We asked for your nightmare tales of startup employment . Did you ever render — send narration of woe , scams , drugs , psychotic manager , wassail at your desk and more hookers than a speculation capitalist could address .
The One With All the Drugs and Douches
K writes :
I moved to Silicon Valley as a youthful , completely forgetful char . I ’d listen startup were all about “ work hard , party hard , ” so when I got hired at an all - male person inauguration ( myself being the ‘ marketing doll ’ because….of track ) , I did n’t know what I was getting myself into .
This “ sales automation ” inauguration claimed to automatize the entire sales process . This mythologic unicorn give out to ever materialize or solve any sales trouble , as it was nothing more than a scam flimsily mask as engineering science . Incredibly enough , they are still manoeuvre despite their never - terminate BBB charge .
My party boss was the carbon monoxide - founder . All looks , no psyche . And bloody , was he obsess with looks ( part of the reason I was hired , but we ’ll get to that in a minute ) . He promptly became possessive of me , and was desperately , subtly trying to make a relationship befall for the well part of a year . He ’d frequently make me go on trips with him , sit alone with him in his berth , and open me total preferential treatment over other employee .
Eventually , we lease a couple women and moved to a bounteous office , and he bear on the awkward treatment by giving me my own office , letting me leave ahead of time , etc . He referred to anyone over 110 lb . as “ juicy chicks ” and constantly reminded me to “ Just not eat . Do you want to be fucking blubber and disgusting ? No , you do n’t . ” On days when I dressed down , he would cue me that “ You postulate to get it together . ”
I ’m sure everyone intend we were having an affair , and I started to sense like such a bad human being , and so awkward going into work , that I hatched my escape ( I was financial stuck at this caper until I found another ) . The creepiest part of all this is that the full direction squad thought this was satisfactory , and as a result , no one dared say anything to me .
To top off the sexual torment , the direction squad openly encouraged drug use and on a regular basis did coke … in the blooming office ! Over clip , as they slipped into the steadfast decline of ‘ failing startup , ’ scream matches ensued in the bureau and drug utilization amped up . The VP of Sales , who was a spectacular shit with a famous coke addiction , enjoyed calling me the ‘ marketing chick ’ and said that I should ‘ leave behind the real work to the boy . ’ My only cuticle from this mega douche bag was my honcho , who regularly asked me to get him Xanax , Adderall , and a ten thousand of other drug . The CEO was a disbar ( or let ’s say massive unsuccessful person ) financial bozo who constantly regaled us with tales of his glory twenty-four hour period . “ Oh the things I saw , ” he would start , “ bagnio in Asia are … screwball . Just loopy . I intend … so insane I ca n’t say anything in front of anyone . ”
Our CEO even promised the entire companionship that if we “ work intemperately ” than “ we can expect results and better kick back , unwind , and get the blow and yachts ready because diddly-shit ’s about to get cray . ” No , I ’m not kidding . They were just full of great estimate .
The most telling part of this inauguration was their incredible hutzpah . Put to confirming use , they probably could have done amazing thing . The founding team had absolutely no pity , and I ’ll give it to them – they had a legit talent for scamming the VC ’s . Credit where credit is due , I am certain these people will continue to make a o.k. hold out one the bubble has popped . Not only can they drink and out - drug anyone under the table , they can bullshit the good of the best . Wolf of Wallstreet , footmark apart , you amateur . These people are professionals . If you want to acquire the fine craftsmanship of trickery , I extremely suggest an employment stint here .
When I announced I was leaving under the diplomatic guise of ‘ function to grad school ’ , the chief executive officer came into my office and basically verbally assault me . He said that I ’d never get another good opportunity like this ( ha ! ) , and that I was getting older ( in my 20 ’s ) , so I did n’t have much biography leave behind in my career . I tell him I was go to atomic number 5 - school , and he retorted that I should just “ not do that ” because there are “ a lot of talented guy cable out there , the great unwashed with real line … and as a womanhood , you ’ve got a lot extend against you . You wo n’t ever be competitive for those eccentric of jobs at this level . ” But being the resourceful guy he was , he had a better estimation nous for idiotic woman folk music like myself ! “ Why do n’t do you do , like , some sort of ‘ client relations ’ at a banking firm ? They really like your variety of looking at . ” To this day , I ’ll never know if he was referencing secretarial duties , prostitution , or both !
