December Daily Writing Project: December 3

December 3-

You know when it comes to making the decision to choose a job that pays well versus the job that’s fun?  He made the colossal mistake of picking the fun one.

Backchannelmedia began as an internship during my junior year of college.  It was my first gig inside an office.  At the time, BCM was a 15-person Direct Response media buying agency.  It bought airtime on TV networks for commercials with 800 numbers.  The president/CEO was an inspiring leader for sure.  A few months after I started, the he surprised me before the building’s Christmas party by putting weed and papers on my desk and asking me to roll a joint.  I had already wrapped my head around the fact that EVERYONE SMOKES WEED, but had never seen it happen in a after-work office setting.   In hindsight, the muscle that the CEO used on me was actually a good indicator of how things would turn out. 

            My friends would say I was “coming home from the clown factory” when I’d get back to the house, drunk after work.  I came home drunk from Backchannelmedia about once a week or so.  Weed was actually barely was a thing that happened in work functions after that first instance, but a healthy “fuck the system” attitude kicked in around 4pm many days.  We worked hard, but as soon as the opportunity to knock off for the day arose, you could tell that things started tearing apart at the seams.  It was like the first kid that zips up his bag before the bell rings.  It’s a chain reaction.  Someone starts milling, someone might go down to the bar across the street, someone comes back from the corner store with beers and ice cream.  There were some characters there and, if nothing else, the place was interesting.

But oh yeah- after I graduated, I started working at BCM full time.  But by now the company had started to transition into a heavier advertising tech startup. 

The CEO would throw you bones, and we were allowed to do some pretty cool shit.  I went to a conference in Miami, and was given the opportunity of organizing the entire industry-wide after-party at a south beach club.  I went to a conference and ran a booth in Orlando.  I planned our company boat party.  I had some pretty memorable times there.  And it’s not like I didn’t get paid that well.  For a job right out of college, I got paid well enough and had some great stuff to put on my resume.  The kicker was that the CEO allocated equity shares to all of the employees, getting people to work with more of a vested interest, willing to sacrifice a bit in salary.  Towards the end, there were multiple instances where paychecks were delayed for multiple weeks.