cocky in past negotiations, once turning down a deal with AOL because he claimed our company would become “bigger than AOL”, and turning down a $5 million deal with cable giant Comcast because we were “worth” $25 million.) D.K.’s theory was that there was no way he could pull off a deal to save the company without employees there to give off the perception that we weren’t a company that just laid off everyone. (And therefore couldn’t pay us what he owed us.)
He offered to pay us double and give us stock options if we were to stay around and “volunteer” until we got back in the black (according to him, it would take $127,000 or so). We’re then asked to pack up our stuff, turn in our keycards, and leave the building for the day. Game over.
Those 10 to 20 minutes of packing up and leaving were surreal. Anger and sadness intermingled. Angry because of the situation (and as a added slap in the face, they took our DVD’s we were working on and unplugged the Internet while we were in the meeting, afraid some would steal DVDs and put computer viruses on the server) and sad that our jobs, and the friendships and comraderies that we had were gone in a blink of an eye.
That night, many of us exchanged opinions, rumors, and the aforementioned newslinks to each other through a MySpace group some of us made a couple months ago. None of it made sense, or suddenly made too much sense in a way.
Today, about half of us came back “as volunteers” mostly to see what would happen, or to get emails, or because they had nothing else to do. I figured I had nothing to lose, and would spend most of my time doing job searches on the Internet, and filing for umemployment, etc.
Most of the time we spent talking to each other about our own situations (my department manager Dave was -$800 in the hole and had rent due in 2 days, and was able to beg for a check for $3,000 from a millionaire transvestite who claims to have once slept with, and was stalked by Prince. Yeah, I know, an even better story.) and figuring out what other people were doing.
D.K. was even more full of bull in this meeting. There was lots of reassurances and a lot of vague corporate buzzwords (I swear to you he used the phrase “Moving Forward” about 100 times, and “focus” about 1,000.) “We’re focused on moving forward with this company. We don’t want to focus on the negative, we want to focus on the positive. We want a new focus. Because of this crisis mode we’re in now, we’re even more focused. So lets be focused together moving forward into dominating strategic alliances.”
He even made bizarre metaphors about how our company has “all the ingredients” to be successful and that we had the potential to make “an awesome cupcake.” Following the meeting, in which we also discovered that 5-6 employees had their checks from a month ago bounce, we kicked out the bigwigs and had an “employees only” meeting.
I wish I could say we armed ourselves with pitchforks and torches and had a full fledged “peasants rebellion”, but we mostly debated about whether to sue, whether to keep coming to “volunteer” at work, or whether just to all go our own way. We never did come up with a clear consensus but maybe more importantly, we did schedule a weekend barbeque.
Anyway, that’s the jist of it. I’m going in at 11 a.m. tomorrow, but that may be the last time. I’ve updated my resume, and I’m moving forward. I mean, I just have to stay focused on the positives, ya know?
Just remember kids, dream jobs are just that, dreams.
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