Don’t let your Bubble Burst
Between 1995 and March of 2000, the internet went from something we all heard about to something we all couldn’t live without. Similar to AI & Machine Learning of today, then companies built on dot-com websites were all the craze and investors jumped in headfirst. I remember as a young accountant hearing all about new valuations based on intangible assets, customer lists and website hits. Nasdaq, a breeding ground for internet companies, rose 400% during these 5 years. However by October, 2002, the Nasdaq fell 78% in what today is known as the dot-com bubble, and many companies crashed and burned. It took the Nasdaq until April of 2015 to regain the heights seen in 2000; simply amazing.
For about 15 months from 2000–2002, in the heart of the bubble bursting, a young, up and coming accountant took a job at a company called Xchange, Inc. This 23 year-old kid left the life of big banking (at that time Fleet Boston Financial). He headed to an upstart publicly- traded CRM software company of about 500 employees located in the heart of South Station. He went from suits everyday to shorts and flip flops, company outings and direct access to the CFO.
If you haven’t figured out by now, that 23 year-old was me and as we sit here in the midst of a pandemic, with unemployment in double digits, I couldn’t help but reminisce, hearing Dickens in my ear “It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times.” For so many who have been laid off, which includes some close family and friends, this is certainly that “worst” time. However, for those that have been able to stay employed, this could be that “best” of times. It certainly was for me back in 2001.
I will try and quickly summarize 15 months in a few sentences for anyone still reading this blog and show how feeling underpaid and underappreciated in the short-term, can lead to gaining experience some don’t achieve in 15 years, and turn the worst time into the best time.
The accounting & finance department went from about 15 employees to 4 in less than a year. We had 4, yes 4, announced rounds of layoffs, including being sent home the Friday before Memorial Day knowing on Tuesday when we all come back, 25% of the company would be gone. One of those rounds included the payroll manager, the only one left in the company who knew how to process payroll. They asked her to stick around for 2–3 weeks to train some young 24 year-old, but it wasn’t her cup of tea and she walked out immediately. Everyone’s salary was cut by 20%, no bonuses paid out and stock options worth less than the paper they were on.
The single best thing in my career was making it through all 4 rounds of layoffs and being one of the 4 employees left standing until close to the end (even I had to look at other options eventually, come on, I was severely underpaid by 2002 standards).
I was hired to be a staff accountant, deal with some cash recs and support the monthly close. When I left, I could list all of these on my resume (whether directly in-charge, partially in-charge or in a supporting role) 10K & 10Q, Payroll Processor (yes, I was that 24 year-old who learned to process payroll in about 4 hours after she walked out the door), P&L Forecasting, Invoicing, AP Supervision, Budgeting, Monthly-Close, Commission Calculations, Compensation Plan Creation, Invoicing, Fixed Assets, Revenue Recognition, Collections, International Consolidation, Multi-Currency Ledgers, First-Time Supervisor, BvA reporting, financial analysis and the most important one of all, learned from George our CFO and still use today, what the term “Cash is King” truly means. I walked in a 23 year-old junior accountant, at best, and left being hired as a 25 year-old Corporate Controller for a small international software company and the rest is history I guess.
Sorry to take you on this journey, I realize it was much better having lived through it than reading quickly about it. Downturns in business usually lead executives to implement desperate measures to maintain positive cash flow. We all know workloads don’t diminish that much during downturns. A lot of what finance and accounting does at month-end doesn’t go away even though revenue is down. Yes, AR and AP might be lighter, but many other processes remain in place and continue to be time consuming, especially for people new at those tasks.
So if you are one of the lucky still employed and finding yourself taking on more, working longer hours and learning new areas of your business, this may be the break that will keep you working so hard. It may be the job that catapults your career to heights you never thought possible in a timeline beyond your wildest dreams. If not, well I guess try and remember “Cash is King” and wear flip flops, they are much more comfortable than dress shoes.
