“You look fresh.”

I joined Vignette in September 1997 as the company’s third SE. Jan Ryan explained to me that she had one guy in Chicago (Jerry Tavolino) who didn’t want to travel and one guy in the Bay Area (Nate Hess) who also didn’t want to travel, so my territory would be the entire US other than those two areas. I was young, single, footloose and fancy free, so I happily agreed. That’s how I wound up in New York for a series of sales calls with John Calamia. (At least I think it was Calamia. It was whoever the first New York sales rep was. Correct me if I’m wrong. For now, let’s just say it was Calamia.)

I decided to save the company some money by staying with a college buddy of mine who lived in Manhattan. This would prove to be a bad idea. And since my meetings didn’t start until the day after I arrived, he and I decided to go out for a drink after I landed. This would prove to be an even worse idea.

We gathered a few other friends and went out on the town. I was having a grand old time, reminiscing with college friends I hadn’t seen in years, drinking and talking, talking and drinking. At one point it seemed like it was getting pretty late, but the bars were still open so I didn’t give it much thought. We ran into someone famous—Jimmy Fallon? Adam Sandler?—and wound up having a couple of drinks with him. Then we went to another place and had a few more. Finally I knew it had to be time to be getting back and asked someone what time it was. 4am?! Turns out the bars in New York don’t close, or didn’t then. At least not the bars we went do. It took some time to convince my friends to leave, so by the time we got back to the apartment it was probably getting close to 5.

I set an alarm that would wake me in time to get up for my—oh, God!—8am meeting. I closed my eyes and what felt like ten seconds later the alarm went off. I got up and staggered around the apartment trying not to wake anyone, brushed my teeth, put on a wrinkled dress shirt and tie, got my suit out of my suitcase (oops), put it on, grabbed my laptop bag, and took the elevator down to the street.

It was raining. I walked backward, one hand holding an umbrella, the other in the air trying to hail a cab, my laptop bag slung over my shoulder, from my friend’s apartment at 34th and Second all the way to my meeting at JPMorgan Chase at 270 Park Avenue.

I made it into the building and up the little half-level escalator to the lobby. (This lobby.) Waiting for me was Calamia. “You look fresh,” he said icily.

We went directly to the boardroom on the top floor and set up. While I was connecting my laptop to the projector, I asked one of the Chase people as slyly as I could for directions to the men’s room. I was afraid I might have to bail out some time during the meeting and wanted to plan my escape route.

The meeting itself was a bit of a blur. I remember standing in the projector light in front of a room full of JPMorgan Chase executives. With a clammy sweat on my forehead, I went to through my demo as if on autopilot and focused on not throwing up. If looks could have killed, Calamia’s glare would have vaporized me on the spot.

I made it through my demo and we concluded the meeting and started packing up. As Calamia stalked toward me I thought clearly, “I’m going to get fired.” And that’s when our main contact at Chase, a sharp-dressed, fast-talking New Yorker, came up behind me, put both of his hands on my shoulders, and with a grin on his face said to Calamia, “This guy is awesome! You gotta keep him around!” I don’t know if Calamia ever called Jan to tell her about the incident but if not, I owe it to that guy.

As we headed out of the building, Calamia told me he was going to try to set up another couple of meetings for later in the day. I mumbled something about not feeling well, ducked into a cab, and went back to my friend’s apartment to sleep it off.

Thus ends Chapter One of the weighty tome “Things Charlie Should Have Been Fired For at Vignette”. Thank you, San Antonio! Good night!