Life After Tyranny: Fire, Brimstone and SEM

I was recently fired from an SEO startup for, what I can honestly say was, no particular reason. Perhaps it was personal, perhaps someone didn’t get their junk punched around by the missus that weekend. Nonetheless, I was given a smattering of excuses regarding an email that wasn’t copied to them and some unjustified garbage about a lacking in my professional development. Ironically, there were no charts or papers. No HR and no proof. Just a cold dismissal from two goons who never once attempted to earn the respect of the people beneath them, as they assumed it just came with the titles and offices.

Here is what I have learned from the few small companies I have been employed by. This most recent one, (names have been changed to protect the shameful) SuckUpWeb, will register most of my examples.

Small businesses hire folks who are good at what they do, but tend to lack that certain something that makes work-life normal. Corporations and their greedy administrators have been sued for years over issues as big as employee mistreatment to as little as a dirty joke. Small businesses, however, can pretty much have their way with you.

There are a myriad of business types and personalities that run them, but there seems a common thread of emotional pillaging and pride plundering which you can expect when entering employment with any small business.

First off, you have the owner. There were days I expected to pull into the parking lot and see a thirty foot granite statue of the owner placed discreetly around the side of the building. The base would read out, “Greatest Employer In The World and Most Giving To Her Community.” Chiseled somewhere in the back would be the names of her minions, who paid for its erection, beneath carvings of them feeding from one of her forty teats while being embarrassed by another public, hyper-aggressive berating.

If you have ever been subjected to an abusive boss or yelling owner, you understand that feeling in the pit of your conscience telling you, this is not the way the culture should be in a work place, especially one that boasts a supposed “relaxed” atmosphere.

You see, just because a company seems like good people doesn’t mean they are. No business should ever come off relaxed and fun-loving because business is not fun or relaxed. It is an obvious attempt to throw the curtain over a lunatic owner or undefined expectations. Smoke and mirrors in the form of a purchased, manufactured environment of “fun”. It reminds me of a former friend who routinely appeared to be a cultured, socially-conscious person, but spent more time telling young women about his traits than actually being them.

Then you have the Human Resources Dept person. In a small company, HR is more humorous than helpful. They sit in the owner’s pocket like a retard attack dog waiting to decimate anything deemed a threat, when in reality, they should be watching the employee’s backs. Only in a small company would the HR person spend lunches waxing politics with anyone who would listen and expressing personal feelings toward the topics. It is their job to pull the person who is doing that aside and ask them to stop. It would only be more backward if they had bad hygiene and swore a lot. Which segues to the last group.

If you walked into any corporate building in Chicago you would see men and women managers behaving well. Discussions in hushed, reverent tones; quiet frustrations held within; possessing access to infinite answers through booklets or websites. Not in a small business, though. These are managed by ethically-inept, egomaniacal, self-serving yes-men. Perhaps I am too good natured, but I don’t believe supervisors should be able to launch into a graphic, obscenity-laced tirade because they simply feel like venting. They shouldn’t be allowed to curse and harass any employee publicly, even one they consider a friend. And we should be able to collectively intervene with the most vainglorious of them, especially when they adopt stupid names for processes of the business and attempt to force them on everyone in the office just so they can tell everyone they had an impact on the industry. “Bigfooting” is not an SEM strategy.

Although small companies say they care, they are not diagrammed to care. A eight-year old business should not have more former employees than current employees. But when you have a group of people running it emotionally and not through tolerance, understanding or guidance, there will never be a time when you have all of the pieces to your puzzle. If there is no training model, nobody can learn correctly and will, therefore, be subject to punishment from not having met the undefined expectations.

The bottom line: A ping-pong table, a pinball game and a Chinese Food Day do not make a company “caring”. What is worse, they neglect the simple things necessary to creating a good office culture.

1. Be nice from the top down.

2. Create a training standard and define associated expectations.

3. Require modern interoffice standards and rules; let no one be immune

Michigan is an at-will employment state, meaning they can fire you if your nipples are crooked, and as long as they don’t verbalize it, they have no one to answer to. However, business ethics will often do you in before you grow too large to transcend popular law. Plus, the small town reputation can be more easily damaged by stupidity than it would in a large city.

To be clear, this only encompasses the top of the food chain. It’s the bottom employees that seem the most competent, have the least amount trouble communicating with each other and can find ways to accomplish tasks without the drama or glory.

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I wanted to write a scathing blog, call a spade a spade and sink a ship with words, but that is not who I am. I am an honest, loyal, hard working person who will rise above adversity and persevere. I don’t need to know why I was dismissed because it changes nothing. I know that I gave my clients everything I had, and I will do the same in my next endeavor. But I also can not deny my anger, hoping that karma will be as merciless on them as it has been to me.

Update 1/26/08

Forget everything you've just read. Here is the Cease and Desist letter I received: Page 1, Page 2

Update 1/28/08

Don't forget everything, just the deletions I've made. Here is my response, including my compliance with their reasonable demands: Page 1, Page 2

Update 2/2/08

Changes have been made to the posted correspondence between myself and Mr. Phelps. In order for this blog to continue delivering its message regarding the hazards of small business employment, it must also maintain it's integrity. The purposeful vagueness of this piece holds an implied promise of avoiding the infliction of damages to any company, including those that are willingly to involve themselves. Out of the gentle kindness of my heart, free of influence, I have made a conscious decision to remove all persons and company names from the letters. Thank you for understanding. Enjoy the blog!

Update 2/6/08
Since I received no response from Mr. Phelps, I sent him a finally email to bring closure to the issue: Page 1