Getting my blog off of WordPress.com was a lot harder then I imagined. I still have some clean up work to do, but roomate, “Hot Johnny” has helped out doing a lot of tedious work for me. I also challenged him to try blogging. He procastinated but then I told him I would pour a bucket of water on him if he didn’t do it, because his room doesn’t have a lock on it.
Below is what he came up with and its pretty interesting and not bad for a first blog. I am adding some pictures as well as some comments that will be in bold.
Without a further ado. Its Hot Johnny time.
Not enthused at the prospect of blogging
So yeah, I just moved from Springfield, Ohio to San Francisco, California.
With guidance from Koo, I sprayed my resume at a Wikipedia list of tech companies in California. Out of the thirty or so submissions I sent out I had one bite which was Yelp.com. After some phone interviews, emails, and reading the book “Once Your Lucky Twice Your Good” by Sarah Lacy I was facing a series of interviews with an internet company in an office in downtown San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. The company and people were really open and friendly and I really knew at that point I was down to make the 2,500 mile move out here. Yelp offered me a job as an account executive. I accepted right away and headed back to Ohio to pack. Leaving family and friends was tough, but I knew a land of awesome lay in front of me.
Skinner blogging. Swear to god nothing was staged in this picture. This isn’t the fun photo game at the bar where you pick 10 things wrong. This is the items Skinner has around him when he gets his blog on
By September 1 I had packed every last possesion I could fit in my car, squeezed the doors shut, and started my drive out west. Driving from Ohio to California was one of the most challenging, beautiful, and centering experiences I have ever been through. To anyone who hasn’t driven cross country, I highly reccommend. The natural beauty of the Western part of the US is totally unparalleld. The most notable part of the drive was staying in the Hotel Nevada.
This place is a seady ass, 20s era casino/hotel in Ely, Nevada off highway 50 “The Lonliest Road in the US.” After a 12 hour day of driving through the f*&king desert, I pulled up to this place park and walk up to see probably 70 motorcycles, bikers, biker chicks, prosties, God knows who else outside. Walk in to the most old school casino that’s probably still in existence. Bikers everywhere playing slots. Picture the most uncomfortable Skinner and there you are. But the room actually turned out to be really quiet and nice. Except for the constant shower temperature fluctuations which were apologized for in several decoratively witty signs. Finally I arrived out in San Bruno, CA and moved in with Ben Koo.
Initially I was totally freaked out. Work didn’t start for a couple of weeks and I wasn’t sure if I made the right decision. I was having a great time out here but really missed home. In mid-September I started working at Yelp. From the word go on the first day I knew I loved this company.
My training class of about thirty people was hired to sell marketing promotions to small businesses. Everyone is extremely friendly and cool. But the icing on the cake, the absolute pinnacle of when I realized I was down to stay at this company for the long haul….kegerators. Once I saw kegerators on each floor of our 3 floor office stocked with Sierra Nevada I knew this was the type of place I could get used to. Ping pong table in the middle of the office…yeah that was cool too. But I wasn’t excited just to see party equipment (in fact I’m way to busy to drink or play ping pong during the day). I was more excited that these things represented a laid back cool atmosphere that really appealed to me.
Work is really fun. I wear a head set and make about 100 calls a day to small biz owners in Northern California and Chicago. Talking to that many people a day is just ridiculous in some ways. I have the funniest conversations with Enlish as second language (ESL) people. ie taquarias, thai food, chinese cuisine etc. ESL business owners are just bat shit crazy in a lot of cases. I guess you would have to be run a business in a country where you can’t speak the language. Anyway I make an ass load of calls and so far 4/1500 have resulted in sales. Surprisingly, based on that figure, a respectable number.
I told myself I wouldn’t become a yuppie when I came out here (I told him he would), but lately I have been subscribing to a few yuppier activities. I started to drink wine out here, which wasn’t really up my alley before. It’s kind of hard not to. Californians are spoiled on a lot of areas: weather, produce, beaches. And wine is just really good out here. I make no apologies anymore for my enjoyment of wine. I also predicted Skinner would become a Mac guy. He retorted saying “he was a PC guy” beaming with pride… not anymore
I work at a really posh company with trendy people and I have gone to trendy night spots in downtown SF. One notable excursion was to Circa, a bar in the marina district. At first I thought, wow this looks like pretentious yuppie spot with pop rap blaring. Actually the mix was hip hop, but turned out to be really good. I was able to easily acquire a spot at the bar where I posted, drank draft Fat tire at a reasonable price, and watched the hottest bartenders grind each other while serving drinks really efficiently. Overall awesome experience.
Another yuppie tendency I have recently taken up is ordering my groceries online through safeway.com. Basically you can pick out anything you want from an online grocery catalog and have it delivered the next day for cheap or free cost in some cases. Really cool super stoned delivery drivers too. One of which I have developed good rapport with from Koo ordering 250 bottles of lemon propel featured in an earlier post. (Christ that’s a lot of propel).
I made skinner give me the computer real quick…little does he know screenshots of what he got. He honestly took about an hour to buy all this.
So this is kind of the beginning of the story of my move out here. Lot’s of good stuff yet to come.
