Natalie’s Blog

It was a long run, the second longest in my life. I was with E-Mail Solutions since April of 2008 and tomorrow it is in the books.

I started at EMS as a joke, really. I had been working at Carlson Hospitality since August 2007 and was just messing around on CareerLink for some Tech Support jobs. I was growing pretty tired of the hotel industry. I came across a TS position at EMS and applied for it, along with about 12 others just to see what would happen. I had the interview at EMS with Nancy (can’t remember her last name) and was hired on the spot, something completely unheard of this day in age. It turned out that Nancy was leaving the company in just over two weeks so this had to hurry through. I was excited because it was TS and a dollar an hour more than I was making at Carlson. Plus, the position entailed mandatory overtime on Saturdays for 8 hours guaranteeing me a substantial paycheck (for what I was making).

I put in my two weeks at Carlson but ended up leaving a week early just to relax before I took on another job, since most don’t allow you vacation time until after 1 year.

When I started, I was a bit confused. What I was training for was far from TS. It was a customer service job for a sprinkler company. I was actually quite miffed at this since I could’ve been doing CS at Carlson and making a bonus. But, I stuck with it. I grew to like most of my colleagues, especially Melinda, who somehow understood me. Maybe I made her feel sane since I didn’t cause trouble for the team by asking questions every 5 minutes and doing everything right the first time.

Then, about a month later I overheard a girl on another account talking about, you know, I don’t even remember anymore. I just know it had something to do with digital cameras and a memory card. I asked her what the hell it was she did so she explained it to me. It’s this new thing called the Eye-Fi Card. It had only been around for about 6 months. I told her how I was into photography with my Minolta DiMage 7i (god speed, little Minolta) and I had an Associates Degree in Networking. She started jumping up and down telling another gal, Wanda (the team lead) about me. It just so happened there was a position open for the Eye-Fi line group. I sent Wanda my resume and she passed it on to their Tier 2.

Less than a week later I had an interview with Larry and Jeremiah. Larry, I was told, was a bleach blonde Mexican surfer dude who was really easy going, and Jeremiah relied on people to interrupt him before finishing a question, so I had to let him finish the question. I found out later the part about Jeremiah was just a way Wanda was going to use me to get back at Jeremiah since she hated him.

The interview went smoothly, probably the smoothest it’s ever went for me since I’m a huge fan of non-interviews, I hate them. I asked Wanda every day what was happening, what she had heard. Every day she didn’t have an answer for me.

Finally she heard the answer. There was one position available and Wanda had asked the guys, “Boy or girl?” They told her both. Eye-Fi had decided to adopt Troy, another applicant, and I both. We would be starting on May 15. Too bad that was my birthday and I took the day off so I started on Friday May 16.

I think I caught on pretty quick. I wasn’t quite sure what this thing did exactly. Wanda had showed me, but I’d never used it myself. I got to play with pictures wirelessly uploading, signed my life away as I rented out a Nikon Coolpix L11 as my work camera (I thought that was so cool at the time that the company issued me a digital camera!!) and an Eye-Fi Card.

On May 27th after a week of doing e-mails and a three day weekend for Memorial Day Larry visited Omaha. He wasn’t blonde!! So I was a little confused. But surfer, totally. Long hair, Mac Book Pro, drove a Prius, yeah, I’d never met anybody like him, but it was cool to meet somebody who lived in California.

I can’t remember everything that happened that day, it’s kind of a blur. So much new stuff and new people and taking phone calls for the first time and… It was overwhelming.

Bianca interviews Larry and Alicia regarding photographing naked produce at Whole Foods in Regency, Omaha, Nebraska.

Larry took us out to dinner that night at the Upstream. Troy, Alicia, Bianca and I all met up after close to hang out. I have never felt like such a dork in my life. You’ve got Alicia and Larry taking pictures, I’m trying to not feel like an outcast so I’m reluctantly taking pictures as well. It was just awkward. It still is to this day! But I’ve only shown my face twice there before, so it wasn’t anything I’d ever have to come back to.

We had an excellent dinner, just so much fun. It was nice to be out and hanging out with my co-workers, something I was never really into before.

The next few days were spent training, we stayed out late at night. The scariest part of the visit was when we visited a taco stand in South Omaha at about eleven o’clock at night. The tacos were great, well, I only had one because I didn’t know they were the size of a quarter, but it was the ride back to EMS that got us. Apparently lightning and thunderstorms is a big deal for Californians and they think it’s cool. But going down I-80 at 80mph with a California driver looking to the south and not paying attention to the road isn’t all that fun!

Friday came and Larry had to catch his plane. Troy was off Fridays so it was just Alicia and I for the group photo.

Work went on, I learned what I needed to and did my e-mails, took my phone calls. Shortly after Bianca found work elsewhere and left the team to just Alicia, Troy and I. We had just released the Explore and Home cards so work was more than before and the guys upstairs (Tier 2) thought we were working hard for being so short handed. As a token of their appreciation they sent us all iPod Nanos. They were definitely cool and what was even cooler is how they had our names engraved on the back. That was the first of many gracious acts (besides the free yummy dinners, of course!).