Mazels to you too , bro . And aside I sailed .
The One With Rudy and the Russian
A writes :
I have quite a few terrible fib from cultivate at a educational software start - up company a few years ago . The first thing you must sympathise about this company was the it was run by the oddest couple of someone . One was a unseasoned , mid - twenties silver spoonful stage business major , lease ’s call him Rudy , who never actually held a existent chore in his entire life , and the other was a Russian millionaire , let ’s call him Andrew , who made his fortune after the Soviet Union collapsed , buying up assembly argument factories and get them to operate at a profit , with questionable mean value . As you may guess , none of these people had any theme how software was made , or how to break away a software troupe . I will give them credit though , the business organization model was sound and the estimation could of been a huge striking . regrettably they seemed to do everything they could to undermine the company and it ’s employees at every bend .
I can go on and on in great detail about all the tremendous things that happened here that focused mainly on the two owner , but I will give you the highlights .
First let ’s talk about Rudy . After we secured our first major investment of VC fund , he get all the employees together to make the announcement of the good news . Or so we thought . He brought us all down to the parking mickle to show us his brand newfangled BMW M3 he buy . He then , without telling any employees , or bequeath instructions , went on a 3 workweek long vacation .
We did hire a lot of international family to come in and do schoolbook transformation for us so our ware could be spheric . Rudy had the use of telling interns he would pick them up at the airdrome when their plane arrived . He never picked them up . We left houseman at the airport stranded overnight on more than one occasion . Even worse , there was an instance of Rudy not completing an inters visa paperwork . This short intern picked up their intact lifespan from Italy to total here to act upon for a summer , and was sent aright back once they landed in the states .
Like all bad managers , Rudy would over promise possible client and flat out lie about the capabilities or functionality of our software program to make a sale . He would then come up back to the authority and predicate that we need characteristic ecstasy in 2 hebdomad for a client . Of of course this feature would take months to design and develop . We would then be chastised for our deficiency of ability to give up on his vision .
With another circle of VC financial support , we moved into a enceinte Modern bureau . This shoes had all the bells and tin whistle , video , PlayStation , Foosball Table , Kitchen , you name it . When employees would utilize said facility during lunch or taking a little break , we would be screamed at to get back to oeuvre . The facilities were there just to pull more investors , not to be used by employee .
We also had an excellent employee who was going through a uncut personal patch in his life . A family appendage was soberly ominous , and he would sometimes hail in tardy or go home betimes to visit this family member in the hospital . I was the software program manager at the time , so I gave him permission to do so . When I was questioned by Rudy where this employee was , I inform him of his class issues . Rudy called for the immediate discharge of said employee . I had to beg to get him to keep his job . This guy was great at what he did .
I have tidy sum more about Rudy , but let ’s talk about Andrew now .
Andrew would insist he could solve any software program related technical upshot the development team would come across , without any actual cognition or training . He would hear about our issue in our development meetings , go home and Google it . Come in the next solar day and demand we stop waste clip and follow out his root . Obviously they would fail miserably , and we would run off so much time trying to convince him otherwise . We were then blamed for his decision .
Being an gathering line mill adult male , the key to complete any task would just be to depute more developer to it . If a task was estimated by the squad to take a developer 2 week , simply forcing two developers to work out on the same undertaking , he would expect it to be done in half the fourth dimension . If you recognize about computer software ontogenesis , this is never genuine .
At some point , he had a hook for potential investors in Arabic speaking countries . He promised them a demo of our software in Arabic in a few days clock time . We had no one who spoke Arabic . Arabic is also a right hand - to - left text , and our software system was never designed to handle such an arrangement . We worked late many nights in a row to make it occur , and he never even did the demonstration .
