I'm just killing time...
It's really weird how a month ago I was thinking that things in my life had been going the same way for way too long and everything seemed intensely boring. All I wanted was some kind of change just to spice things up and make things interesting or at least somewhat entertaining. My job was slowly driving me insane and I haven't seen any friends in months because our whole "group" is kind of falling apart. Then out of nowhere I had ridiculous weeks that completely put everything up in the air. I had been at this company for over 2 and a half years and had never taken more than 2 days vacation at a time, so I figured I'd treat myself to an early birthday present and go to NY for a week, which was awesome. Totally love the city, had great food, saw some great sites and even checked out Masters programs at Parsons and Pratt. I didn't even know how serious I was about going back to school...but with the whole economic recession/depression/repression thing going on, maybe school is a good idea. Pratt was awesome...in a cool party of Brooklyn, big old turn of the century campus with giant brick buildings and sculpture gardens galore. It was all very impressive but I get the impression that it would feel a little too much like I was "going away" to college. There was a cafeteria and dorms and I've never really been in to that kind of thing, hence why I went to art school the first time. Parsons was pretty amazing in a whole other way. I took a tour of the whole campus which was awesome once they weeded out all of the 14 year old girls who just wanted to see where Project Runway was shot (it's actually in a separate studio in a separate part of town, with a fake building front used only for TV and they'd very much like you to spread the word). The New School actually owns a few buildings all off Broadway that house different majors and studios. There's wood shops, metal shops, plastic shops, ceramics, textiles, laser die cutting machines and more, all at your finger tips. There's also private loft studio spaces for seniors and like 5 different galleries that feature alumni work and exhibitions from around the world. It seriously made the Art Institute seem like an after school program. The Masters program I looked at is called PLAID - Product Lighting Architecture and Interior Design and it seemed pretty phenomenal. Not so phenomenal is the $34K a year tuition, but that's another story.
I hung out with Yvette in the city too which was awesome because she fully showed me how to get around and I met a bunch of her friends which was really kind of eye opening. All young creatives in their late 20's and early 30's who actually go out and experience new and different things on a regular basis. They genuinely enjoy each others company and take advantage of all that is around them regardless of things like money, time, personal dramas, etc. The whole trip just seemed kind of inspiring...it's such a completely different way of living and after 29.9 years of being in LA it would be an immensely radical change. Even things like not needing a car and experiencing actual seasons (it was in the 40's there while it was in the 90's here) would be pretty life changing.
Needless to say the whole thing left me with a lot to think about and I figured I'd take November and December to leisurely mull it over and save up money just in case. So I get back to LA and due to walking around in the rain all week I brought an awesome sinus infection back with me. I actually made it in to work on monday, but took a sick day on tuesday to try to recover. Wednesday morning I was back in action and walked in to the office and noticed that all but 3 desks have been completely cleared out. No computers, no lamps, no pictures of family members. I ask the remaining two members of the marketing team that I'm on what's going on and I get two very unconvincing "I don't knows". So I sit down at my desk, and AIM starts up and I immediately get IM'd by an old coworker who asks if I survived? I had no idea what he meant, but he went on to tell me that the entire online/tech department just got laid off. I then speak to our office manager who tells me that the entire sales team in LA and NY were also laid off. Judging by my coworkers lame responses I pretty much figure that I'm the next to go at this point, so I ask them if I should be nervous and they lamely reassure me how vital I am to the company, blah blah blah. Not 4 hours later I get called in to my bosses office and before he even says anything I ask if I still have a job, and he says no. Our new investors weren't pleased with the company's progress so they cut our funding to $200,000 cash per month. This barely pays our CEO and President's salaries so they literally whittled the company down to the top 4 execs and my two lame marketing coworkers. The rest of us were just shit out of luck. If they can't show improvement in ad sales by next spring, they're pulling the plug and the company is done. And without a sales team to sell ads, and an art director to design them, it's not looking too good.
