Down, but not out

After working in IT for 8 years for the same employer, my world was turned upside down this January 9th. I had worked at this place since I was 17 years old and took a full-time role there after getting my Computer Engineering degree from Michigan State University in 2006. Though I was officially laid-off, I was really fired.

It all started in 2006 when I returned there to work full time and the previous director of IT had just been let go due to a change in the administration. My previous colleague, friend and fellow-engineer was promoted to head the department.

These were exciting times, the possibilities with him in charge were endless, in my mind. Our only limitation would be convincing the new administration on the merits of our thoughts and ideas, or so I thought.

Almost immediately after starting, a deep disorganization began to set in the department. It turned out that my friend, our director, was an extremely inexperienced manager. Project deadlines and priorities were never communicated, staff were disrespected, policies were never written or discussed and overall chaos had taken hold. The atmosphere went from fun and efficient to something resembling a scene in the 300.

I tried to help my friend and our department on a number of occasions throughout 2007 by sitting down with him privately and offering to implement various project managment tools and writing up some of the policies and procedures. Unfortunately, the ideas were well-received but none were actually implemented.

In April 2008 I decided enough was enough. I had just turned 24 and I was working in one of the most stressful environments I had ever been in. My struggle at work began to seep into all other aspects of my life. I wanted my freedom and myself back, but I didn’t want to just try the same thing over with another employer.

So with a colleague from the department, we decided the best way forward would be to start our own company. We started work on Tofu, a web-based intranet and calendaring software product that April. We worked through the summer and in September we incorporated our little venture and called it edge14 LLC. The name came from a really embarrasing pop song that was popular when I was in high school that had stayed with me through all of this (turns out the song actually says something else and I had heard it wrong).

We had overestimated our release date a bit and so instead of an October beta we were in December and almost finished. Things at work began to get much more difficult as a new, high-stakes project was begininng. Keeping with his form, details of the project and its deadlines were kept to a minimum by the director.

As we approached the New Year, the director embarked on a new form of professionalism by no longer speaking to me. I waited until the holidays were over in hopes that someone or something would make his eulitude gay.

No such luck, upon returning and trying to schedule a meeting with HR, I was let go. Not a single word from the director, my old friend, was uttered to me in the three weeks leading up to my lay-off or even now.

Shocked and hurt, we finished the beta of our product during a week of full-time work following my lay-off. That is where we stand today. Bugs are being wrapped up as I type this and hopefully we can wrap up beta shortly.

If you haven’t already, please check out the Tofu site and give it a try. We think you’ll love it. We need you to love it! :)