Big fish

Today marked the launch of the mobile version of the Urban Outfitters website, which I had been my baby since February. Not understanding many of the difficulties of web development, I was beaming with excitement--the general public would finally be able to reap the benefits of all my hard work.

So we blasted a text message to the Urban Outfitters database--pretty soon, tens of thousands of customers eager for their 15% discount (shop up!) flooded the site. After a while, we started running out of disk space and had a veritable crisis on our hands. Thinking on our feet, me and the VP of engineering tweaked some code and made some adjustments to the server. Somewhere along the way, however, the big guy accidentally changed the ownership of all the files in the entire server, or in layman's terms, fucked shit UP. Horribly.

When a guy who is(/has) NEVER (admitted to being) wrong says, "I'm a fucking idiot" as big puppy tears well up in his nerdy eyes, you know something is seriously fucked. So for the rest of his day, I was his broad shoulder to cry on. (I sat there helpfully, asking stupid questions)

Anyways, he ended up telling me a story about he created a bombass website for his college buddy in the early 90's. The site ended up being featured on the from page of Yahoo! and blew up something fierce. Rolling Stone saw the site and offered both guys kickin' jobs in NYC.

The VP was in grad school at the time so he declined. I know what you're thinking, but the story doesn't end there. His buddy's website was bought out by a small company. At this point, he basically told this guy (but more Jewishly), "Dude, I made this fuckin' site. It ain't fair that you're making bank!" So this guy cuts him a check and dips (out of his life). The company was then bought by the almighty Microsoft, and the guy eventually ended up as a big dog at Yahoo!, presumably driving the poor company into the ground while netting himself millions.

I didn't have the heart to ask him if he regretted any of it--and to be honest, I suspect and would be glad if he's perfectly happy just where he is. But if his story and all those old people still hacking it out in college have taught me anything, it's that...

You can always get your degree. But when Rolling Stone knocks on your door, you play hard to get for a little bit, then you TAKE THE JOB. And when your friend elopes with your hard work, you beat the greed out of that asshole with a bat, then you TAKE HIS MONEY. Because otherwise, fifteen years later, you might end up a big fish drowning in a tiny puddle, wagging your tale at minnows like myself.