VC Deal Lawyer

I got a kick out of this article by Seth Godin.  It’s about the classic situation where you are looking for help from a customer service rep that frankly admits that their employer sucks, the company sucks and even though they are admittedly nice and wanting to help you, they are handcuffed by their evil corporation.  “It’s not me, it’s them – all I do is work here.”  We’ve all heard it too often.

But Seth makes a great point – you (the customer rep or whatever your title is) are them.  If you don’t break from the pack when you disagree with your employer’s philosophy or manner of doing business you become part of the problem.

This translates nicely to venture back companies in times of distress.  From my experience, working in distressed times is tougher when you are with a venture-backed company as opposed to any other.  Money – by definition – is already tight in a start-up and a distressed economy just makes it worse.  Sometimes management is outside their skill set.  Building a start-up already forces entrepreneurs to draw on pioneer skills, but add to that the additional pressures of poor cash flow and stressed out employees and the company culture can reduce very quickly to dysfunction.  Management loses touch with its employees (i.e., lots of closed door meetings, unanswered rumors of lay-offs, etc.), and before you know it people start saying “I am only here for the paycheck” or “all I do is work here.”  I agree with Seth on this point.  If you don’t like where you work, then change jobs.  But a message to management on this point also – and what Seth says applys to management also – “You don’t get the benefit of the brand when it’s hot without accepting the blame of the brand when it’s wrong.”  Customer rep, go find a new job.  Management, fix the problem.