I didn’t get it

So remebmer about that other job? I didn’t get it. I got the offer adn I guess after everything I’ve written here you might think I’d take anything. But the thing is I have to keep the big picture in mind. The new kob would have been a bump up in terms of title adn responsibilities from what I do now and while the money was good as compared to what I make here, it wasn’t where it should be for that job. In other words I would have been shortchanging myself not just for now but for probably my next job as well, whereever that might end up being. It was tempting to just take what they offered even when they woulnd’t budge off it, because Sonicbids is obviously not happning for me but I can’t panic and take just anything adn anyway, I’m hoping to get cut in the next round of layoffs, which i figure should come along in teh next month or two. That way I can get unemployment and maybe more and that will sure help as I job search in a really tough market.
Anyway the whole thing has left me pretty depressed and this weather isn’t helping (although 50 degrees on Sunday! YEah!). Is that part of my pathetic output of blog posts lately? Probably but I’m also starting to feel like I’m beating a dead horse here. Waiting for Panos to change makes about a smuch sense as waiting for teh us to come up in the west adn bitchign about it just makes him think he’s more right than ever. One of his favorite things to say has always been “Hey if I’m getting criticism it is just because it goes with success” as if success inavlidates all criticism and means he doesn’t have to pay any attention to it. I swear I wish I was a psych major becuase I’d do my thesis on him and they’d skip the diploma and just make me a professor. Anwy my roommate wants to go to the movies and Im all for that. Wake me when the sun starts coming up in the west.

Not everyone hates me

So lately it seems I’m getting it from all sides and no one likes me.  More than a few of my coworkers and past coworkers have commented on my posts accusing me of everything from trying to bring down the company to making things up to not even really working here (which is what Panos seems to be convinced of or at least what he wants everyone in the company to think so everyone doesn’t spend the day trying to figure out who I am.)  ANd then there’s the angry Sonicbids members and former members who at first cheered me and now also seem to hate me for suggesting in this post that maybe they aren’t all totally riht 100 percent of the tiem about every single thing they complain about.  Later my mom called to tell me she hates all teh typos in my blog and that I talk funny.  In other words I am having a bad couple of weeks at least as far as this blog is concerned.  But it’s okay becuase I work with Panos so I can take anything.  Also my friend Lobelia posted about the blog and shared her alwyas interesting thoughts on Sonicbids and where we fit in teh current music biz these days.  And then I got a very nice comment from a coworker who goes by “Zsa Zsa” – I’m alwyas a fan of any Gabor reference – and since it isn’t horribly mean and is also very flattering to me and has an interesting perspective on this whole issue im going to include it here -

“Hello there.

The 5 stages of Panos are right on the money. Ugh. I am glad you are shaking it up, or at least trying. There are many times that I have wanted to write an open letter to Panos telling him to take his head out of his ass, but I knew it would simply fall on deaf, narcissistic ears (that had trouble hearing me anyway due to…well his head being up his ass). I also thought about sending him anonymous books on good management but then knew he would read them, get them all wrong, and twist them to his own ends on his blog.

Public humiliation is really the only way to grab the attention of a person like him, or ruin him if that is your aim. And believe me, I understand the impulse! It is sad that you have to have a secret identity to have a voice there. Again, though, I understand. As someone who tried to point out and fix many of these issues at one point by sitting in a room with Panos, I know what the consequence is for dissenting opinions: public hanging or secret banishment

Yes, I am yet another idealistic soul who has allowed Panos to break them down and make my life absolute hell. Tell you what though…at this point I am not even bitter, just sad. What I find so heartbreaking is the absolute, delusional, unapologetic waste (and in some cases personal abuse) of some of the most brilliant, talented, passionate staff I have ever had the pleasure of working with in my life.

To everyone at Sonicbids I would love to shout at the top of my lungs: Don’t lose sight of who you are and what you know. You know a lot! You have a lot to offer! And this is NOT how business has to be done!

To you author, I would say: good for you, get the hell out. You might miss the “could-have-been” greatness of the company concept, your coworkers, the cool factor… But even a boring job beats the hell out of being abused on a daily basis by a raving egomaniac. And that’s the truth! Good luck.

