In 1999 I was working for a dot.com called "Gooey Industries." It doesn't matter now what we did. The company went under shortly after I left. Everyone had their dot.com story. Usually involving endless lattes and games of nerf basketball in between freak-out sessions and all-nighters. Instead of endless lattes, we had chain smoking. We pulled all-nighters, but sometimes they would end in a mass firing, where the CEO would accuse staff of being cult members who were out to sabotage the company.
Such was the atmosphere of paranoia at Gooey.
I remember throwing Starlee Kine out of the building one day. If you don't know who she is, she's a producer for This American Life with Ira Glass. Each Sunday I hear Ira mention her name, and occasionally she's involved in a piece. It's weird to have this past moment of paranoia and myopia from my life so frequently thrown back in my face.
At the time, Starlee was working as a reporter for a new spin-off of the magazine Business 2.0. They hadn't even published an issue yet and had tentatively titled it "Buck." (This was error #1. They meant buck as in "dollar," but sounded like a gay porn mag.) She had met our CEO at a party for John Delorean, the famous car designer, and wanted to interview him.
She showed up on Monday morning with a guy who was supposedly the photographer. He didn't have any camera equipment with him. I was expecting a writer from Business 2.0 to be dressed somewhat professionally, have a stack of business cards to hand out, etc. In other words, have some aura of credibility. But both Starlee and photo boy were dressed uber-casual. I think she had a fringy scarf and dangly earrings on, and he was wearing jeans and a jean jacket. Who knows. It was a long time ago.
I was already skeptical, so I asked them to leave. I'm not really the kind of person who does things like that, so I don't know what I would have said. I remember they called later to ask if they could come back if they brought camera equipment this time. So I said "sure." They drove all the way out with only a little point-and-shoot, so I threw them out again. They must have been pissed.
What was I thinking? That they were trying to steal company secrets? There were no secrets. Except that the CEO was an addict and it was likely that he and several of his friends were blowing the investment capital on expensive cars, tropical vacations and vodka.
After I quit, I saw that "Buck" eventually was published, though under a different name. It was about "business culture." And I guess Starlee moved on too. I have this idea that maybe one day I'll randomly meet her again. And I'll tell her the story of when I threw her out and see if she remembers. Maybe she's forgotten, and it was just another day to her. But maybe she'll remember, and she'll say something like, "Yeah, I remember that. You were such a bitch."
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