Wanna Work For a Unicorn? It's Your Unlucky Day

Who doesn’t love a good job interview, am I right?

I’m in a funny place right now because I worked at yikes – Yelp, sorry – then ducked outta there right before I was gonna get canned and moved to a new startup called BleepBloop that fired half the company a month after I’d been hired…including me. So I’m interviewing for these sales jobs and everyone is asking me why I want to work there. Specifically. That company. And I think why would I want to cold call businesses for a company that measures and analyzes PR for large companies (retarded bullshit), provides Internet security services (boring AF), or massive data storage through cloud technology (Holy-shit-level-boring !).

If BleepBloop didn’t implode that would’ve been fine because it was pretty easy and that month (my 2nd month) I’d already hit quota before anyone else so when they fired me halfway through I was more confused than anything else. Easy job, but maybe that’s why it didn’t work out. Anyway, when I was interviewing with them, they told me the same shit these new guys are telling me: “I know everyone says this, but it’s really true about us…were a unicorn,,” and I’m like, “Yea no totally, THATS, the reason why I want to work here.” The only problem is that I think they can tell I’m really saying, “Why hire me to suck your dick when you can already do it yourself? Better than I ever could at least! (Knee slap, knee slap).” This is a big change from a year ago when the only thing on my resume was where I went to college and I was 23 years old still living off an allowance from his parents. What I was really saying then was, “I will literally suck your dick if you give me this goddamn job right now, I swear I’ll make the coldest calls and sell all the shit you want me to just give me enough money to flush down my rent and beer toilet, PLEASE!” And Thats how I got my last two jobs…they were both handjobs, but at least my dick’s employed.

Not everybody is bad. Some people are funny and nice and they might not hire you, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Don’t get me wrong, they’re absolutely going on the “Fuck You” list until they make it up to me in the future…preferably with a job, but I’d settle for a handjob. Or vice versa.

Looking back at it (LOOKIN BACK AT IT 2 CHAINZ VOICE) I should’ve seen the signs coming before I got fired. Even though I was doing really well, the actual position made no sense and the company seemed like it was being run by someone with as much foresight as Grady Little when he left Pedro in too long in game 7 of the ‘03 ALCS. Or the Portland Trailblazers front office on draft night in ‘83. Or like having the foresight of someone who purchases a waterbed and then gets 3 more for his roommates. That guy also bought the house in 2007.

I was fired on a Wednesday and I remember walking into the office in SOMA (ground zero for tech innovation and infiltration into the city by the bay. A beautiful landscape of needles and human feces) and noticing how empty it felt (1st clue). Everyone on our team had a meeting with the head of supply in the other offices that we had been planning on moving into since before I started at the end of May. It was now July and the 70 people who they had just hired over the last 4-5 months were getting chopped in half. Some kid with a pre-teen, pubic facial hair situation going on, who ran around doing chores for the Office-Debbie, comes up to me and asks if I want an uber to the other office for the meeting (2nd clue?), but I obviously decline because I’m trying to get more steps in and also waste as much work time as possible (another reason why it might not have worked out). I walk over and find the building after an arduous battle between my brain and google maps and I walk into this shared office space where I find our CFO and office-Debbie talking quietly. I smile and wave and they give a silent, blank stare at me  before continuing their muffled discussion. I shrug it off and trot down to the corner offices where our head of supply is waiting with our head of HR. I’m not sure whether this is clue #5 or #8, but somehow I still haven’t realized that I’ve been walking the Startup-plank for the last 20 minutes and I’m literally hovering over a pool of crocodiles and sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.

Walking in without a care in the world my head of supply sits across from me with our head of recruiting who’s dressed in the classic mean-girl-in-the workforce outfit. Hair done, heels high, skirt short, blouse tight and revealing, makeup that fixes her face in a permanent, intimidating, suggestive stare. Flirt if you’re relevant and don’t speak to me if I don’t know you. Head of supply is a nice woman in her late 20s. She always speaks nervously and kindly and she starts talking about the company and changes for the next quarter (#9). I’m sitting there smiling like an idiot with my notebook filled with goals for growth and strategies to get there.
“Totally. Love changes and I’m completely on-board. Actually, I brought my notebook and have a few ide-”

“And unfortunately one of those changes is going to be with your role…”

“.” I don’t really know what to say or if I heard her correctly so she continues…

“I know this is really tough and it’s not performance-based-”

Because why would you fire someone based on performance?

