I need to document the ridiculousness of what just happened. Then I’m giving up on this day and going to sleep.
First, let’s rewind to this morning and afternoon, where I sat through lame pitch (Spotify for pets — huh?) after lame pitch (Fitbit for toddlers — why?) after lame pitch (a life-coach chatbot — no thanks!) and could literally feel my brain cells dying. In the evening I had to make an appearance at a goodbye party/happy hour across town, where I planned to stay an hour max, but then couldn’t end up finding a way to make a graceful exit for three hours because I kept getting pulled into different conversations. Three precious hours of my life I will never get back.
By the time I finally got home, I was exhausted mentally and physically and wanted nothing more than to wind down with my favorite ritual: a Korean snail mask (I’m a K-beauty freak), a glass of wine and an episode of the new season of Queer Eye. Because no one can make me forget my troubles like the fabulous Jonathan Van Ness.
So my gloriously slimy mask was on, the wine was poured, and I had just hit play when my phone started buzzing. And my friends, there was nothing good on the other end of the line. Nothing good at all.
Turns out the founder of one of our portfolio companies had landed himself in jail … in Vegas. Seriously, dude? How much of a fuck-up do you have to be to end up behind bars there? And why in the holy hell are you calling me to bail your ass out?
I had no idea what to do, and there was no way I was going to put myself in the position of keeping secrets for this guy. He was freaking out not only for the obvious reasons, but also because he didn’t know if he’d be able to have access to a phone again any time soon and was adamant that I not hang up on him. So I had to peel the mask off my face 10 minutes early, shut off the TV, put down my wine and attempt to conference call in another guy from XL who I had a hunch had dealt with (or been directly involved in) this level of debauchery before.
I’ll spare you the details of our plan to cover this mess up, but I will say that the founder’s phone access did indeed get cut off while we were talking to him, and then I had to stay on the line with my colleague for another hour figuring out logistics … and whether or not we were going to tell anyone else. (We did. We told Brock and let him take over.)
As I end this post I’m staring at my crumpled up snail mask on the floor but am too tired to even be upset. At least I learned I need to add one critical step into my wind-down routine: before I open the mask, open the wine or turn on the TV, I need to turn OFF my phone.
Full Ratchet 