How I Learned That I Could Work Myself To Death

I had never had my body give out like that before…

We had moved from NJ to SV in the fall of ‘97. I had no job lined up, and I had just quit a soul-crushing “grinder” of a gig in NJ as soon as my then-wife got her MS degree. She landed a gig at HP paying $50k/yr. The crappy 2BR casita we rented in SV cost $24k/yr. Time to find a decent gig.

I didn’t know anybody in SV. I interviewed with Cisco, but the jobs they had seemed like too much of a pigeon-hole. Zero adrenaline. Not the job for a dreamer. I said “no thanks”. I started doing consulting/contract work.

I got lucky and started doing full-time contract work for a Sequoia-backed startup named Assured Access. I was cranking out MIPS assembly and C systems code for a router run-time. There was no assurance of contined work, just a series of small tasks. For security sake, I had to get some other “irons in the fire”.

I courted two other contracting gigs. I figured one would come through, and I’d be okay. One gig was UNIX device-driver work, a referral from my previous employer in NJ. The other was helping a wireless (analog) startup get a management solution put together for their product. With both of these two potential clients, there was the footsie of “can you commit” without the “we’re committed” coming back. Whatever — I had to have something lined up, so “yes” was the only answer that would pass my lips.

Lucky me, everyone said “you’re hired”. I now had to get three jobs worth of work done every week. I had said “yes”. I was screwed, but I dove in. I would typically start work between 7-8AM, and stop work around 2-3AM. Saturday too (I kept Sunday clear for family time). This wasn’t slackin’ work. It was intense, go-go-go solve problems work. I wasn’t getting much sleep, and stress-wise I was carrying a ton of bricks. But I was pulling it off.

One Friday I took a break and we went to the city to have dinner with my (then-) sister-in-law. She was introducing us to her future husband. He’s a great guy, but he can talk. And talk. At one point, he was holding forth, and I dropped my head into the bread basket on the table — face first. My sister-in-law thought to herself, “Jeff, you are such an asshole”. Except I didn’t get up. I had turned grey. They pulled my head back, and I came-to. My color came back. Luckily one of the friends at the table was a physician. She took a look at me, and made sure I was stable.

Since I seemed okay, we didn’t go to the hospital. When I followed up with my GP, he chalked it up to a “temporary loss of blood pressure”. Temporary is a very important word there. I had never had my body give out before that. I was 33. I’ve put myself in similarly punishing situations in my mid-to-late 40s as well. When my foot goes on the metaphorical gas pedal, I have to remind myself of that experience and that there are limits.

To finish the story, I got all the work done — I didn’t slow down after the incident. I eventually became an employee of the startup (Assured Access). That was my ticket to get into the SV startup world.