“- because you’ve done so well with us and everyone has loved working with you so much, but it’s just a change in the direction of the company and we no longer need the role that we hired you for…”

”oh that one from 5 weeks ago, completely understandable, I committed to this Trop House concert like a month ago and all of a sudden it’s this weekend and I’m like let’s fucking bail this was a bad idea”…which makes me the Trop House concert of recently-hired-employees.

“Yea I guess so, but Trop House isn’t too bad. It’s pretty catchy.”

“oh stop it, give me those severance papers before you change your mind!”

HR bitch took over the conversation from here. She could see by my expression that the lights were on, but no one was home. I was floating where my chair had been just moments before until it vanished into thin air and HR bitch knew I had about 15-20 minutes before I was able to start processing human emotion again.

“Sign this that says we fired you, sign this that says you still love us, sign this that says you don’t have health insurance anymore, sign this that says ‘Woopsie! Oh well, good luck!’ oh and by the way as you’re looking for jobs please feel free to check our website because we’re going to be hiring for new positions right away!”

“Damn HR bitch you cold blooded”

Naturally, this conversation would be followed by several awkward conversations with recruiters and managers and CEOs because I need a new one before the rent monster comes back at the end of the month. I walked into offices and took phone calls and shaved my face and networked and eat, sleep, repeat.

“Make sure you sound excited when you talk to them. Say why you want to work for that company specifically and don’t use the term start-up because she doesn’t like that.” The recruiter who hooked me up with HomeSuite actually seemed like a good dude and was super helpful, but every time I heard his advice I knew I would be making up those answers.

So instead of sucking it up and grinding out another sales job that I couldn’t even make it through a job interview for, I decided to go down the pussy route and chase my dreams like a little kid. The longer I wait to apply to law school, the less I want to do it. The longer I continue working in sales, the more years I delay building a career that I actually care about and have actual goals for. I don’t think there is an easy route to take so I might as well take the most scenic.

But first, a few more job interviews because the wheels on the bike keep spinning a little while after you stop peddling. I’m doing research on this 27 year old guy who’s the CEO and co-founder of his own company that finally got a little angel money to hire a couple sales bros.

“To start us off ill tell you a little bit about our company and then we’ll go into your experience and open it up for questions, sound good?”

“Yea, sounds great.”

“Essentially, were transforming the way companies do business. And I know you’ve probably heard this from other companies, but we really are a unicorn in the industry,” he rarely changed the inflection in his voice as if he had repeated these lines so many times that there was no questioning their truth. “And I mean industry in the broadest sense because we’re progressing the marketplace so much that we don’t have any direct competitors,” which means that they’re the first to think of the idea or the only ones dumb enough to try it. The real answer is somewhere in between. There’s nothing wrong with being confident in your baby, but when all anyone can say is why their company reinvented the wheel better than anyone else before them, it becomes more of a joke every time I hear it.

“So why were you only at your last job for less than two months?”

“Great question.”

“.”

“”

“.”

“Probably because they weren’t a unicorn.” The thing about The Bay Area and specifically San Francisco is people are encouraged to fly their freak flag as high their imaginations can possibly reach. Whether you’re a 5 year old named Pat who wears tie-dye t shirts and is already 5 different genders or you’re 27 year old startup-prodigy with dreams of creating the next pied piper of tech. And it doesn’t stop there. Then you have the homeless shooting-up in the middle of their sidewalk villages as casual as a card game that you don’t even question the depressing absurdity of it. Or the coffee shop owner who’s white, but has dreads and talks about beans and Bernie Sanders like they’re the keys to life while ironically charging a capitalist $5 for an iced coffee. So who’s the phony? Maybe it’s the kid who quit sales because it’s too tough and is writing his thoughts on an iPad like an egotistical hipster who thinks he’s the second coming of Billy Shakespeare. Shit. Maybe I’m the fucking unicorn.