Z”

So I guess I cna put away the razor blades and untie the noose – those things are a bitch to knot anyway.  Thanks Lo and Z.  Anyway what I find interesting about this comment is that it suggests that for every Benjy and Aimee who will defend any adn everything panos does even though they don’t always agree with it there seems to also be a Zsa Zsa who feels more or less the same way I do and hates the very sight of Panos not becuase he or she is just angry adn bitter and unable to move on from the whole situation but becuase the way Panos operates leaves almost not other option but to well, to start an anonymous blog or comment to the blog anonymously.  And while we’re at it this is as good a time as any to also bring up the issue of bitterness – am I a loser who can’t move on even as my time here winds down?  You’re free to form your own opinion but there’s this: People get angry.  Everyone does.  I’m doing everyting I can, believe me, to walk away from this situation and put it behind me but I ask everyone to take a moment to consider what Panos is wasting here, not just the opportunity but the poeple and everything they COULD be accomplishing.  Anger is a totally legitimate emotion adn if this isn’t a situation where it’s called for, what is?

On second thought Blockbuster

I’ve made the comparison between sonicbids and Microsoft before but something in the news a week or two ago has me thinking another way – Sonicbids is Blockbuster.  In the 80’s Blockbuster was the first big national chain that did video rentals and by the early 90’s they were a total monster, they were everywhere and they had some controversy.  They just owned video rental which not that many people were convinced was a long term thing in the early 80’s since it was so new.  Some people treated them the same way people treat Walmart now, since they would come in and crush all competition and some people have claimed that they secretly edited copies of their videos to take out stuff they thought was not family friendly.  They also rfused to carry pornos and just generally had a crappy selection, usually they’d have like 15 copies of Weekend at Bernies and 1 copy of anything you’d actually want to see.  Anyway you couldn’t say they weren’t a successful business but they sure made a lot of enemies, just like SOnicbids.

Only the comparison doesn’t end there because around 1997 a little company called Netflix came along and started offering DVDs through the mail.  Now there’s an idea that sort of changes everything right?  I mean think about how great an idea that was – no stores to rent, no stupid blue shirts to give everyone, just a bunch of giant warehouses in the middle of nowhere where the rent is cheap and you can mail stuff out and LET PEOPLE KEEP IT AS LONG AS THEY WANT.  I cant’ say I know exactly what the Blockbuster execs were thinking when they saw Netflix in their rearview but they sure Panosed the whole thing because they didn’t start renting through the mail until 2004 – yeah that’s 7 years later for the math challenged.  Was it because that’s how long it took them to get it off the ground or because that’s how long it took them to realize there might be something to this mail rental thing after all?  It doesn’t really matter, I mean it’s like asking what’s worse – that Bush knew his administration was leaking names if CIA operatives or that he dindt?  Either way Blockbuster dropped the ball completely.

Enter sonicbids.  Just like Blockbuster Sonicbids cornered the market on something not that many people had thought of before, if any.  And like Blockbuster we got called all kinds of bad names btu still you couldn’t deny we were doing something right at least from a business perspective.  And then we got pretty proud of ourselves and pretty lazy because as competitors loomed we did nothing – I mean NOTHING – except try to do more of what we were already doing. Netflix was changing the whole game and all Blockbuster could think was, “Idiots, they’ll never catch us that way.”  Which sounds a lot like Panos constantly insisting that ReverbNation and OurStage and others are morons as he fails to see that they aren’t really trying to play our game, they’re making up new games.

So two things have happened pretty recently that I can’t help but compare.  One is that our members can now upload photos and artists who play gigs can rate them, and we’re pretty excited about how advanced these thigns are.  Meanwhile of course every other member based website on earth had this ability years ago.  This came right to mind the other day when I read that Netflix has partnered with LG to offer TVs with built in Netflix streaming, which means that when you buy one of these TVs you don’t have to get a set top or sit around with your laptop trying to watch something, you can stream them right to the TV.  Because here’s the thing companies like Netflix get and companies like Blockbuster and Sonicbids don’t – even if you had an innovation its going to be old fashioned pretty soon so don’t get to comfortable.  Netflix saw that physical DVDs have no future even while they were making tons of cash renting them in a new way.  So while Blockbuster is congratulating itself that 7 YEARS later they finally managed to get a DVD mailing thing in place they caem to the table and no one else was there.  That’s because meanwhile Netflix was understanding that its big idea about mailing movies would soon be gathering dust in the attic along with 3D glasses and rumbleseats.  So what did they do?  They came up with another innovation that will again change the whole industry.

SO here’s the question:  Do we have any reason to believe that Panos has another innovation in him?