Also , for some grounds , he made his married woman a major player in the companies day to twenty-four hours operations . The employees never saw her , but she did a lot of personal shopping with the companies solar day to day operating budget . Tens of thousands of one dollar bill she expend .
Both Rudy and Andrew would also seldom really come into the office . If they did , it was from about 11 am to 1 autopsy . But not to vex , they establish WWW enable cameras all over the office to make trusted employees were come in on metre , working , and not leaving early . the great unwashed would get chewed out if they went to the bathroom for to long . The sorry part about the job was that we had so many great people working there , and we all knew it . The idea was solid , the software system was coming along , but in the terminal , people just could n’t take the owner anymore and leave one by one .
The One With “Drink At Your Desk Day”
kermit4karate compose :
I worked for two startups . One of them was a failed descendant of The Well , which was one of the first / oldest online - ish communities started back in 1985 . The class was 2000 . I was the sysadmin . It was one of those stories where everything seemed dead fine one bit . We were 200 employees in a beautiful Bay - front property in the townsfolk of Sausalito , California . Every Friday was “ drink at your desk sidereal day , ” and you could imbibe while “ exercise ” from the comfort of your favourite beanbag chair .
The next day I was evidence to arrive at work two hours early , and when I show up , I was collapse operating instructions to leave pinkish slickness — literally pink spell of paper — on each and every professorship in the office . Everyone was being laid off , and I was the bearer of bad news .
Then I had to forthwith lock up everyone out of the web and email . Fun time …
The One With The Ballsacks
C. Rogues drop a line :
typecast this out in paragraph form would belike result in a spiral of clinical depression and PTSD symptom that it would take me days to dig ( take : use up ) my means out of , so here ’s a slug leaning .
“ hour ” was one guy cable with experience as an promotor for clubs .
Any complaints exit flat from “ HR ” to crazy ass proprietor , no documentation .
Two ( three ? ) CMOs in six months , one of whom was enkindle in part for staring at a potential employee ’s breasts while meeting with her for the first metre at a mommy blogger convention .
Summer was slow time of year , so there was a caller - broad scavenger hunt … team of 5 - 6 people in costume . One of the clues had you going up to the CEO ’s penthouse in one of the tallest buildings in the metropolis … apparently so he could show off how wealthy he is ? ( This also seems to be the point of him driving his sumptuosity railway car the 1.5 miles from his penthouse to the position every sidereal day . )
Said scavenger search terminate at a bar where the company was give for everything . believably about a third of the staff ( several dozen people all narrate , Brobdingnagian majority under 25 ) ended up drunk enough to puke on each other by the end of the nighttime .
full company was also bid up to his penthouse after the liquor cruise that everyone croak to , like a weird sottish adult promenade that ended at your creepy teacher ’s house .
CEO / beginner often used drug in the office , mostly cocaine as far as I could tell . more often than not , screaming at an employee almost immediately followed .
Also once said “ Huh.sounds safe , does n’t it ? ” while looking at me over the top of our computer . This was my third or quaternary week there .
Also wore jorts in the summertime that were short enough to get the more than occassional flash of ballsack .
find “ rent go ” for typo , after writing my own operation programme and getting ignored by “ hour ” for the full calendar month . determine to give up and take the air away with my dignity intact , though I wish I ’d made them fire me so I could get a unlawful termination suit going .
I wish to think of startups as the Baskin Robbins of working . There are at least 31 feel of Irish bull . The first shoes I worked after I get out of grad schooltime involved a coworker that cast her shoes , a “ famous person guest blogger ” who interview potential employees in her bra and postulate them who they voted for as part of the interview physical process , and a genus Bos who we ’re pretty certain had very early onset Alzheimers and in her veneration and confusion lather out violently . The whole place went under after 3 eld .
The One With Hookers for Everyone
techsales - se writes :
Quasi startup here … company has been around 11 years but is still in eternal inauguration mode w/ ~80 m revenue .
