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Dot
Conned Career Opportunity Guide
1.
CEO
The dot com CEO comes in 2 varieties. The first is the "Gee
Whiz I started this company in a basement" Kid. He's usually
a total geek whose peculiar habits are worshipped and made legend
by the adoring fools that surround him. Some of these guys are still
around, though the majority of the smart ones cashed in on their
options and have long since retired, all the while laughing at the
ridiculous admiration surrounding him.
The
second CEO is the 40-or-50-something who convinced some VC's to
shell out millions of dollars because he or she was successful in
another industry. Money was usually obtained by adding "dot
com" to said CEO's present company (i.e. toiletpaperrollsdirect.com).
Most of these guys are not around any more, since the millions they
received were spent long ago, followed by good ol' chapter 11. A
good portion of these were hired guns from the "old economy"
- who proceeded to collect a few million, fuck things up real good,
then go back to the "old economy". "I'm clearly an
NBA player, and this was a pickup game" - Lloyd Ward, former
CEO of Maytag and proud father of outdoorliving.com and iMotors.com,
2 blockbusting web businesses that went to hell.
2.
Product Manager
It's
good to be a product manager. This is because you get paid a lot
and, ironically, you need not understand the product, nor do you
have to manage a damn thing! Product Managers are good at leafing
through marketing reports that are put out by companies that have
a stake in forcing useless technology on an unsuspecting dot-commized
population. We don't know where they get their market data or revenue
projections, but they sure do look good, especially when presented
by Product Managers! Product Managers are also excellent at conducting
focus groups to generate even more scientifically defective, but
very attractive, "data".
3.
Sales
Dot com sales people are not supposed to know the product they are
selling. We think this is a general business rule no matter what
industry one chooses to work in, but it is especially true in dot
com land. A sales person should have absolutely nothing to do with
the product being sold. In fact, the less one knows about it, the
easier it is to say, "Sure - we can do that!" to prospects.
If they really knew that the product or service was useless, they
may encounter moral dilemmas that are damaging to the bottom line.
Keeping a sales person as ignorant as possible just makes good business
sense. We suggest employing a motivational speaker to speak to your
sales force at least once a month to instill a constant sense of
false self-determination.
4.
Sales Engineers
This is an amusing title in and of itself. "Hey - I'm not personable
or malleable enough to do sales, but I'm too stupid to be a real
engineer". Sales engineering alleviates the techie from having
to code all day and alleviates the sales person from having to meet
quotas, cold call, or bullshit on the phone. In this way, it is
an ideal spot to be in, and a sales engineer can always claim that
he or she is both a consummate salesperson and technical resource,
when, in reality, he or she failed out of both business and technical
school.
5.
Support
Support is where you stick anyone with any character, brains, or
knowledge about your product. Answering the same insipid questions
over the phone for hours at a time tends to demoralize even the
most fortuitous and forward-thinking mind. However, being in support
has its benefits, and the wary employer should keep this in mind.
Because they are the only ones in the company that actually understand
the product, they can easily engage in sabotage and royally fuck
up an account. No one else in the dot com company will know what
happened, and before you know it, your trusty support rep has stolen
the source code, your entire customer database, and that enviable
behavioral data. That stuff can be sold quicker than you can say
"boo.com". Look for ex-support reps lounging around on
beaches in Maui, Fiji, and The Caymans.
6.
Chief Privacy Officers
Does your dot company engage in any blatantly illegally privacy
infringements? You can bet your street scooter they do. No problem.
Take a washed-up lawyer with a laundry list of questionable activities
who can't pass the bar, make him an exec, and throw your hands up
in amazement! How can the pesky FTC or any competitor claim you
could be doing something wrong when you have a…um…CPO
on board?! Chief Privacy Officers are like British Royalty. They're
best off just being what they are and keeping quiet. Every so often
it is good practice for a CPO to appear in strategic spots (like
Washington D.C.) and espouse the importance of privacy invasion
in making America a better place.
7.
Marketing
(notice this description is blank)
8.
Account Managers
Account Managers are like well-trained dogs. Their only job is to
"sense" that something is wrong. They basically look for
signs of someone somehow attached to their accounts that might possibly
be pissed off. This is because they know damn well that when an
account goes bad, no matter whose fault it is, the fingers will
point directly at them. Account Managers have no idea what goes
on with an account. Actually, they have no idea what goes on at
all. But when those hairs prick up and that sense starts to come
to them, they will call an immediate conference call that includes
just about everybody in the department. By spewing a string of such
phrases as "absolutely!" "understood" and "fantastic",
the AM has successfully covered his or her ass for the time being
and can go about the day downloading porn or chatting on instant
messenger.
9.
VPs and Directors
Vice Presidents and directors in dot companies are either hired
guns from Ivy League schools and/or internal underlings who threaten
to blow the whistle on the dot company for underhanded business
practices or simply, utter stupidity. The job of a VP or director
is simple. The requirements are few. The only 2 duties are bulleted
below:· Schedule weekly, or at least monthly, swanky offsite
re-org meetings. Shuffle, hire, and fire personnel to portray a
sense of growth and development in this now stagnant dot company
and marketplace.· Learn software that will allow you to draw
complex boxes and arrows all over a document and distribute as an
email attachment with the subject of "new <insert department
here> processes. This tactic can be extremely effective in keeping
the staff busy for weeks wondering what the fuck they are supposed
to do and whether they will have a job next week. Excellent motivational
technique.
10.
IT/MIS
These are the people that hold the most real power in the dot company.
It's funny how, even though the dot company is considered a technology
company, they have no idea how even the windows start menu works.
By monitoring internal communications, fucking around with administrative
rights on people's computers, and shuffling files around, you can
really send a message to your coworkers as to "who's boss"
around the office. You can also go around labeling equipment as
defective and make a lucrative side business selling hardware and
software through alternative channels. And that server over there
that you have deemed as "off-limits"? Well only you know
that it is off-limits because it is your own personal 500 Gig MP3
farm.
11.
Creative
OK…you won't make much in the creative department, and unless
you are working for a real agency ("real" here refers
to operating before the dot crash) you have a good chance of being
axed. But shit, where else can you smoke dope all day and stare
blankly at a screen and get paid for it (wait - don't answer that
- that's admittedly an asinine question).
12.
Professional Services
"Professional Services" is a trendy way of saying "Consulting".
Between the ages of 18-20, I was employed as a grocery bagger. One
day, the grocery store management decided to bring in a person described
as "a grocery bagging expert". This person was about 40
years old and had been in the grocery bagging business for 22 years.
He taught us about industry terms like "Buildin' walls",
which meant using things like cereal boxes to build a little fort
inside the plastic bags, then placing less structured items such
as vegetables inside. What is the point of this? Well, it was the
day I (and all the other pimply high-school kids with complete shock
on their faces), realized the value of consulting.
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