It’s funny, to me. I’ve put out a solid 10-emails to Heatherwood front office staff, all of it to Charito and Jill, but it’s gone a bit further than that, and it’s not for a lack of me trying to make things go more smoothly from my end. But it gets worse and crazier still.
I asked, and begged, and pleaded to get a phone number or any sort of contact information for corporate headquarters, and it wasn’t easy, but I finally got it. It’s a company called DevCo, and Phil from corporate was a really nice guy. You can reach him at (425) 453-9556 if you don’t believe me… and by the way, he might just be the owner of the whole place, in case that matters to you.
Anyhow, all the grace and kindness I extended to Heatherwood management somehow made it into my file, and Phil had it all in front of him. He had the pictures I’d seen (not the whole picture, just the stuff that looks bad) and copies of every email I sent, even the ones I sent in confidence to Jill Siko.
By the way, I should say I have a soft spot for Jill. She’s always been nothing short of professional and balanced in her duties, and I took the time to tell Phil so in no uncertain terms… still, it seems she sold me out with the emails, which is disappointing, but at the very least, I can feel no guilt for the full disclosure I’d shared with the corporate headquarters, even if by accident.
I told her all kinds of things I might not have wanted headquarters to know, but I believe she shared it (according to what Phil shared with me in our call) so I can’t feel too bad that what I said to her wasn’t taken seriously… weird, isn’t it?
Charito Domingo knew I was a publicist by trade, but she might be mentally retarded, so I let that slide. Viola isn’t stupid, just moody, but I didn’t talk to her about anything. Jill got the full glory of who I am and what I can do, and it seems it all got back to Phil.
Phil was not impressed, and I didn’t try to impress him. I just asked about my move-out costs, claims and what it’s worth in terms of “just me”. No dice, Phil didn’t care.
But the longer this bad boy goes (isn’t that the headline???) the harder it gets to reign back in, and that’s fine by me.
If this was ten years ago, this site would just be about me, but the internet has grown. There has already been an article published that ran on Google News, and there are six more set to run in the next few days across a bizarre syndication of interconnected sites, ostensibly with a readership reach ranging into the tens of millions.
If this was ten years ago they could offer me stock-in-trade and buy my site outright, but that dog don’t hunt these days. Today I’ve got a dozen supporters watching my back (and making sure I don’t turn coat) and waiting to see what changes come. It would be great if you could throw me some cash and make me go away, but the actions I’ve been forced to have created a level of value infinitely beyond what could have been imagined before.
I do have a boss who is technically on the hook to sponsor whatever I do online (due to a brilliantly written non-compete agreement that works out almost better for me most of the time). If they could find him, which I swear they can not, they could buy this site out from under me for a song… by the way, do you know what a song is going for these days? My boss is pretty opportunistic and would as soon sign this project off forever than sell it, but he’d probably undercut me by a zillion to make this go away. This site could be had for as little as $15,008 to $36,448 depending on valuation modeling… and that’s just today… and that’s just if they could find him… which they can’t.
I’d love to ask for the money myself, except that I don’t need it, don’t want it, and couldn’t accept it even if I wanted to because it’s completely illegal. More than that, if they buy it from my boss, I won’t see a dime from it, so it will only make my boss like me better, but he already pretty much loves me like hell already.
But as days drag on to weeks, this bad boy gets harder and harder to unravel. The texts keep growing, the links keep building, and the publicity media articles bloom and blossom like only a computer could imagine.
That means that even if I wanted to be a jerk and sell the project, the costs have already become so insane they’d be extremely unlikely to pay it… and it’s growing by the day.
Bad boy’s getting big, baby. Getting big.