The Wayback Machine: Fired. Tired. Wired.

"Let's take it back to three years ago." - Danity Kane, Ride For You

Fired. Tired. Wired. was originally published on August 5th, 2005.

It took me a year to get back to doing what I love - creating great experiences for users with entertainment content. I wasn't sure I'd be back in this space. I had a horrible mis-step with the mobile phone company -- the moral of which is to trust your instincts, always -- and I proved the theory true: blogging is a hobby not a career (for everyone exceptt a very select few). But after 4 months of strutting my stuff for the House of Mouse like the proud web-producing peacock I am, I'm in the driver's seat of an entire network's web presence. The title is Lead Producer and I am the [web] negro in charge.

A year ago, though, I wasn't in charge of squat.

Oh, and: I've flipped the colors and format for the fall. Get green, y'all.

Okay. Here's the story (or at least the parts I can tell):

Friday morning started like any other Friday morning - me getting up, reading the paper, planning out what I was going to post for LAist with Good Day LA on the TV. I got in to work a little early because I had a conference call to make about a new project I had been requested to work on from one of our their productions that is out of state. After a month of not having director's meetings, we finally had one. We started with the roundtable of updates. I had even come prepared. I had a bunch of stuff to talk about. Director's meeting over, I went back to my office and had a staff meeting with my staff.

We laughed and joked about several things and discussed some projects.

45 minutes later, I got a call from HR asking that me and my entire staff come up for a meeting at 1:15.

How odd.

We went up to the conference room at 1:15. By 1:30, we were heading back down in the elevator all kinds of oddly giggly and began packing up our areas and cleaning up our computers.

It was all very surreal.

The whole day, I was alternating between amused and annoyed. I'm amused because, for me, this is kind of exactly what I wanted. I knew my vision of what my department should be focusing on wasn't the same as where the company is headed. I knew I was no longer very happy or interested with the projects we were producing or developing. I wasn't very happy with the changes in company culture or structure in he 18 months since Mary-Ellis had passed. And that's not to say that where they are headed is wrong or anything. It just wasn't the place I had grown to love in the last two years that it had been in my first five.

I'm amused because I had sent out an email in June to a bunch of folks basically saying I was on my way out of that joint. That I had done my time and it was time to move on to the next chapter of my life. I'm amused because it was fast becoming time to negotiate a new contract and I had been seriously considering negotiating a severance package much like my friends and colleagues at mtv.com had done earlier this summer and taking some time to figure out what I wanted to do in the world.

So, I got my wish. The universe tends to do that for me.

I'm annoyed because my staff is not nearly in the same position I'm in. I'm annoyed because I wish I had been able to prepare them for the transition. I'm annoyed because we were in the middle of several projects that I worry won't get finished or won't get finished "correctly" and that people that depend on the services of our department are going to be left in a lurch for a while. I'm not sure people in the company realize the resource we have been to lots of other areas that don't have to do with web.

The small amount of vindictiveness I have about this situation is that I hope the next week or two or three are filled with little bumps in the road that nobody expected.

But, truly, I don't have many complaints.

I'm not sad about losing my job. I'm not sad about my time there. Most of the major parts of my life now have some connection with the relationships and experience I gained at BMP.

So, what now?

I'm on vacation, y'all. At least for the next month. I'll take a look at some gigs and probably do some freelance work (both web and written) but mostly I'm going to enjoy the time. I'm going to prepare for my move (I take over Ariel's house on October 5th). I'm going to tae bo like crazy. I'm going to catch up on my 52 in 52 and my 101 in 1001. LAist is going to get my full attention.

I'm going to lunch and dinner and drink drinks and relax my ass off.

Maybe me, Hov and the MVP will get words on the backs of our necks. Me: fired. Hov: tired. MVP: wired.

I'm not hurting for cash.

I'm not worried about not being able to find a new job.

I'm just going to do what the beat say do.

Comments

[viperteq]

Hey fam, just do you, live life and Rock on.....

[Broz]

Enjoy your time away and getting your head right. As Matthew McConaughey said in Dazed & Confused: "Livin'. L-I-V-I-N'".

[Jason Toney]

Uhhh, This is a "Wayback Machine" post meaning it is something that happened in the past. August 5, 2005 to be exact.

I'm now gainfully employed and damn busy as I point out in the opening paragraph.

[Roxanne]

Are you still with Disney?

[fizzle]

I read you often and this post is one of my favorites...you live, you learn, you take opportunity where it may not be, and you don't try to say the hits don't hurt...

The working world, tho, it's not as nice as lunch, brunch, dinner and drinks on a Tuesday, is it? ;-)

[Ann]

It's so strange to read this almost a year later. It seems so far away. It just shows that everything can change in an instant, but everything turned out for the best. As they say on Starting Over - we will recover. Let's keep following our passions.

[Hashim]

Jason, it's scary how much your life mirrors mine. This was me back three months ago.

[aquababie]

what a difference a year makes. did the rest of your staff land on their feet?