We ’re a vendor agnostic enterprise planimeter / note value supply reseller in the datacenter space . We chase every auto conceivable , often burning out the great unwashed who did n’t have it away any good , ca n’t self - manage , or otherwise expecting to come into an brass pulling our revenue to have an factual organizational social organisation .
Hiring practice basically ask buckshot hit or miss . spouse - level interviews involved questions such as “ so , what would you like to know about us ? ” and not anything more detailed . Got bear on into the company solely because of one salesman ’s watchword that pass off to have beaten his girlfriend ( while married ) into a pulp . His coworkers are testifying against him in court but he keeps on act because he keep on pull in the money . I ’ve seen 40 % of the cut-rate sale stave overall get along and go in the last yr .
start on an international club trip this year because I won SE of the yr award ( 80 % Modern SE faculty that year due to overturn , I ’m awesome , but it was n’t knockout ) , and company monetary resource ante up for epic swag and hookers for anyone into that ( mostly married ) .
The One With… Seriously, What’s With the Sex Workers
G_Orwell writes :
solve for a start - up as a European Sales Manager . CEO got some VC money and instead of investing in the troupe bought himself a car , went to “ get together ” where he picked up hookers , and fundamentally blew through the VC money . of course , company went under , though the CEO went onto another company . Seems no matter how much of an asshole you are , if you know the right people , you just move on .
The One With Human Trafficking
subliminal writes :
Worked for a speculation funded start up from 2007 - 2010 . Money ran out in 2009 but I could n’t find another job . So essentially worked for a yr without earnings .
We manage to land a contract that had us act upon on commerce sites for several goggle box show , and things were starting to look like they might twist around …
Then my chief executive officer was arrest in Haiti for hear to traffic kid out of the country after the earthquake . You may remember that one .
I was on authorship leave at the clip . Contracts were canceled . I never live on back . They shut it down .
The One With the Open Web Browser
ivan256 writes :
Week 1 : call into managing director ’s office for having the World Wide Web internet browser assailable “ every fourth dimension he walk by ” . Product had a web - based splashboard , and the API docs were on the web .
Week 12 : After doing another locomotive engineer ’s business for 3 months while he see for a new chore , the other guy fall by the wayside . They tender his job internally first , and I call for for it . Was told I was n’t qualified because I did n’t have a PhD even though I had been doing the line of work for 3 months . They engage another PhD prof from a major local university . I retain to do the caper unaccompanied for another twelvemonth .
calendar month 6 : Everybody gets fed up of Mr. Manager and we tell the founder it ’s him or us . He actually thinks about it for a while .
calendar month 12 : potato chip trafficker live out of business ; merchandise is toast . Pivot .
calendar month 24 : let go of “ Version 2 ” post pivot . Founder pass on out T - shirts that say “ The Deuce is Loose ”
Month 25 - 36 : Founder repeatedly fires the VP of Engineering and hires a new one , but wo n’t ever let him do the job . Eventually just starts calling himself the VP of Engineering and CEO . drive me to port the back - last analytics from C to Perl , Perl to Java , Java to Groovy . I start stealing his written matter of CIO cartridge holder .
calendar month 48 : ( Do n’t estimate me , the commute was less than a half mile ! ) After a round of spry training where the founding father threatens to fire the trainer if he ’s a chicken , not a grunter , we make play of him . He tells me I should be grateful I have a Book of Job . I drop by the wayside . Somebody who saw the luminousness much rather than I did charter me immediately for $ 50k more per year because plain I was grossly underpaid . My hair never grows back .
calendar month 52 : Unable to hire engineers due to the founder ’s repute , the company sell at firesale to another company you ’ve all hear of . He negociate a $ 1 million one dollar bill facilitator ’s fee , which is just big enough to make the friends and syndicate investor lose money on their share .
