It’s been a few months since I’ve cut ties with ‘the bridge’, so I feel its safe enough for me to air grievances and for them to go completely unnoticed. Most likely, I could have kept pristine records of who did what, when and it still would have flown under the radar – mostly because of my boss.

A blip of background: I’ve been a nerd my whole life; it has come and gone in waves of social stability here and there, but more to the point – I’ve been into PCs, “the internet”, for nearly all my waking memories. This doesn’t necessarily make me an expert, but someone with a grasp on things.

At [this job], my superior admitted to me that she had never really payed much attention to “the web.” Thats right. A person who worked in retail at countless stores across the eastern seaboard becomes a buyer then a couple years later gets placed as a web director. Her understanding of the net was more akin to a confused old lady who’s grandson stuck a laptop in her mitts and let her go to it. The resources she used were utter shit and full of group think, buzz words, and mind-meltingly bad web design. How were we supposed to beinteresting enough to drive sales if those are our information pools? A company whose customers exist as decrepit shut-ins, retirees, and their children?

The name of SYW is a misnomer, a lie, a fallacy, a faded passing memory of what the shop used to stand on. There isn’t a single thing made at this ‘workshop.’ Most of their product lines were shopped out overseas (see: China & India) – improper knock offs of the same American made products they had carried for years. Sure there were a couple staples they’d be crazy to move overseas, but this tilted the business in a strange way. It did so because the move wasn’t done a decade or so ago, it was only in the past year or so. A couple of years and still shaking out horror stories, still fresh and top-of-mind. Tales of cargo ships dropping to the sea floor with a back order, the dissolving of a long-time line because the new cheaper items were – shockingly – poorly made, and tales of child endangerment at the factories. Not only are they losing customers on quality, but also in a market and demographic where American made products are coveted, they had cut back.

The business was in a death spiral – driving away long time customers, unable to pull new (see: young) customers, and slumping morale.

It was not the right fit – between the “you can’t post that” red tape, not getting the guidance I asked for, and moral issues selling what equated to garbage.

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A Story of the bridge

Posted on

November 10th, 2011

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@ Work, reflections

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