Dropping Keys

For whatever reason, I’ve never been a fan of U2.

I know they’re the biggest band in the world, and I like a few songs, and sure they have a good album here and there (War springs to mind), but I just have never gotten into them.

Back in the early 90’s in my band-tshirt phase, I saw a hilarious (not really, but it seemed funny at the time) anti-U2 shirt at Lyle’s Place in Victoria and decided I had to have it.

One fateful night, I wore it to a Sloan show at the historic but now sadly defunct Harpo’s Cabaret.

All was going well until an angry young woman stormed up to me. Our conversation went something like this:

Her: “Why are you wearing that shirt?”
Me: “I don’t know. I just don’t like U2”
Her: “What do you have against Bono?”
Me: “Nothing, I’m just not a fan.”
Her: (glaring)  “Jealousy will get you nowhere!” (storms off)

My friends, particularly Kimli, have been getting comedy mileage out of that night ever since.

I tell this story not only to give an example of how spectacularly bad my record of talking to girls at bars is, but because I’ve come to find throughout my career that the young Chris Murphy-groupie-wannabe that night may have been wise beyond her years.

Smoke And Mirrors

How many times have you admired a person or an organization, and later found out that it was all smoke and mirrors?

Alexis Neely said it really well in her LIFT Manifesto:

You KNOW these businesses. These are the ones who have a great online or social media presence and appear to be helping a lot of people, but in reality they are foundering along, not really making any money and at risk of crumbling at the first sign of trouble

I personally have been guilty of this so many times. I’ve looked at people or organizations with borderline jealousy, and then found that things were not quite what they seemed. Here’s a few examples.

(By the way, by using these examples I am in no way trying to make light of their troubles. Giving it a try and failing is a lot better than sitting around not doing anything.)

The Java Shop With No One To Serve It To

When I was in school, most development companies in town worked with Microsoft technologies. One night on the local news, I saw a story about a Vancouver company that was working with Java. The reporter gushed at the cutting edge technology the company worked with, their beautiful office with the expensive barista-style espresso machine, and all the awards that the company was winning.

I decided I was only going to get a job as a Java developer, and worked like crazy and talked my way into a job at the company that I had seen on the news.

The problem? This company had a product that didn’t really work, no real customers, and some borderline shady stock stuff going on.

The whole house of cards crashed down 9 months after I started.

Oh, those “Best Product” awards? They were all industry and trade show awards that were bought and paid for.

The Social Media Superstars

There was a company that was all over the local tech scene. They had a cool innovative business with cutting edge technologies (I thought), and I dreamt it would be so cool to be involved with them. It didn’t seem like they could do any wrong.

It turns out that the whole thing was a financial mess with poor business processes, lack of planning, and mismanagement, and is completely gone now.

The Financiers With Limited Finances

A local startup incubator was highly admired in the city, and hosted (and continues to host) a number of events.

How cool would it be to be involved with a startup incubator?

Not very cool for the companies that had to be kicked out of the program when a funding crunch came, and the way that the founders publicly responded was as criticized as the funding issues itself.

Ask Questions. Lots of Questions.

There are lots more examples, but you get the point. As I said before, my goal is not to pile on to the examples I gave here, but to recommend that whenever you think the grass is greener, just make sure it isn’t GrassBGreen.

I personally now ask a lot of questions about whatever situation I am thinking about going into, and always consider the motivations of the people who are answering.

Also, I worry about what I am doing, and not what other people are up to. If we’re meant to work together we will, and if not, that’s cool too.

Do you have your own “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” story? I’d love to hear it.

(Photo: minifig)