It is the spring of 2001 and I’m at my desk on the engineering floor of PurchasePro when the CEO walks in. There are maybe 300 people on the floor and most stand up to listen to him speak. I take a quick glance then sit down. I’m just doing some consulting work for the company. The CEO is addressing some business practice allegations that appeared in the local newspaper. I don’t remember what he said specifically, but I do remember at one point he cried. At lunch that day with a few PurchasePro employees, it was clear they believed in him and the crying was a sign of how much he cared for the company. I thought the crying was that of a man who’s been caught.
I had decided to do contract programming (calling it consulting) after my second Dot Com layoff. I decided I was done with companies, they could just pay me to code. Transactional. And even though it was near the peak of Dot Com busts, I had no trouble finding contracts.
PurchasePro was looking for a contractor with some XML/XSL in Java experience and I guess my resume matched on dice.com and I got a phone interview. I was nervous if I could answer the technical questions from the lead since my knowledge was a bit shallow. It turned out they knew even less and were desperate. I booked the contract - I think it was for 6-8 weeks and drove to Las Vegas from our rented home in Fremont.
When I arrived at the offices, I found six or so large single/double story buildings. The onboarding people told me two more would be online soon. In a flirty way, the onboarder asked if I wanted to join the company as an FTE. I politely said, maybe after the contract but that I was based in Fremont.
I got to my desk and met the feature crew. The manager, the lead programmer, and another programmer. My task asked to implement authentication and authorization for a web site used to build partner sites, something called “Market Maker”. I recall it was a pretty easy task and they didn’t believe I had it basically working by the end of the next day.
I found the contracting suited me well. I had no interest in the company politics. I charged by the hour and left after eight instead of the typical startup hours. I focused on the work, and I got paid well. But I was new at this and made some rookie mistakes. My first mistake was submitting my first two week invoice to the team manager. She saw how much I was making, and immediately quit. She came back after a couple of days. Her once friendly attitude towards me, now cold.
About a week after the CEO cried on the engineering floor there was a round of layoffs. The people I worked directly with were “ok” but knew people who were let go. At lunch that day, they whispered about the layoffs and were glad it was “over”. It’s never over after the first round, I thought, having seen multiple rounds at companies in the valley.
On the last week there, I still had not been paid. The engineering director, a hulking bodybuilder always with a water bottle (“it’s a lifestyle”) told me he’d take care of it, no worries. I did worry about it, but I left hoping for the best.
My girlfriend travelled from Fremont to meet me and became my fiance. We had a memorable day on the tennis court and night on the strip.
Some time passed, maybe a month, and I still hadn’t been paid. I was in contact with the engineering director and he kept saying “it would be fine” and then all of a sudden he was no longer with the company. The CEO and CTO were also gone. I somehow got in touch with the new CTO who didn’t know me from Adam. He challenged me to show him proof that I had done any work. I faxed signed timesheets but not the work artifacts, which were in PurchasePro’s code base. He was not satisfied. All the people I had worked with were gone. It seemed I might not get paid and would take a loss on my expenses. Then a lawyer who worked with my fiance offered to send them a letter and I got paid right after.