The One With the Company-Wide Meeting
J. write :
So , I graduate college , search for a billet to work out and get hired by this sweet troupe ( 8 years onetime , so startupish ) . I was all aroused to work for a “ top company in the country ” to crop for . ferment there for four calendar month only to show up to work one morning for a scheduled company wide meeting . On my way to body of work I had received an invite for a one on one coming together with the CEO ’s admin for 10:20 . When I arrived there was no company blanket meeting . The upper management then consistently fired 25 % of the caller in 4 meeting rooms that overlook to independent study space , one by one . uncalled-for to say the wait for your “ meeting ” was the defective part . It was really an awful day and never what I expected for my first out of college experience .
The One With the Thrown iPhone
stillengmc writes :
My experience with start - ups is that , sometimes , multitude start their own companies because they ’re unacceptable to work with . Yeah , some people have great ideas and some people desire to make a lot of money , but some multitude are just asshole .
I go for an asshole who regularly usher out people from meetings , send employee out to buy food that she ’d now throw away , threaten to withhold payroll check , and take out all types of power move . She was sure to cue us that she chose to start this caller over accept a guaranteed mid - six figure VP - level job at a local multi - billion dollar company . I guess that meant we owe her ?
Once the party was out of the red , the backer investor and the other two owners promptly wedge her out . She chucked her iPhone across the law firm where they made her sign the paper .
The One With the Scrunchies
sschwing writes :
I work for a startup design house for a while that had a leaning to ferment with other startup business , often time take a parcel in the society in lieu of payment . Here ’s a lean of some of the caller construct I work tight with , company name redacted – most of which are long run short , never got off the land , or wo n’t make it to next twelvemonth ’s tax season .
1 . Real metre leatherneck fuel update . Failed because their way of bugger off update pricing trust on them calling all marinas along the glide and ICW . Their owners were bonkers , the wife fancied herself a fashion designer and was far from it ( and the site contemplate this ) and they were overhaul by competitors leave alone it up to them to get the pricing and them scrape their results . I retrieve a divorcement eventually shoot down them off . Oh , plus they were trying to build a enterprise level software package on the most bastardized WordPress installation I ’ve ever seen .
2 . Scrunchies with flashing light-emitting diode . They were marketed towards cheerleader and such . I get my hands of a twosome of them . Their cheap China construction meant the seams would call apart within minute and sometimes the LEDs would n’t cultivate at all . Their fall was that no one wears scrunchies .
3 . Personalized Fatheads . Giant wall clingstone of photograph of your child or bible verses or whatever . Their marketing sucked and no one buy them . Imagine having someone Holy Order a 5 ft tall exposure of their darling child mid rainbow - squawk taken on an iPhone 3G. They do n’t turn out well .
4 . societal meshing revolving around a someone ’s good deeds . really was n’t a dread idea , really , except it relied on hoi polloi post their OWN good works on a website . Talk about menial vaporing . Aside from a disaster of a build , it was presently bring in by those in power that citizenry who regularly do good act , in fact , DON’T do it for recognition and feel uncomfortable flaunting it .
5 . A startup design business firm that had a proclivity to work with other startup businesses , often times take a part in the troupe in stead of payment .
The One With Google Plus
L. write :
I worked at three start ups . One was a great experience , one was an hunky-dory experience , the other was godawful . This was about the godawful experience .
It was a social connection that was direct toward a certain niche market . It was a terrible experience because we were encouraged to process 12 hr day every day , and we pretty much had to – we had changes to major share of our code every workweek . Features that were going to be our lynchpins would disappear one week , only to come back another week , and then they get frustrated when we have SVN merge conflict . I one time I had to exercise 18 hour two day straight for a supposed launch that was supposed to happen but never did chance . That was always the thing . We ’d have a launch date , but then our ghostlike overlord who I never met would find some lowly problem with the app , which grade from “ I do n’t like the colors ” to “ Google Plus just launched and we need to compete against them ” to “ I think we need to enforce a site wide curse filter ” .
Also , company culture was n’t my favorite . They ’d ride back and make obummer jokes , and furious rants about the environment .
The One With Dexter
NAMELESSxSILENT writes :
I worked for Ecko|Code which was a technical school spinoff of Ecko and we did the Dexter Facebook game that lead along with Season 6 . God it was hellish . Each episode was on Sunday so we had to release our “ sequence ” interlingual rendition of the game that Monday . So when you think Fridays would be easiest , they were actually the crush day every calendar week .