Life on the outside

I was gonna maket this post about all the stuff that doesn’t happen when you interview wtih Sonicbids and then all the stuff that has happened iwth this other job i’ve been interviewing for but then i realize they were sort of the same list.  To be fair when i was hired Sonicbids was a smaller operation than it is now and things have changed for the better since then.  By better I really mean that now Soncbids acts more like a real company with some kind of hirin process that makes sense, lets the person interviewing know what to expect and makes sure the perosn being hired actually mAkes sense for the company.  I’ve seen enough other people hired to know that things are better now at Sonicbids in that way than they were when i started, btu still they aren’t that much better.  And I know this for sure now because I’m very very deep into this other interview thing.  So instead this post is about what grownup companies do when they want to hire someone.

First interview -

The first thing they did when I went in was tell me exctly what he job was, who I would be reporting to adn what I’d be doing.  It was all very specific and even though I obviously already knew they wanted to be extra sure we were all on the same page.  Then they told me what to expect through teh whole interview process, what the steps were, how many other candidates htere were, how they would be assessed and how many would be eliminated at each step.  They told me who I’d be meeting with adn for how long.  Then they told me what the salary range was for the job adn talked about the ‘core company values’ and then they Stopped and asked me if I was still interested.   I said I was and they started talking about the yearly review process, exaclt what it was, how it worked, why it was set up the way it was.  Through the whole thing  you can’t believe how specific it all was.  They have it all worked out adn they worked it out with the input of hte employees and by learning what has and hasnt worked in the past.  Then they start asking questions.  The qusetions were all about my integrity, how I handle stress and confrontation, what kind of teammate I would be and stuff that like.  It’s all about finding out who I am.  Then they opened the floor to questions from me adn it was pretty clear that they wanted me to have questions.  HAving questions was key.

Second interview -
Just like they had sadi before, once I got to the second interview I knew I was one of three candidates.  The whole process was very open.  In this interviwe there were three people – the three people I was told would be there.  One was the HR person, one was the person I’d be reporting to, adn the otehr was a teammate I’d work wtih closely.  They had scrtipted questions they had come up wtih in advance and they all were sort of like the ones from the first interview but much more specfic.  It was like they were trying to get down deeper and deeper and it became obvious that they really wanted to get a handle on who I was and what I would be like to work with.  Again when they were done with their questions they gave me plenty of time to ask my own questions about the team and the work adn the company culture.  Then they reminded me about the whole interview process again adn how long it would be before I heard whether I was still in the running.

Last interview -
I had my last interview last week and just like they said, this was the one where I was the final candidate and they wanted to officially make an offer.  This interview was one-on-oen with the president of the company. Again we went over the job, the resonsibilitiies, adn basics of the comapny culture.  She also explained what it’s like when they hire someone – first there’s a 90 day probation period.  At 30 days all my coworkers would vote on whether or not I should be kept and then they vote again at 90 days.  The point of this is that teh hiring people don’t want to assume they know how to hire and it gives the other employees a chance to veto a hire if it’s just not working out.  The team is the most important thing there it seems like because they know individual talents aren’t necessarily the most important thing.  Then she asked me if there was a problem with my performance how would I want to be approached about it.  It isn’t just a question – she really wants to know what would make me most comfortable (naturally I told her I prefer to be yelled at or for her to just stew and act all passive aggressie for weeks).  Then she made the official offer.  I have a wek to accept or make a counter offer.

Now it isnt really fair to say none of what I just described happens at Sonibids, but almost none of it does.  A lot of the same KINDS of quetions happen when your’e interviewed there but the whoel thing is pretty vague.  This tells you a lot because really, the quetsions at Sonibids are about as specfic as they COULD be.  Half the time the person being hired  doesn’t even have a set job title because Panos doesn’t really know what it should be.  BEsides the whole idea of hiring someone for position X is usualy just a whim anyway and a week after you start he’ll probably decide the whoe idea of it is stupid.  At that point of course it’s too late – you’re hired and he’s stuck with you so you start your jurney of wandering around the company from one half described job to another.  Overall I would say the big difference between the process I just descrbed and teh the one we have here is that there IS  a porcess adn that it’s specific and transparent.  It fits there big picture udnerstanding which is an understanding Panos just doesnt’ have.

