by Anna Yen
I nodded.
“Good. He’s a great guy. You’ll enjoy reporting to him,” Ashley said. Then, turning her attention back to the tour, she pointed to the offices again and said, “You sit there next to Jonathan. I’m across from you there, and Scott is across from Jonathan, right there. The rest of the offices and desks at that end are accounting and human resources.” The rooms all looked the same: tiny, dreary, and dated. They had flimsy doors and sliding windows that, instead of facing outward, faced inward toward the hall. I felt as though I’d left the amusement park and was now inside a boring low- or no-tech company. It couldn’t have been more different from the cubicles in creative. Fluorescent lights glowed on the low ceilings; ugly, textured, dull wallpaper covered the lifeless walls. The drab carpet looked like it had been trodden by hundreds of sad, overworked feet. I wanted to go back to the fairy cubicles, but no such luck.
“Who sits in that ‘Gone Fishing’ shack?” I asked.
“That’s Dylan, our chief creative officer,” Ashley responded before changing the subject entirely. “Where do you live? Just wondering how far you have to commute.”
“In Woodside.”
“Oh, I’m in Woodside! My husband and I live in a little cottage way up in the hills. Which street are you on?”
“We live on Fernside,” I said, wondering if maybe someday Ashley and I would be carpool buddies.
“Fernside . . . Fernside . . . wait, do you live near that modern white house on the hill that you can see from virtually everywhere? I love that house,” she said.
My face turned hot. “Um, it’s my parents’, actually, and I live at home with them.”
“Really? You’re joking. We saw that place in Architectural Digest a while back. That’s amazing. You’re so lucky!”
Hearing Ashley gush about my house made me proud of my immigrant parents and my dad’s vision of our family home. It didn’t seem to faze her that I, a grown woman, still lived with my parents. Maybe it’s not so uncool after all.
Ashley parked me in a lonely, plain office that had a metal chair with worn-down puke-green upholstery and a seventies-looking desk with three metal drawers and a honeycomb-colored acrylic enamel top. I noted the absence of a Quince device; fortunately for me, in its place was the desktop I was accustomed to. Next to it, I recognized a copy of the thick legal-size document that was Treehouse’s S-1.
I felt like a new kid at school, and was beginning to get homesick when suddenly my cell phone rang: Mom. Of course. I knew I’d face her wrath if I didn’t pick up, so I pushed the Answer button surreptitiously and timidly said to Ashley, “I’m so sorry, but it’s my mom. Do you mind if I take this really quickly? I just like to be sure nothing is wrong. Will you be in your office?”
“Sure, no problem. We’re finished anyway. Get settled and check in with Jonathan when you’re ready. He should be here soon.”
I nodded and turned my attention to my mom, who was shouting into the phone.
“Hello, Mother,” I said in an annoyed tone, but I was secretly happy to hear her familiar voice.
“Sophia? Is that you?”
“Yes,” I answered impatiently. After all, she was the one who had called me.
“They left a notice on our front door,” she said, sounding exasperated.
“Who is ‘they,’ Mom?”
“I don’t know. There’s a notice on our door. It’s white and purple.”
“Mom, that’s FedEx. See on the front? It says, ‘FedEx,’” I said, trying to keep my temper in check.
“Oh. Well, I don’t know what it is, but what should I do?”
“Just sign the back of it—there’s a long square where you sign. Then just hang it back on the door and they’ll leave the package.” Silence. “Mom? Do you see the long square on the back?”
“What long square? How can a square be long? I don’t see it. Can you just come home and take care of this?”
Oh so high maintenance. I could be the president of the United States and it wouldn’t matter. I’d be getting this very same call.
I responded with an incredulous chuckle because I’d learned long ago that when it came to my mother, I had to laugh or I’d cry. “No, Mom! I can’t. I just started my job. Where’s Dad?”
“He just left for that conference in Chicago. Well, I’ll just leave this here and you do it when you get home.”