Eventually we hired Chris. He seemed to be a good fit for the team and would help pull the weight. Troy was going to be training him which was cool. I had other things to do.

So in July we hired Sean. Oh boy, that was a disaster. We were a tightly knit team who didn’t take shit from nobody. We were protective of each other and couldn’t bear to hear someone complain about someone else on the team. Sean was the exact opposite. From day one we had problems. I had actually been training Sean and a customer had e-mailed in that they were having problems. No details, just, they were having problems. I told Sean to reply to the customer and ask them to elaborate on their situation. He threw a temper tantrum because he didn’t know how to spell elaborate. Apparently he didn’t know how to use spell check, either. After about two weeks of listening to whining about this and whining about that he was given the green light to move to another line group at EMS.

In August (25-28) Larry joined us again, this time with Jeremiah. Unfortunately I missed work on the 25th because I had to drive up to Onawa, Iowa to pick up my new car. I showed up just after 4:30 to show Alicia the new car. Of course, Larry and Jeremiah had to go take some pictures of the car. I had used my mom’s government discount to put them up at the Marriott in Regency so we headed over to meet up with her at the bar. Jeremiah rode in my car since I had the top down, Alicia came along too!

We went to Rick’s Boatyard for dinner. I had never had crab before and I figured this was the best time to try it. I loved it and eventually learned how to make it myself (for some reason I thought it was a delicacy, but it’s really simple). Bianca joined us for a reunion and we stayed well past close. The camera flashes were going off. Larry has some fetish with taking pictures of the food we eat so… I dunno. He’s just… Unique.

The next afternoon on my way home from work the new car broke down and I walked 6 blocks home in some really uncomfortable shoes. So, that night Larry and Jeremiah picked me up and we met up with Alicia at Petco on 72nd and Dodge. I rode with her as we went back to the taco truck since Jeremiah was excited to get some real Mexican food in him while in Omaha. While there he gave me insight to my life. He explained to me what I would be good at and why, what I should be doing and how to get there. It was the most eye opening conversation of my life. It was that night that I stopped looking at myself as a failure and started looking at myself as having potential. I stopped hating my life during that conversation. Nobody had ever talked to me the way he did. He obviously saw good in me, something that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The conversation went on for hours, I’m not sure what time we finally left. Alicia had to be somewhere and Larry and Jeremiah drove me home.

The next morning the guys stopped by to pick me up for work, something that was seriously frowned upon by my HR chick. So when we arrived I had to run in ahead of them so she didn’t see. Was pretty funny.

The day was short, Larry and Jeremiah had to catch their plane. We finally got a group photo with all of the employees in it, including Melinda just before she left EMS. Larry wouldn’t be back until the next year.

Larry and Jeremiah had been conducting interviews to hire a 5th person onto the team and had a fit with a guy named Jason. Well, the new HR chick decided to start doing background checks and apparently his didn’t work out so we went onto the next person, but unfortunately I can’t remember her name. That chick never showed up to work.

In September we hired Rick, OMG what a mistake that was (just kidding, Rick, you know I love ya!). He caught on quick, and I was so happy to have someone who understood what the card was and how to deal with customers and how to not complain. A breath of fresh air from Sean. The picture to the right is Rick’s third day (not kidding you) and in my Gallery I have captioned under this pic, “Rick Trying to Kill Himself Because of Jeremiah on Day 3 of the Job.” Larry and Jeremiah were tough guys when it came to doing e-mails. They were just as proud of their company as we were, and Eye-Fi Card had to be spelled with a capital E, F and C at all times, that’s just the way it was. Their main objective with us was to get us to think like them and to write e-mails like them (I went through it, too, and, man it was hard to deal with in the beginning, too). Of course Rick eventually caught on and was popping out e-mails left and right.

Unfortunately, it seemed like ever since Sean the group went down hill. Bickering here and there between us; if I didn’t understand something and wasn’t given a straight answer as to why we were doing this instead of that I went on the offensive protecting my team as if I were a lead.

In December I became an official Eye-Fi geek by buying my EYE FI license plates.

Christmas time rolled around, the only holiday of the year that we worked, and Rick being the work-a-holic maniac “can’t sit still” guy that he is volunteered to work open to close because we figured it would be a slow day. Chris, Alicia and I split the rest of the day between us in 4 hour shifts. Alicia opened at 8 and I came in at about 11:30. We weren’t prepared to say the least for this day. We hadn’t planned on so many people gifting the Eye-Fi Card for Christmas. There was such an overload that many people couldn’t set up their cards to take pictures of the family. I believe we had quadruple the expected traffic on our servers that day. Poor Rick regretted signing up for open to close.

We made it through, the e-mails and phone calls died down about the beginning of February. We had more customers than we had ever dealt with before. There was no turning back for Eye-Fi now, they were a  hit and the general public (not just the techies) knew it.

