The Brain Tumor Story
I’ve had a couple of folks ask about “The Brain Tumor Story” that didn’t quite make it into my Next Internet Millionaire audition video.
So here it is. Names have been changed to keep me from getting angry comments.
Several years back I found myself working as a greeting card writer for a little company here in Seattle. The worst thing possible had happened to the owners, Paul and Gilly–who had originally owned a photography business but then got suckered into making greeting cards: they won an award.
You see, right after 9/11 they’d come out with a series of terribly cute, terribly patriotic greeting cards. You know, pictures of little kids dressed up like minute men with billowing flags behind them. That sort of thing.
They’d taken their patriotic cards to the big greeting card show in New York and, riding a wave of patriotic sentiment, had one the greeting card industry’s equivalent of the Oscar.
Poor saps. They never recovered.
They came dashing back to Seattle all excited that they were going to make buckets of cash turning all their old (and rather good) photos into greeting cards. They sunk their savings into printing up a bunch of cards, hired on staff (including a certain bald-headed writer), rented office space and even opened a little shop to show off their wares.
And they were miserable.
I know they were miserable because I spent 7 long months trekking down the hill to their shop and bearing the brunt of that misery. In fact, it was while working for these folks that I first learned the real meaning of the “Sunday Night Dreads:” that sick, nauseous feeling that bubbles up out of your stomach late Sunday night when you know you’ve got five long days of hell ahead of you.
But it was a job. It (barely) paid the bills. And I hadn’t quite figured out that I had the heart and the lazy habits of an entrepreneur.
Like I said, though, Paul and Gilly were miserable, angry people (or at least Gilly was. Paul was sort of quiet.) They yelled at the staff a lot. They fired people often. They got constant calls from the Washington Unemployment office saying that yet another former employee had complained about it being a “hostile work environment.”
And they taught me a heck of a lot about how *not* to run a business.
But 7 months into my tenure writing weird and funny greeting cards (the writing was actually kind of fun. It was like niche-marketing boot camp) I came shuffling into work on a Monday morning to find out I didn’t have a job anymore.
The money wasn’t coming in.
They couldn’t afford my meager salary.
But if some deals came in they’d hire me back.
The whole thing knocked the wind out of me and sent my blood pressure to the sky.
I mean, I hated the job, but it kept me in ramen noodles and yoga mats and I even got to go eat at the Spaghetti Factory every couple of weeks.
Anyway, they let me go.
I padded over to my computer, forwarded every message in my inbox over to Gilly and went home to sign up for unemployment and figure out what the heck to do with my life.
A week later, I logged into my old work email account just to see if anything had come in that Gilly needed to see.
I figured she’d never think to log in. I was trying to be nice.
And when I logged in, I saw a message that I wasn’t meant to see.
Because instead of emailing one of the manufacturers representatives way out in the middle of the country, Gilly had emailed me. Here’s what she said:
“Dear Jean,
Sorry we took so long getting back to you. Chris has had to take a leave of absence, first because of his soon-to-be-wife’s West Nile Virus, but now because of his own upcoming MRI.”
And then it went on a bit to talk about business.
Me? I picked my jaw up off the floor and called my then girlfriend.
We talked like this:
Me: “Honey, do you have West Nile virus?”
Her: “Um. No. Though I do have a cold”
Me: “Are we getting married?”
Her: “Oh, I hope not. I’m not sure I like you that much.”
Me: “Do I have a brain tumor?”
Her: “Well, your skull is kind of big. I guess there could be anything in there.”
And then my mind went pop.
And I haven’t had a job where I’ve had to go to an office and work for somebody since.
So that’s my brain tumor story and the reason I’m self employed.
What’s yours?
Comments
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Michael Shandrick May 23rd
Chris,
Great story. I started a greeting card company in hopes I could stay an entrepreneur. For years I’ve financed my screenwriting with jobs I was not particularly suited for. Your story resonates with any writer. My partner is a painter, I’m a writer. Our company diverges from the company you worked with in that we have an exit strategy. It does help that I taught marketing and could have told your bosses to start small and stay small. Build demand from only those who are aligned with your vision, serve the customer needs for cards, and then keep researching to see if you are fulfilling that need. By going out and mass merchandising, they got stuck with no target market and now have a very large inventory. First thing our company did was create a vision statement that said we would only do the business if it kept us mirthful and made our customers happy. A year later we are still hatching ideas, and have a couple of venues among supportive vendors. Our cards are “text-free” interiors. No writing inside, hence no need for a copywriter such as yourself. But I can see that you won’t be going back to cards. I see a script in this. And you’re the one to write it.
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