“No, Mom! It’s really easy. Please just sign the back of the slip and hang it on the door,” I pleaded. When I’d left the house this morning I’d lied and told her I would be staying at Kate’s house tonight, “since it’s closer to work.” The truth was, I planned to spend the next night or two at Daniel’s in San Francisco and I didn’t want to ruin our plans by having to haul my ass all the way to my parents’ for this ridiculous task that my mom could very well take care of herself.
“No, I don’t know how. Please just help your mother.”
“Don’t you want me to save the commute time and get an extra few hours of sleep?”
“Oh, fine,” she said as I sighed with relief. “I’ll just leave it here and your father can deal with it when he gets home later this week.”
“But Mom, they’ll only try to deliver it two more times and then you’ll have to drive down to FedEx and get it yourself.”
Upon hearing this, she began to stress out, which then caused her temper to rise. “Well, I don’t know what you want me to do! Why do you guys order this online stuff anyway? Neither of my daughters were raised right. My friend Helen’s kids are always helping their parents.” Before she could digress into a ten-year lecture about how she hated when we ordered things online, causing total strangers to appear at our door, or how she guessed she just wasn’t important enough, I interrupted, “Okay, Mom. I’ll come straight home after work.”
Click. She hung up. Typical of my mother—and to be honest, not totally unlike Grant, either. I seemed to attract these types: no thank you or goodbye. I shook my head, knowing Mom was mad. I wonder if I’ll have to deal with her later.
I stood in my office, motionless and overwhelmed, unsure of what to do (other than be frustrated with my mom). I texted Daniel: Classic Mom story. Can’t wait to tell you, but I won’t be able to come over tonight. Then, remembering what I did at the law firm when I felt like my wheels were spinning, I thought about my time in six-minute increments and began to unpack my things. At the top of the cardboard box was the framed menu from my going-away party at Sterling, Rich. I picked it up and read, then reread, all of the goodbye and we’ll miss you messages my coworkers had written me, making me miss the place where I’d gained my professional sea legs. I placed the frame on my desk, unsure whether I wanted to cry or smile at the Sterling, Rich memories that raced through my head.
My new boss, Jonathan, had an accent I couldn’t place when I’d spoken to him on the phone: an odd combination of New York and London that gave him a very professional, no-nonsense air. But he looked nothing like I’d expected when I appeared at his office door later that morning.
“Hi! You must be Sophia,” he said, standing up from his chair and giving me a big bear hug that immediately felt natural and comfortable. Jonathan had thick, wavy dark hair, and his large brown eyes and wide grin reminded me of the Sesame Street character Ernie. He was slender, just shy of six feet tall, and bizarrely dressed in a wizard costume. Nothing about him suggested he was the Jonathan Larsen, star CFO whom Scott had recruited away from the world’s most successful gaming company. Jonathan was both a CPA and a former lawyer at Sterling, Rich. He was no dummy.
He motioned to an ugly chair in front of his desk that had a wizard hat and fake beard on it. “Just throw those on the floor,” he said. “Nice to meet you in person. I hope you brought a costume—we’re having a Halloween party this afternoon.”
“Really? It’s September. I didn’t come prepared.” I felt like a foreigner once again.
“No problem. It is indeed September. But as I’m sure you can imagine, Halloween is one of the
company’s favorite holidays and we’re really kicking into crunch time with the movie, so we wanted to celebrate now just in case there isn’t time next month. You’ll get a laugh out of it—there’s a costume contest with prizes. I just saw one of the animators on my way in and he’s dressed like—like a newborn baby. Completely buck naked except for a homemade diaper and a light blue knit beanie on his head.” Jonathan laughed, but it wasn’t until later that I realized why. Naked-baby guy was about six foot four with a full-grown beard.
Wanting to make a good impression, I dove right into my comfort zone: business. “I read the first draft of the S-1, and when we spoke you said you expect the IPO to be just after Thanksgiving?”