Chris left in February on a day that I was gone. I don’t know the whole story so I won’t get into it.

Then, some big news came in March as Alicia announced that she would be quitting EMS. Alicia had been on the team longer than any of us except Larry. I believe she had worked the Eye-Fi line for a week before Jeremiah was hired. It was pretty somber that day, as Alicia had a conference call with our new Operations Manager, Linda, and Larry and Jeremiah as they said their goodbyes. Immediately after I was called into the conference to be made the Tier 1 Lead for Eye-Fi. I had worked my ass off for the position and was relieved that I had finally been rewarded.

On February 18 we received an e-mail from Larry saying that we wouldn’t be able to get a hold of him throughout the morning. Jeremiah kept us occupied in our Skype chat room not to elude to future events. Around lunch time we got an e-mail from Larry asking, “How about a little face time?” It was a great surprise, as our team had been falling apart and we needed this to get it back together. We needed to find a replacement for Alicia and Chris.

That night everyone was busy except for me. We managed to get a hold of Bianca and she came out with Larry and I to Granite City for dinner. Alicia was supposed to show up, but we don’t know what happened with her.

The next day Larry had an interview with Jose and he seemed the perfect fit for our team, something to keep our minds off of what was occurring. Larry went out of bounds by EMS standards and invited Jose out to dinner with us. Alicia showed up as well before she made her trek to California to meet up with her cousin. Rick and Inga were there as well, unfortunately Tomek couldn’t make it.

Friday came and Larry and I finally got to spend some alone time together. I showed up to work early, clocked in and we headed for Iowa to Bass Pro Shops. The day before Larry and Rick had gone to Cabella’s to take some photos. Lar, being a fish guy, was mostly interested in the aquariums. After that we headed west on I-80 and went to Schramm State Park to see the aquarium there. Along the way he discussed with me what was expected as a lead and what my “new” responsibilities were. I had been doing a lot of lead work before hand, but now that the title was official I was expected to do certain tasks instead of just volunteer for them.

He left that afternoon, unbeknownst to either of us that we would never see each other again.

Things were better for a while. Having new blood on the team brought some life back to us. Having someone who knew how to write an e-mail with excellent grammar wasn’t bad either. But, soon after the deterioration started again along with the bickering.

By June it seemed like everything from everyone on the team was in vain. We tried hard to stick together, it became more work trying to do so than having it there without effort. Something was seeming terribly wrong as we got more into July.

An entire week passed where we hardly heard a peep out of Larry or Jeremiah in our chat room. It added to our frustrations and we had torn apart at the seams. We didn’t know what was going on or why, confusion was setting in.

On Friday, July 10th I showed up to work as I did any other Friday and Rick quickly asked me if I had been doing e-mails from home. Nah, e-mails off the clock weren’t my thing. It was weird because he hadn’t done any e-mails and there were 30 cases from the night before. Suddenly there were 10. I quickly looked for an explanation, searching for case numbers that were not appearing in our Tier 1 Queue and came across one with the name of a Tier 1 rep I had never heard of before. I clicked on the drop down list of Tier 1 reps and there were 8 new names that were never there before.

Needless to say, shit hit the fan.

I took it especially hard that day. Rick was more angry than sad. I was afraid of losing my job, I had poured my heart into Eye-Fi and felt like it was being ripped away from me. I became more emotional than I would have liked to in front of so many co-workers, especially Rick and Linda. I tried multiple times to get a hold of Troy but couldn’t. We had a quick meeting that afternoon, I didn’t speak a word. Rick asked one question, but for the most part Linda spoke on our behalf.

Larry tried calling both Rick and I over the weekend to explain how it wasn’t our fault and there was more to it than just the support end of things that EMS couldn’t provide for Eye-Fi. But, I still couldn’t help but feeling like a failure as a lead. I still question myself if there were other things I could have done to keep us going. Deep down I know there wasn’t, but I’m still living with the denial that it wasn’t our fault.

I took my last phone call on July 17th. It was with a guy from a New Jersey body shop that seemed to call us every week with a different problem. I won’t forget Joe! At this time, EMS still didn’t know if they had a position available for us.

Today we had our last team meeting. I had hoped that it would be a warm goodbye, but instead Troy, Rick and Linda gave Larry and Jeremiah the cold shoulder. I was hurt by these actions and wish it would have been different.

After the meeting, Linda advised us that internal jobs could not be found for us. Troy would be leaving later that day, I would be leaving Wednesday because I had pre-arranged to have Thursday off and Rick would be closing the group out completely on Friday. The guys sent each of us a Canon SD1200IS as a going away present. Something that they didn’t need to do but did to show their appreciation for us.

My desk is clean and I have only a few hours left. I am scheduled to work from 9am to 5:30pm, but I’m not going to make it that long. I will be out of there probably by mid day.

We’re no longer a team, but I will never forget ANYBODY who worked with me. Working with Eye-Fi was the greatest experience of my life and I have learned so much.

I’m going to miss everybody, especially the customers.