Small Company

I am now working at the smallest company I have ever worked at in my adult life. ("The Dick Cavett Show," where I worked as a PA during its 13-week run on ABC in 1986, was about the same size. The Iowa Wrestling team, where I was a grad assistant coach from 1987-91, was larger, if you include Judy the office assistant and Brett Mangold the video guy.)

Here are the things I like about working at a small company:

I can wear jeans and not shave one day and no one notices.

There's pretty much one focus: build a business. Not "build a business, but don't step on Consumer Products' toes or go around Ad Sales, which is incompetent, or upset the mercurial head of Marketing or say anything bad about the chairman's son-in-law who heads eMedia."

If you have an idea, it probably hasn't been tried yet. At NBCU they've already automated the elevator system, outsourced accounting to Bangalore, and super-sized their shows during sweeps. At some point they'll have to start recycling old, boring, stale ideas like "create good shows."

At the end of every week I can state exactly what I accomplished.

Here are the things I don't like about working at a small company:

CFO stresses about cost of paper clips.

The foam arm of my chair is crumbling.

"Matching 401K? Ha-ha."

Lovely West 35th Street.