“That’s right. Since Thanksgiving kicks off one of the most important movie seasons of the year, our plan is to release Treasures just before the holiday in order to get our name out there before the roadshow the following week. We’ll have to file a few amendments before then, but we should be ready to go in less than twelve weeks. Speaking of which, I think the best way for you to learn is to join us on the trip.” Jonathan stopped talking and turned his chin up as though listening for something. It sounded like an old, loud air-conditioning unit, or maybe a helicopter. “Scott is here,” he said to himself, then continued. “Anyway, the roadshow. Scott and I will be telling the story over and over, so it will be good for you to listen in to the Treehouse messaging and hear all the questions from the investors. After that, you’ll be the one telling our story and building relationships with the investors and analysts. Scott has great confidence that you’ll do well at that.”
I didn’t hear what Jonathan said for the next few minutes because I was too excited about the fact that I was actually going on the roadshow. Who cares that I don’t know anything about IR? Flying to fourteen cities in ten days and staying in fancy hotels sounded thrilling! A man’s shouting voice brought my attention back to Jonathan’s office, though.
“ASHLEY! WHAT IS THAT SMELL IN MY OFFICE?”
I looked at Jonathan. He raised his eyebrows and cracked a sinister smile.
From down the hall, Ashley’s calm voice could be heard meeting the assault. “They sprayed for ants today, Scott.”
“What?! You sprayed those chemicals in my office? Why on earth would you do that?”
Jonathan got up and shut his door. He wasn’t the only one. I looked out his open interior window; other office doors were shuffling closed, copy machines were stopping, people from accounting and human resources were scurrying toward the kitchen. A flood was coming, and the animals were fleeing for the ark.
“Well, Scott. You have an ant problem. I know you know this because you complain about it all the time. So unless you want ants crawling all over your keyboard, we decided to spray your office on a day that you’re not here. Which brings me to the question of why you’re here,” she asked.
There was a long silence. Then, “FUCK! YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ME WITH THAT SHIT!”
“Again, why are you here? I called you an hour ago and you confirmed you were not coming in.”
More quietly now, but I could still hear him through the open window, he said to Ashley, “Christine kicked me out of the house. It was her opinion that I was driving her crazy, so I took the helicopter up.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that’s not my fault.”
I pulled my head back from Jonathan’s window. I didn’t want to be spotted, or hit with some unpleasant verbal debris.
“FUCK,” Scott said. With that, he stormed back out toward the kitchen.
I felt remarkably calm and almost wanted to laugh. It was familiar in a way, like a yelling match I might have with my mother. I knew I would like this Scott Kraft guy.
Suddenly, Scott’s voice was back. “Is the new girl here?”
“Sophia,” Ashley responded, reminding him that I actually had a name. “She’s with Jonathan.”
I braced myself and glanced at Jonathan for guidance, but he was busy rolling his chair to the farthest corner of his office just as the flimsy door flew open, almost sailing off its hinges.
Chapter 7
“New girl. What are you doing?” Scott stood right in front of me, looking me over from head to toe. Once again, his glasses could have used a polish. It seemed safe to assume that unlike Jonathan, he wasn’t about to give me a big, welcoming bear hug.
Jonathan interjected, “We were just talking about the roadshow. I thought she should come with us.”
Scott didn’t say a word. He just nodded.
Then, he began speaking to Jonathan as though I weren’t in the room, which didn’t matter to me since I had no idea what they were talking about anyway. The two men discussed sliding scales for merchandising receipts and whether someone would be paying someone else royalties, and how Treehouse’s commercials division should receive revenue for licensing its proprietary animation-rendering software to Samba. Just when I thought my brain might explode over their ongoing conversation, a jovial-looking man entered the room, whom Jonathan introduced as the chief creative officer, Dylan. So this is the cubicle-shack dweller. He had a round face with rosy cheeks, and wore loud, radically colored patterned shorts with a gray T-shirt that read genius at work. He was also wearing a red cape and superhero boots that I assumed were part of his Halloween costume. At least I hope they are.
“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s an issue. We previewed the recent cut of Treasures to Samba last night and they want us to make serious revisions.”
“What do you mean? Which part?” Scott asked.
