i think i should take it as a good sign that i need a career change when i'm already tired of writing about my career to date. but we're nearly caught up, and then i think this journey will get more interesting.
so ... summer, 2009. i've accepted a job as the director of brand communications for a company called glu mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU). i liked the people i met during the interview process, which was quick and efficient. i was especially happy to have a strong female mentor, who was the first person I'd met while interviewing. and it was also the first time i realized the size and power of my network from yahoo - i was practically hand-picked for the position by an old friend from there, and when i arrived, i found that another yahoo friend was also working there.
glu was a short, interesting ride. on my second day in the office, the CEO of the company (whom i'd met during the interview process and really liked) came into my office and told me that he was leaving the company as soon as his replacement had been found. this is never good news. it means that immediately you have a lame duck CEO, and the markets don't like that. plus, i'd met him during the interview process and really liked him, so personally i was sad about it. but there wasn't anything i could do but roll with it.
then, two days later, my counterpart on the product marketing side, whom i'd barely met, came into my office and told me that he was leaving too. now i started to get somewhat alarmed. not only was it the second departure i'd heard about in three days, but this one was a guy in my department, and it was unclear that he was going to be replaced given that the company was doing ... well, ok, but not great. that could mean that i was going to be taking on his role as well as my own. i was pretty sure i could do both jobs, but i wasn't thrilled at the prospect. it meant more responsibility and longer hours for likely no more pay, not to mention the administrivia that comes with having more direct reports, etc. not to mention that one of said direct reports seemed to think that he should have gotten the job, and i was too new to know if he was right. but again, i rolled with it. i didn't have much choice in the matter.
the next few months, though, were OK. i had a very supportive manager (not the mentor i spoke of before, but still a great guy) who, after a couple months of trying to manage the product marketing team himself, handed it over to me at my urging - and gave me a commensurate raise to go with it, which he didn't have to do. however, the company, as i mentioned, wasn't doing great. the iPhone was the new device for casual games, at which the company excelled, but we were a bit late to the game in terms of developing and marketing compelling titles for that platform. in addition, how quickly a game got approved and how well it did was largely dictated by Apple, which would choose certain games to be featured according to some formula that appeared to not actually be any formula at all.
and then, as the fall slipped away and winter approached, my depression started creeping in again. i attributed it to not being particularly happy at the job; the departure of my aforementioned mentor, who left to be the CEO of a startup company in san francisco; the breakup of a relationship under rather difficult circumstances; a 20-mile commute each direction; and an early, rainy winter that made the sun scarce and resulted in a 3-week stretch where it rained on my way to work, on my way home, or both, making the commute that much worse. i worked as hard as i was able, as my critical, perfectionist self would have accepted no less, but my heart wasn't in it. and my mentor had subtly suggested on her departure that she needed someone to run marketing at her new company, so that stuck in the back of my mind as well. come december, i began to start seriously considering a move, even though i'd only been at glu for about six months. i met with the new company immediately after the holiday break, which i'd largely spent at home watching movies and bad television, and went to glu the next day and gave my manager my two weeks' notice. and come the end of january, i was the new vice president of marketing at a small consumer photo-sharing site called Scrapblog. [Note: Scrapblog was acquired by Mixbook in January 2011. So you know where this story is going.]
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