Irresistable Forces, Immoveable Objects
Sep. 19th, 2007 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraA word of advice to all three of you reading this. (And, oh yeah – everything I’m writing is a complete misrepresentation. Got that?)
If you’re really into empire building, don’t be cocky. At some point you’re gonna need other people’s help and the only way you’ll get it is if you’re super-powerful to begin with, pay big bonuses, or are just likeable enough so that people somehow feel invested in your success.
None of these criteria applied to Jim Kinsella. Which is why he needed Maria.
Kinsella’s big innovation as soon as Pathfinder was formed was to block users from entering double-u double-u double-u dot magazine-I-wanna-read dot com into their browsers.
Instead he decided users had to enter double-u double-u double-u dot pathfinder dot com forward slash magazine-I-wanna-read.
This was a pain in the ass and most users didn’t stick around long enough to try it.
Hala was livid. “What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the word ‘pathfinder?’ Quick!”
“Natty Bumppo,” I said.
“Sports utility vehicle,” said Charlotte Tyrell.
“The point is you do not think of People Magazine! Why would you fuck around like that with brand recognition? And not just any brand, the biggest brand in American magazine publishing? I told Kinsella he could kiss my ass. We’re not giving up people.com.”
Hala was kind of the anti-Maria. Where Maria would seduce you into giving her what she needed from you, Hala would get up close and personal – in your face, on your ass, wherever your guard was down – and rant. It would only take a few seconds of Hala’s ranting for most people – normal people – to realize nothing was worth this degree of aggravation and give up.
Of course, most of the people involved in Pathfinder and People Online were not normal. Thus meetings frequently degenerated into screaming matches, Hala versus Kinsella, Hala versus Maria, Hala versus whatever objects had delusions of immovability on that particular day.
Sty simply couldn’t take it. Between Hala’s scream fests and Charlotte Tyrell’s passive aggressive skulking, he dreaded coming to work. One day he called me up: EW had offered to give him his old job back and happily, happily, happily, he’d accepted.
I think maybe I was the only person who knew what a tremendous loss this was. Sty had vision. Moreover, he was sane. Without him People Online was very much a case of inmates running the asylum.
Charlotte Tyrell filled the managing editor vacuum caused by Sty’s departure.
As a sidebar I should note here that if my characterization of Hala makes it sound as though I didn’t like her, that’s simply not so. I liked her a great deal, actually. I even admired her.
But goddamn, she scared the piss out of me.
If you’re really into empire building, don’t be cocky. At some point you’re gonna need other people’s help and the only way you’ll get it is if you’re super-powerful to begin with, pay big bonuses, or are just likeable enough so that people somehow feel invested in your success.
None of these criteria applied to Jim Kinsella. Which is why he needed Maria.
Kinsella’s big innovation as soon as Pathfinder was formed was to block users from entering double-u double-u double-u dot magazine-I-wanna-read dot com into their browsers.
Instead he decided users had to enter double-u double-u double-u dot pathfinder dot com forward slash magazine-I-wanna-read.
This was a pain in the ass and most users didn’t stick around long enough to try it.
Hala was livid. “What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the word ‘pathfinder?’ Quick!”
“Natty Bumppo,” I said.
“Sports utility vehicle,” said Charlotte Tyrell.
“The point is you do not think of People Magazine! Why would you fuck around like that with brand recognition? And not just any brand, the biggest brand in American magazine publishing? I told Kinsella he could kiss my ass. We’re not giving up people.com.”
Hala was kind of the anti-Maria. Where Maria would seduce you into giving her what she needed from you, Hala would get up close and personal – in your face, on your ass, wherever your guard was down – and rant. It would only take a few seconds of Hala’s ranting for most people – normal people – to realize nothing was worth this degree of aggravation and give up.
Of course, most of the people involved in Pathfinder and People Online were not normal. Thus meetings frequently degenerated into screaming matches, Hala versus Kinsella, Hala versus Maria, Hala versus whatever objects had delusions of immovability on that particular day.
Sty simply couldn’t take it. Between Hala’s scream fests and Charlotte Tyrell’s passive aggressive skulking, he dreaded coming to work. One day he called me up: EW had offered to give him his old job back and happily, happily, happily, he’d accepted.
I think maybe I was the only person who knew what a tremendous loss this was. Sty had vision. Moreover, he was sane. Without him People Online was very much a case of inmates running the asylum.
Charlotte Tyrell filled the managing editor vacuum caused by Sty’s departure.
As a sidebar I should note here that if my characterization of Hala makes it sound as though I didn’t like her, that’s simply not so. I liked her a great deal, actually. I even admired her.
But goddamn, she scared the piss out of me.