“The entire movie!” replied Dylan. “They said it’s not going to work the way it is. But if we do what they’re asking, we’ll never make the Thanksgiving release.”
The four of us were squeezed inside Jonathan’s small office, but somehow Scott managed to take a step closer to Dylan. “No. We can’t delay the release. How did this happen? We’ve been showing them our progress since the beginning and they’ve given their feedback the entire way through.”
“Yes. But as you know, we didn’t incorporate all of those ideas. Sure, some of them were good and we used those. But not all,” Dylan explained. “My concern here is that, ultimately, they have to give their final sign-off before we can release.”
Scott stuck his chin out. “The fuck they do.”
“You know they do.”
There was a long, intense silence in the room while Dylan, Jonathan, and I watched Scott pace back and forth, at least as far as he could inside the office’s confines. I listened carefully as my brain did its best to decipher what was going on. It was one of the things my parents had brainwashed into Audrey and me: “Listen, don’t talk. You’ll learn more.”
“What do you think, Dylan? Does it work the way it is?” Scott asked.
Dylan dropped his head slightly and brought his fist to his lips. A man in serious thought. Not a minute later, he flipped his head up and said, “It works. It does. It’s great and I’m really proud of it.”
“Then keep going.”
“But . . .”
“Just go.”
Dylan looked at Jonathan and Jonathan looked at Scott. The CCO’s tone was serious. “What about the Samba agreement?”
“Let me worry about Samba. I don’t care what you have to do. Just get that movie out for Thanksgiving.”
Dylan had an idea. “So hold off on the IPO—even just one week. We don’t need the cash. Do we?” Dylan asked.
“We do, and we don’t. The issue is timing. There’s a very small window—the Monday after Thanksgiving through the first week of December—when we are still safe to go out. If we miss it, we run the risk of losing important investors to early holiday vacations or not being able to go at all until spring, when investors are settled into the new year. And who knows if the stock market will be receptive to unprofitable startups like ours by then. If we can go now, we should,” Jonathan explained.
I wanted to contribute to this important conversation, to prove my worth on my very first day, but the
intensity in the room told me I should keep my mouth shut.
Scott added, “And to answer your question, we do need the cash if we’re going to grow our team—yours in particular, Dylan—so we can work on movies in parallel. That’s critical because we’ll only survive for so long making a movie every three years. We’ve got to narrow the gap between releases. You want to build your digital animation school, Treehouse University? We need money for that. And if we’re going to be in any position to renegotiate this fucking Samba deal like I intend, we’re going to need a war chest.”
Scott took off his glasses and laser-focused on Dylan. “You finish the movie. I’ll talk to Samba,” he said before gliding out of the room, then shouting, “Ashley! Get me Samba!”
It seemed to me that Scott had a clear vision of what he wanted and how the Treehouse IPO was all going to go down. I enjoyed seeing this side of a business; at Sterling, Rich and Global Partners, my jobs revolved around reacting to wheels already set in motion by conversations like this one. I hadn’t thought Scott and I would have anything in common. But maybe we did. Maybe that’s what he saw in me that night at Sterling, Rich; he called it “manipulating people,” but perhaps “persistence” was more accurate. I didn’t know how to be any other way, after all. My mom would never have allowed it.
Thanks, Mom.
At the time, I also didn’t know how valuable, or rare, this character trait was. Clearly it came in handy at fast-paced startups.
Two weeks later, I’d emerged into a routine of sorts that was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. Each morning, Ashley would ring me at five thirty sharp, just as I’d be standing at our kitchen counter pouring coffee into a commuter mug and getting ready to leave the house. Mom, who arose when I did so she could make me breakfast while I showered, noticed the pattern and began keeping a pen and paper next to our Breville Barista so I could write down the list of people Ashley gave me to call back. At first I found the list interesting, to say the least, because there was always some non-IR-related item on it. People asking Scott Kraft for a financial donation, for example. But I soon figured out that there was no one else at Treehouse to answer these random queries, so they were left to me; I’d become a de facto Treehouse and Scott Kraft spokesperson.
