Bernie Takes Mushrooms Part 3
Where Bernie samples life in a start up and finds it highly disagreeable
I’m working on my fiction novel and am sharing extracts here. Not all the novel but just some of it. Why? Well because I hope it will connect with people who have worked in jobs and fucking hated them. Also anyone who struggles with technology. And anyone who has said that they aren’t good enough and let a job make them feel even worse.
This bit in the story is where we learn that Bernie’s time at the start up isn’t going brilliantly. To say the least…
The first three weeks felt discombobulating to say the least. The pace was something I’d never experienced, and nobody seemed to know what was going on each day. In fact it was like some sort of guessing game, like you were a detective, trying to uncover what the mission was, what work you were supposed to prioritise, and hoping that nobody found out that you’d focused on something entirely different.
‘Right it’s time for our OKR meeting,’ Elizabeth announced one Tuesday morning, ‘Let’s go into the meeting room next door.’
‘What is the OKR?’ I whispered to Adrienne, as we headed out after Elizabeth.
Sometimes (oftentimes) I had to Google certain business phrases ahead of time because our meetings felt incomprehsible. I’d worked in marketing for years but it seemed as if the start up world had invented a new vocabulary. There was pre-seed when you were basically just starting and then there was seed investment and we were past that stage as Elizabeth had secured 2 million in funds (this was an amazing achievement which was why I had been so impressed and was so impressed with her. She had pitched to over 70 different investors in order to get this funding).
This was the odd thing about Elizabeth. She was incredibly financially savvy, good at convincing men to part with their money, she was passionate about menopause (or said she was), and yet she seemed to have low levels of empathy towards fellow humans. I didn’t expect her to be empathetic because she was female but it was just that sometimes she said things that made you think she was empathetic (like asking how your daughter was doing in secondary school right now), but when you told her the answer she’d already moved onto the next thing and had checked out. It was as if she’d read a manual somewhere that said - Try and ask one human thing of your team member each day so they don’t feel like a complete robot. And it worked. Or it didn’t because I was already becoming familiar with the pattern.
However, I already knew that she didn’t tolerate tardiness in any shape or form (unless it was her being tardy and showing up late for meetings). I’d recently dialled into a teams call 5 minutes late and had been told off afterwards by Paula who had said- ‘Punctuality is part of our brand DNA. Did you see the chart that we circulated during your induction?’
‘What induction?’ I wanted to say but instead I simply bowed my head and beat myself up.
My inner critic was pretty vocal anyway so having someone who underlined the things you did wrong, was’t helpful. Hadn’t she heard of menopause? Weren’t we supposed to be a brand targeting women going through menopause? Didn’t she know that my mental health wasn’t tickety boo thank you?
‘Didn’t you see the file she shared on Miro?’ Adrienne said quietly as we sat down at a wide table with chairs all around it.
‘I can’t really use Miro,’ I said, ‘I keep getting lost. I think it’s the controls you know on my laptop.’
‘What controls?’ She said looking at me with a bemused look on her face.
Elizabeth was writing some words up on the white board in giant blue marker pen.
I gestured at the control pad on my Apple Mac.
‘So when I’m on Miro I find that I can’t see any of the little notes people have shared. Then I try and stretch the text they’ve written…and then well it just disappears. Like I’m on a map but in the middle of the ocean. You know like when you’re in a plane and you are flying over the sea? I want to get back on land but I can’t.’
‘Maybe Bernie you’d like to share your OKR’s with us first?’ Elizabeth said loudly, ‘You could talk them through and then we can go around the room and see how everyone is doing. The plan is that we set these fresh every 3 months to maintain momentum. On top of your 5 OKR areas then you’ll also have your 2 sprint projects.’
I wasn’t sure how I was going to wing it here without having seen any of my OKR’s anyway.
‘Can I look over your shoulder?’ I asked Adrienne, ‘Okay let me see,’ I read under my name and saw a list of 5 core areas and started to read verbatim, ‘Right well first off it says that I need to finish the campaign idea because we’re going to shoot the leggings creative in 2 weeks. Well yes I have done the campaign idea but Elizabeth you’ve added in some comments so I’ve accepted those. So I guess it’s done.’
‘And you’re happy with it?’ Elizabeth said, ‘Or do you think it needs more work and more effort?’
Adrienne looked at me with a small grimace. Should I say I was happy with it? Or admit that I had simply accepted her comments because I didn’t want to have to re-write the campaign idea again? That I’d written it 3 times already and it kept on as a move-able feast of content with no end in sight? I wasn’t used to working in an environment where documents were always works in progress. Where nothing was every completed. Was this what all start up environments were like? And if so, did it mean that you never got a sense of satisfaction out of a job well done because in fact, the job was never done? Not really anyway?
‘I think I’m happy with it,’ I said, ‘Okay and the next one says - recruit influencers for the product testimonials in time for the campaign launch.’
‘Yes so have you done that yet?’ Elizabeth asked.
I looked up and realised everyone was staring at me. It was hard to tell with Elizabeth whether she was actually furious, like livid or whether she was perfectly okay. It was that expression that you got just before you had an outburst - either of joy or of extreme sorrow. She was tired of course too. Always tired. I was trying to forgive her lack of tact and management skills because she was so young and also very tired (almost in the same way I’d handle Tasha when she in the midst of a tantrum).
