Dateline: 2012. The following blurb affected the trajectory of my life. Arguably to this day. Super stressful at the time, I refused to let it define me & ultimately converted to a positive. Like the nursery rhyme says: when God gives you AIDS, make lemonaids!
Working at small & growing consumer research tech co. My major strategic account was a big food company in the Midwest. I was onsite often, planning gigs, sharing results, networking. The culture there goes beyond conservative. Specifically, it's so PC that I was always on best behavior. I worked that place at 2 prior gigs going back years, ergo knew the vibe well. Picture hundreds of humorless white people wary of offending their colleague & being reported to HR. No jokes, no weird asides, keep it to just the facts, always. I never strayed from that. Best behavior. Or at least: humorless. Don't risk it.
It was a Friday afternoon. I was scheduled to go there to train someone using our software. Andrea was mid 20s I'm guessing. We sat in the big atrium / cafeteria, mostly empty. Must have been the Friday afternoon effect. Earlier that day my bosses boss called me to tell me my boss had been axed that morning. Guess him verbally abusing the VP of Sales during their trip to MN when not being AWOL finally caught up with him.
My new boss? I was thrilled, great guy, we got along splendidly. I was happy for him, and me for that matter. How happy? I decided to take a selfie of me, hard at work, onsite at the big strategic account on a Friday afternoon and send to him, my brand new boss! Which I did. Took a selfie of me, just me. Andrea was next to me on this bench, but wasn't in the pic. She was looking at her laptop, didn't see me take the pic but heard my phone's camera click.
Uh oh.
We finished up the training, all smiles, she grateful for the visit, sharing power user tips, etc. And that was that.
On Tuesday my recently axed boss called me to say 'hey man I got whacked but off the record you should know I just got a call from Andrea's boss Andy & he's furious. Something about you taking a photo of her.'
I said 'What? A photo of her? Um ok, thanks for telling me. Not sure what's going on.'
Then my phone rang again & it was HR. They asked what happened on Friday. I said I went there for onsite training, went great, other than that I'm baffled. Head of HR said 'ok starting right now no more contact with that company, not now, not ever.' At least they didn't axe me.
It was December of 2012. They fly in the remote workers to the holiday gala, which I was also invited. I figured they'd axe me then. I brought my personal laptop in addition to the work one in case that happened. Whilst there had long talks with HR, the company owner & the software tech lead I talked to daily on design / UX stuff. There wasn't much I could say other than the truth: I took a selfie to show my new boss, & Andrea apparently thought it was of her, or us, or something. And she told people there about it. And it became a shitshow on their end.
In fairness to Andy & that company: I'd be most angry also if my employee told me the sales guy took a pic of them. Just shitty bad luck for me. I thought about sending my new boss a selfie onsite there for all of 2 seconds; just did it. And that pic altered the trajectory of my life.
So I wasn't fired, my company believed me, but the issue was then more an industry thing. Guilt by association is a tough one to shake. Impossible actually. A few months later the tech sales roles, me & 1 other were eliminated & I was axed. Technically laid off. And the industry's resident gossip queen happened to work at the tech co, who apparently kept sharing the rumor of me taking a pic of a female client. Thanks Dave.
I decided then to be more in control of my work life. Formed an advisory service based on the tech I was fluent in, and actually was pretty successful at it for the next 3 years. A younger guy from my alma mater joined me, he was fluent in the hardware aspect, also at building a nice website & getting our message out. I handled the project design stuff & inking deals.
I hopped back in the startup space a few times after that. My threshold for shitty and/or incompetent colleagues was permanently lowered. Still had them of course, are they everywhere? I also realized I had a 2 year max limit on staying at any job. Usually much less.
Moreover, I took advantage of me steering my own life & schedule to make the most profound decision I ever could: get sober. Coming up on 8 years soon, not one drop. Also to move from the Midwest to one side of the country then to the other, because, why not? This is a big sprawling country with plenty to explore.
Funny how things work out, no?