Action figure

Dinnertime at the Panay house will be tense until someone brings Panos a Sting action figure

Even though I complain about having nothing to do the truth is that no one at Sonicbids can ever be bored as long as we have the forum.  The forum for those of you who dont’ know used to be public adn whether it was some idea abotu democracy or just plain stupidity anyone at all could not only read the forums but post to them.  You dind’t have to be a member or anything.  In theory this isn’t a bad thing but the forums over time became nothing but a dumping ground for people’s complaints about Sonicbids, some of them being legit and others being kind of insane.  Anyway a while back they made them so only members could see or post to them.  This hasn’t made them any better as a place to discuss music but at least it keeps them away from potential new members who might never have a chance to have their own Sonicbids experience after reading the really pretty skewed stuff there.  But I hope they never get any better because they are pretty entertaining and every now and again someone actually brings up something intersting.

I was browing through some forum posts the other day and foudn one that’s a perfect example of hwo the stuff on teh forums can be nuts or pretty fair, or on this case both at the same time.  It’s posted by a regular (the whole forum would be a ghosttown if it werent for a handful of people who don’t seem to have much to do BESIDES post) who lists some of the many many gigs she submitted to that she never heard back from, who took her money but then disappeared.  She wrote -

“I took yet another priceless evening of my personal time to re-write Sonicbids regarding promoter submission fee REFUNDS for websites that are now defunct and CDs that may have been never made. Please note that these submissions are now YEARS OLD, as I’ve been requesting my refunds for them for  YEARS NOW.”

I’m sure this person has some legit complains about this issue and this stuff does happen btu at the same time she’s a good example of someone who just beats her head against a wall. I mean Jesus take a hint.  Years?  Who spends years on something like this?  Losing money sucks but why make it worse?  And while we’re on teh subject why is this woman still a member of Sonicbids?

But also this post brings up something I’ve been wanting to blog about with regards to Panos – how he loves action, and I don’t mean sex (oh god there’s a thought).  I mean he loves thigns that happen fast and he alwyas talks about how things need to happen faster btu you never hear him say they need to happen better.  Anyway it no suprise that the person making things take  really really long time is – Shazam! – Panos.  Our old status manager is a great example.

Under our old system which was called Status Manager promoters could either use it or not use it, it was up to them adn they weren’t required to use it to respond (we kinda sorta told artists that they would defintiely get a response but we didn’t actually require our promoters to do anything because hey, they pay the bills.)  Anyway people in the office – a lot of who or even most of who are musicians – hated this and thought it gave the prmoters too much power and didint’ protect the artists, so we tried to get it to change.   And can you guess who didt’ want to change it?  That’s right the only person who’s opinion matters, Panos.  The fact is that when he started Sonicbids he needed the promters so he started giving them anything they wanted and more and he hasnt stopped since.  But eventually on this issue he saw the light adn it’s no coincidence that it happened not long after Adam the PR guy came on board an started getting him all these interviews.  Adam was smart enough I assume to know that sooner or later someone was goign to start asking why he didnt’ have a better system and so finally thigns started to move.

But when I say move I don’t really mean move.  I mean there was a lot of movement adn there was a lot of talking and I think there were some presentations.  But back then John was still our CTO and if you got a project started then you might as well toss it in the shredder becasue thigns went into engineering and never came out.  It took  maybe over a year depending on when you start counting to get Submisstion Tracker up adn running.  Submission Tracker for those of you who don’t know is required now for promoters (and my heart goes out to Kimberly who I’m sure had to endure a few uncomfortable nights as Panos must have wet his bed worrying over how his promoter friends would respond) and gives artists a chance to withdraw their submission within a certian timeframe (that timeframe is two weeks which isnt’ very long for certain kinds of gigs like compilations, as this poster points out).

So how does all this relate to Panos?  It was a perfect example of how the process works.  He has a backward idea based on some reality from years ago adn even as the really smart people around him point out all the reasons why he needs to update his thinking (it would help if he actually knew the people around him were smart but he’s way to busy thinking about how smart he is) he holds tight.  After forever and forever he finally starts to get it and then all of a sudden it’s MAKE THIS HAPPEN NOW!  He wants action (no really please stop thinking of it that way).  Everything with him is always I want it yesterday which would be annoying on its own but after you’ve spent that long arguing for something and being ignored it’s hard to take when he starts to act like you are the one slowing it down.  Because here’s teh thing about Panos – he thinks faster is the answer to everything even though he isn’t really able to work quickly himself.  The irony (another one) is that he acts like he’s the one who wants action and everyone else is slowing him down when really just like with Submission Tracker he’s the problem all along.  So now there are people like this poor poster who’ve been waiting for YEARS to get answers on something and the real killer, as someone who responds to her post says, is that now they don’t even trust teh new system because how on earth could we wait so long for action. (no please stop)