‘I have recruited 3 influencers so far, and have contacted agents of some more. I will update at the next meeting,’ I said somewhat robotically.
Elizabeth seemed to warm to this approach so I continued.
‘I have also posted 3 times a week on our social media about the upcoming leggings launch and I have liaised with Adrienne on the packaging for the new leggings to ensure the copy writing is correct.’
This wasn’t actually accurate as Adrienne had asked me to look through the copy on the packaging that she’d designed and had already been sent to the printers but I’d been rushing out the door as it was 6.45pm and I needed to get home in time to pick up Tasha from a friend’s house and drive her to football practice (she was mad about football and I was happy about that as I’d always been terrible at any kind of team sports).
Paula shifted in her chair, ‘In the next meeting can you write in the cells what your progress is? If you see Adrienne’s example you’ll see that she’s updated each cell with a progress report so it’s easy for Elizabeth and I to see where you are?’
She smiled her thin, very thin smile as if it pained her to do so.
‘Right Max what about you next?’ Elizabeth said turning her attention to Max who still had his noise cancelling headphones on and his head buried in his laptop.
I wondered if perhaps it would be easier for Max to simply type his responses rather than try and talk. I’d thought he was listening to music but he wasn’t. It was just silence. There was of course nothing wrong with this and it was good that the workplace was adapting to his needs but it meant that you sometimes forgot he was there.
‘Do you not like all the noise in the office?’ I had asked one afternoon. I found it odd as there was no noise in the office apart from the tapping of keyboards and the occasional stressed, panting breathing as someone lost a document or saw another comment pop up from Elizabeth and waited for her to go away again (it was incredibly disconcerting to be working on a document and see her pop up at the top. It would have course have made sense to leave the document for her review and come back but instead I liked to just watch her little icon and see the document through her eyes- anticipating where the comments might pop up. There were a couple of times where I liked to resolve her comments before she’d even finished typing them but I realised that this wasn’t helpful as it just made her put more comments in and infuriated her.) Max hadn’t replied about the noise. He was an enigmatic figure.
‘I have uploaded all the profile data and we are getting better insights into the key touchpoint on the website. We need to update the copy text on the supplement as there are some benefits which aren’t speaking to consumers. I am on a deadline to maximise the efficiency of the purchase data and will have it updated in the spreadsheet by end of day,’ Max said.
Elizabeth nodded approvingly. Max put his headphones back on again. I should have been more succinct in my update, I thought to myself. I should have just said I’d done everything. I was now worrying about the copy writing on the packaging. Had it actually gone to the printer? Adrienne had told me that she wasn’t great at writing and so had only put some of the words on in draft form. I’d meant to check it the next day but that had been the morning when Pete and I had argued about the broken dishwasher (I had been angry that he’d just left it and not contacted anyone to fix it and so I’d ended up having to post something on the street WhatsApp and then booking this repair man…it was a boring reason but it was what our relationship often felt like- booking repairs and arguing about who was going to take action and source a repair person).
‘Did you send the packaging to the printer?’ I whispered Adrienne, ‘Or have I got time to have a read through to see it’s all okay?’
‘It went last Friday, the day you weren’t online,’ she replied.
She said the words ‘not online’ as if I had been discovered smoking a doobie in the toilet. Nobody was ever ‘not online’. We were all expected to be on 24/7. Elizabeth had originally said that boundaries were important to her but this sentiment had quickly eroded when she’d started messaging me on Slack in the early hours of the morning (and often on a Friday morning which was my non working day). In the same way that I liked to see her in my document and stay there rather than leave and stop torturing myself, I liked to watch her type a message instead of just putting my phone down and letting it be.
‘It’s 5.30 in the morning,’ Pete had said as I hung out the side of the bed looking at the glow of my screen and the message that was appearing on my Slack.
I am disappointed in the creative idea and feel it is not good quality. Please recommend a good route forward so we can complete this task.
When I’d read this message I’d felt my heart rate immediately quicken. The inner critic was actually coming to life. The creative idea had been lacklustre perhaps? Not perhaps! Definitely! I was a fraud. I couldn’t come up with the goods. Why was I not delivering? These were my thoughts. Then the next message.
I want to see an improvement in your performance please. Thank you! :)
She had finished it off with a smiley face! Like a murderer twisting the knife into your guts and smiling whilst you writhed in agony.
‘Can you please get off your phone?’ Pete snarled, ‘It’s too early? What is it anyway? You can’t be on Slack already?’
‘You don’t understand,’ I hissed back, ‘This is what is expected in start up life. Have you not read any interviews with start up founders? There is no rest and no sleep allowed!’
‘You’re fifty and you don’t have to work like a dog,’ he said sleepily, putting one arm across my chest and immediately falling back to sleep.
I felt sick. Disorientated. I had often suffered with panic attacks usually first thing in the morning. Now the panic attack was unavoidable because I couldn’t talk myself out of it and say reassuring things like - it’s going to be okay, you are enough…all that guff. It was clear that as far as Elizabeth was concerned I was NOT enough. I was not even close. I was DISAPPOINTING no less!