At first I was obviously pissed off, mainly because I was the longest standing employee at the company other than the founder and was literally the 5th person ever hired. Not to mention I had basically built the brand and visual identity that is Access 360 Media and was literally just kicked the hell off the island with no notice what so ever. But the more I thought about it, the less angry I got. I got a decent severage package and really the only thing I actually liked about the job at this point was the paycheck. Plus I had been calling the company a sinking ship for the last year, so I can't really say I'm surprised that the two monkies in charge kind of ran it in to the ground. So I packed up and was out that night. I did manage to depart with two Bertoia Diamond chairs from our lounge area that I had claimed in our last move which was a nice bonus.
So in the end I guess I got the change I was looking for and now I have a whole lot of thinking to do. In retrospect it might have been just what I needed to force me to make a decision. I could have very easily come back to LA and slipped right back in to the comfort zone and never made a decision at all, but now I've got limited time and budget so I've gotta come up with something.
I've also got jack shit to do everyday so if anyone wants to hang out or take up macrame or some shiz, let me know.
I hung out with Yvette in the city too which was awesome because she fully showed me how to get around and I met a bunch of her friends which was really kind of eye opening. All young creatives in their late 20's and early 30's who actually go out and experience new and different things on a regular basis. They genuinely enjoy each others company and take advantage of all that is around them regardless of things like money, time, personal dramas, etc. The whole trip just seemed kind of inspiring...it's such a completely different way of living and after 29.9 years of being in LA it would be an immensely radical change. Even things like not needing a car and experiencing actual seasons (it was in the 40's there while it was in the 90's here) would be pretty life changing.
Needless to say the whole thing left me with a lot to think about and I figured I'd take November and December to leisurely mull it over and save up money just in case. So I get back to LA and due to walking around in the rain all week I brought an awesome sinus infection back with me. I actually made it in to work on monday, but took a sick day on tuesday to try to recover. Wednesday morning I was back in action and walked in to the office and noticed that all but 3 desks have been completely cleared out. No computers, no lamps, no pictures of family members. I ask the remaining two members of the marketing team that I'm on what's going on and I get two very unconvincing "I don't knows". So I sit down at my desk, and AIM starts up and I immediately get IM'd by an old coworker who asks if I survived? I had no idea what he meant, but he went on to tell me that the entire online/tech department just got laid off. I then speak to our office manager who tells me that the entire sales team in LA and NY were also laid off. Judging by my coworkers lame responses I pretty much figure that I'm the next to go at this point, so I ask them if I should be nervous and they lamely reassure me how vital I am to the company, blah blah blah. Not 4 hours later I get called in to my bosses office and before he even says anything I ask if I still have a job, and he says no. Our new investors weren't pleased with the company's progress so they cut our funding to $200,000 cash per month. This barely pays our CEO and President's salaries so they literally whittled the company down to the top 4 execs and my two lame marketing coworkers. The rest of us were just shit out of luck. If they can't show improvement in ad sales by next spring, they're pulling the plug and the company is done. And without a sales team to sell ads, and an art director to design them, it's not looking too good.
At first I was obviously pissed off, mainly because I was the longest standing employee at the company other than the founder and was literally the 5th person ever hired. Not to mention I had basically built the brand and visual identity that is Access 360 Media and was literally just kicked the hell off the island with no notice what so ever. But the more I thought about it, the less angry I got. I got a decent severage package and really the only thing I actually liked about the job at this point was the paycheck. Plus I had been calling the company a sinking ship for the last year, so I can't really say I'm surprised that the two monkies in charge kind of ran it in to the ground. So I packed up and was out that night. I did manage to depart with two Bertoia Diamond chairs from our lounge area that I had claimed in our last move which was a nice bonus.
So in the end I guess I got the change I was looking for and now I have a whole lot of thinking to do. In retrospect it might have been just what I needed to force me to make a decision. I could have very easily come back to LA and slipped right back in to the comfort zone and never made a decision at all, but now I've got limited time and budget so I've gotta come up with something.
I've also got jack shit to do everyday so if anyone wants to hang out or take up macrame or some shiz, let me know.
