Shurik’s Blog

2006+10+20

( Note: If you like my Friendster blog, check out my other blogs on Google Blogger: My All-Purpose Blog, My Tech Blog, My 100 Goals , Esperanto Blog ).

–Shurik

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Hi dear reader. You are viewing Shurik’s blog, dated/started July 19, 2005.
Setting: Somewhere in California on a cool summer night.

Some things in life, my friends across the globe, are too unbelievable to explain. Yet at the same time, how else could they be? Afterall, one can track back, rewind one’s life and observe how each successive moment is a result of the previous moments. And here I am.

What am I yapping about? I’m talking about being a Marketing Database Associate. For the men, the founders, Fred D. and M.J. at CafePress.com. I’m talking about having a mentor, a boss, a confidante, the guy I report to and respect (though not without the occasional outburst from my immature self), Hong T. I’m talking about facing reality: my current position as Marketing Database Associate  at the mysteriously wonderful CafePress.com comes to an end on the 29th of July. This is of course a natural course for what is a part-time, temporary position.

And yet, the natural course doesn’t mean devoid of mystery and uncertainty, full of questions. Where will I be after the 29th of July? At CafePress or at some other company, drawing my livelihood?

Now, CafePress is doing pretty well. People like company, they like the founders, they like the product, they like the customer service. And if you visited CafePress on any given day, you’d get a feel for the way the place is run, the tight ship and the tight crew. In the Marketing Department, where I am currently stationed, there is collaboration to set sailing the Affiliate Marketing program. Naturally, a position of Affiliate Marketing Associate has opened up, and would entail not only close contact with the customers–the folks who have a website and want to get paid when their website’s visitors click off to go to CafePress.com’s website and buy a product–but also working closely with Affiliate Marketing guru Michelle to develop certain aspects of the program. Furthermore, since CafePress is an e-commerce, and since an affiliate program by nature involves computers, protocols, cookies (I like otameal and raisin), networks, and a fair amount of coding upstairs by the development team, this project has a technical aspect which I can’t but cherish. Is it a sin to want to know what lies behind code, as well as want to build a relationship with your customers (who are, after all, entering into an agreement with the company which you represent), to chat them up over the phone and assure them that we indeed have worked out the details and done our research and and can help them create revenue by driving a piece of traffic our way?

But wait, there’s more. Beauty lies around every corner. But the feeling is over, the excitement has passed. What of my future? What should I care where I end up; either as a Affiliate Marketing Associate at CafePress, continuing my employment, surrounded by familiar faces; or elsewhere? I will just wake up early in the morning tomorrow and head out to work, coming in early, to continue reading those VBScript scripts that a friend in the developer’s group at CafePress sent to me today. To take stretching breaks and press on. To keep working, to keep learning new things. Why, afterall, was I placed on this earth, if not to cross the San Mateo bridge every day, with my foot to the pedal of my 13-year-old (4-month-new) Toyota, all lubed up and humming with Jiffy Lube’s cheapest oil? I know my mind isn’t supposed to form any attachments, but Toyota baby, you stick by me and get me to work wherever it may be, and I’ll lube you up, and even change your radiator fluid every 15000 miles–for 99 bucks. I rely on you. We’re in this together. We both work for the man. Lord, did I get that right?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2005 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Weblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.