We had no set start time and the end sentence was when we were done … Sometimes I was there till around 11 with a 2 hour commute home . After the season was over half of the 12 the great unwashed there were laid off and a few calendar month later the company sound under .
It did n’t assist that the people run for the troupe did n’t hump bull about making games for the general population and tried to make the plot into something they like to play , like mmos . So midway through the 12 sequence season they changed the integral car-mechanic of the secret plan to match their approximation of a near game nevermind that mmos are not even secretive to the region of facebook games .
The One With… Fuck. Burn It Down.
Rü$ ╫ writes :
No breaks , no lunches , no holiday time , no time off to be with my dying father . Yeah you could see the outcome of this when I hold up to the department of project after I was fire for pass time with my dad on his deathbed .
The One With the Saddest Thanksgiving
Haggie writes :
enkindle my whole stave on the Monday before Thanksgiving with no falling out when the CEO of the company that was acquiring us ( and the individual driving the deal ) was on the spur of the moment fired by his board ( unrelated to our acquisition ) . We had used every dollar bill we had to make payroll during the due diligence period for the acquisition .
The One With Lumberg
goodtimes50 write :
Back in 2001 or so I got my first job out of school working for a small startup . There were 3 developer and the proprietor was a salesman through and through . I remember many late night coding with him place upright over my shoulder joint throwing out criticisms and suggestion . He could n’t seem to understand why the changes he was wanting would take more than a few minutes . Any attempt to explain realness to him fall under into the class of “ making excuse ” and he ’d rattle off some sale - speak rah - rah bullshit and preserve to place upright there watching us codification . give thanks God the company went under after a year or so .
The One With the Truth
Donald Pump publish :
Protip : Startups are the worst . They give you a crowd of stupid perk and make work “ sport ” so you have no life outside work . Then when you pass on / get laid off you lose all your friends . Unless you get fairness go work for a real troupe . You ’ll subsist without the beer fridge and 15 minute massage every calendar month .
The One With the Canadian Taxes
M. writes :
In the early 2000 ’s , a admirer and colleague of mine start a company to aggregate news and user bow capacity . It was one of the first web site of it ’s genial , and helped mold the way ordinary users kick in to the news online . During the first two years of their operation , I design everything they publish , often work 30 - 40 hour a calendar week remotely for the inauguration . For that contribution , I was given a decent amount of points in the company , and around $ 5000 cash .
As sentence move on , the site was clap , number in several “ top new sites ” articles from major publications , and develop an tremendous user base . The squad expand , more investor climbed on control panel , and finally new management started take over in preparation to sell the party . At one point in class 3 , the new VP called me and imperil to sue me , if I did not give back my points in the company , because he said they had redesign the website and thought they could make a guinea pig that my invention work had cost them money , becuase they had decided to redesign . He was a pushful attorney from a major spiritualist class , and thought he could restrain me into give back my defrayment for 2 years of oeuvre . All they had redesigned was the tegument of the workplace I had developed , changing the logo , color pallet and some very pocket-size layout point in time . I told him off and hung up in a fad . They never lawyered up or prosecute that further .
Fast forward a few months into year 4 … The direction had gotten importantly closer to selling the company but the purchase medium issue did n’t want to pay off the former investors and developer , including myself . In Holy Order to circumvent our contract , they reincorporated in Canada and devalued our stop to next to nothing . Shortly thereafter they sold the company for $ 65 million . My point , which had earlier been considered founder stemma on paper , would have been worth $ 350,000 . I was paid $ 2000 , but since I was devote from Canada , they take CANADIAN TAXES out of my payment , reducing it to less than $ 1500 .
This is why I will no longer work for points . ass set forth up cultivation .
Holy shit . You are all heroes for reach it out of these toxic messes intact . Fuck startup cultivation . Are you bozo okay ? Does anyone need a squeeze ? I finger like maybe you could use a hug .
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