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Out of my control(?)

I was one of the first hires, within the first few months of the company’s existence and just after the seed round. I worked along side the first few guys for nearly a year straight, no additional hires were made. We fought through the down times (literally) and enjoyed the good times and I felt close to people for the first time since I left college. We built things, solved some problems and hurt our heads on others. We were rewarded and with additional funding allowed to carry on. It was a momentous feeling.

When we got our first office, I carried in the furniture and helped build the desks. I was there through the whole process of carefully selecting new team members. I never felt a disconnect from the founders and me, I felt like I was a part of this company and my DNA was forever imprinted within it’s walls. As my college life dissipated, it was slowly replaced by something greater. I was proud of the work I did and although I knew this wouldn’t be my home forever, it was for now.

We had a tough quarter of technical growing pains and missed goals and shortly before our board meeting I was swiftly asked to resign. It was a quick swift kick to the gut. I was the youngest in both age and work experience so I always struggled internally to keep up with our team but I never felt like my trajectory was unsatisfactory or would warrant dismissal. I can’t help but feel like I was a convenient fall guy for a tough spot.

It’s been long enough that it is not as painful anymore, and as I reflect I feel very optimistic about my future and more in control than ever before. I learned such a great deal in such a great time to know these things and for that I am grateful. But there is still a big hole in my day to day life of just being there, with those guys, joking around, playing nintendo, working hard. I miss the environment quite a bit and that’s painful. I’m not sure what compelled me to share other than it was recent enough that this just seemed like the right thing to do. I’ve given plenty others the mundane details of the what and why but I haven’t gotten a chance to just talk about how it felt.

It’s funny, when I saw this site I laughed out loud at the premise…. then immediately realized I needed it.

Thank you

  • You probably were fired because you spent too much time “playing Nintendo” and “joking around”. It seems highly unlikely that you were fired to take the fall for the company’s recent bad performance. There is no board that would allow a CEO to place that responsibility on you. If I were a board member of a company where the CEO tried to do that, I would have him removed ASAP.

    Reply

  • “As my college life dissipated, it was slowly replaced by something greater. I was proud of the work I did and although I knew this wouldn’t be my home forever, it was for now.”

    Sounds like you had a vacation in college, graduated and went on another vacation joining this startup. You got kicked out and now you’re missing your vacation. Reality has hit and now you have get a job and work hard. Play time is over and now you’re sad.

    “But there is still a big hole in my day to day life of just being there, with those guys, joking around, playing nintendo, working hard. I miss the environment quite a bit and that’s painful.”

    I see you are reminiscing about the good ole’ times. You miss the environment where you could walk in, horse around with your co-workers and “work”. Real and successful startups make it because they are not just solving theoretical problems on paper, but they are solving the right problems, hustling and busting ass day in and day out. You seem like you still have the free ticket to vacation land mindset, which is the wrong mindset to have if you want to succeed.

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  • I think it is beacause the business developed and the first employeers, the oldest one, didn’t developed with the business and continued to do the same job. Such employees do not realize that they have reached a position where they have to perform new tasks, management tasks.

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  • Jeez you guys are harsh. Sounds to me like the founders anticipated board questions like “what are you doing about controlling the burn rate” and decided to fire you so they’d have an answer. Other than that, comment #1 is important advice…

    Don’t let it get you down. It’s a good lesson to learn that there’s very little loyalty in this space anymore, so if you don’t have stock, get paid a decent wage and always keep an eye on your cheese (if not familiar, look for the book “who moved my cheese”).

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    • PS Got my comment order wrong. The “business developed” comment rings true, which was the last comment before mine.

      Reply

    • Laying off one employee to “control the burn rate” is complete B.S.

      “What are you doing about controlling the burn rate?” The answer is easy. When you work for a company, make sure to bring more value to the company.

      Reply

  • You didn’t have a good measure of your performance relative to others. It does not matter if you were putting in long hours. What mattered is what you contributed. Were other people left to fix your bugs? Where you contributing above or at average? Things to ask yourself. Learn from the experience and make yourself stronger.

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