Startup Fiance

Oh Toblerone, your potential as a main stream chocolate bar seems so promising, so why is it that you are so inaccessible?

Is being difficult a Swiss thing?

There once was a roommate named Toblerone. Toblerone and Butterfinger’s tumultuous relationship began at the startup call center company they were both employed at a few years ago. At one point in time, Toblerone was between apartments and Butterfinger, being the extraordinarily altruistic individual that he is, offered for him to stay with us until he could find a suitable place. Up until this point Butterfinger and Toblerone had a mostly work-based relationship, with the occasional happy hour celebration thrown into the mix a few times a month. As we began to learn more about Toblerone, he began to discover more about us, and he would become better and better at knowing exactly what buttons to push at exactly the wrong time.

As the name suggests, Toblerone is an outspoken Swissman, with a tendency toward European chocolate and fine wine. While living with us, his perfect evening consisted of melting some stinky cheese on a baguette or some otherwise absurdly hardened chunk of bread, a glass of water, and a Men’s Health magazine. He never greeted the dogs with a pat on the head or a hello, he would always put his palm up to them and make some dog-whisperer-esque PFFFT or TSSSSTTT sound, which confused them so much that it inadvertently ended up having its intended effect of making them kept their distance. He never spent much time in the living room or kitchen, instead you could find him in his room with his computer, and now that I think back – he was probably creating diagrams on how best to piss off Butterfinger.

Toblerone graced our presence for a few short months, and after he returned to his partying bachelor lifestyle on the coast, he started to make a more concentrated effort to get into Butterfinger’s head. His early behavior can most easily be compared to the role of the stereotypical bad friend that they warned you about in DARE (drug abuse resistance education for those that may not know). He would always seem to come out of the cracks with a late night phone call or instant message trying to peer pressure Butterfinger into coming out to a club or a house party to get wasted. When Butterfinger would refuse these advances, Toblerone would instantly get defensive and use his best French-accented English to tell Butterfinger that he is a “pussy”, and gently coax him with my personal favorite line “come on ma-an”.

When the idea for the startup came into fruition, Butterfinger asked Toblerone to be involved because of his knowledge in the field, formal education as a programmer, and their similarities as colleagues. It soon became apparent that this was a match worse than a colorblind man wearing one red sock and one green sock. While the colorblind man can continue his day to day activities without catching any backlash for mismatching his footwear, Butterfinger was having a hard time getting anything accomplished with Toblerone’s conservative and pessimistic attitude about everything.

Butterfinger’s original incentive for working with Toblerone was based on his experience and knowledge in programming. Butterfinger had always envisioned his early startup stages resembling that of two college kids in a dorm programming together, but upon countless requests, Toblerone denied him that opportunity by refusing to come to our home to work. At this crossroads Butterfinger offered to move his office to Toblerone’s domicile, but Toblerone was quick to dismiss this proposal with a sub par excuse. When Butterfinger would request programming assistance or further elaboration on an infrastructure concept, Toblerone would give no explanation on how it could be done, instead choosing to patronize Butterfinger’s programming capabilities. When Butterfinger would ask Toblerone to review or assist with a new feature, Toblerone would be quick to point out aesthetic characteristics of minor importance that he found to be displeasing, instead of focusing on the mechanics of the feature at hand. It seemed that at every opportunity to do so, Toblerone would stoke the fire that he knew he could start by repeating this behavior.

From this point about five months ago their relationship hit a landslide traveling at free fall speed. Toblerone’s morose disposition has forced Butterfinger to distance himself from such negativity and malignant energy, which set into motion a chain reaction ending with Toblerone’s need to set Butterfinger off into hyperdrive. Most often this destructive behavior took place via telephone, although they have met on several instances since things started to sour.

These phone calls would last hours and the discussions had to be laid out on the telephone because Toblerone continued to refuse to come over to the house. They oftentimes consisted of Toblerone attacking Butterfinger’s work ethic and commitment, which would usually lead into a debate about working for yourself, and the conversations generally ended unsettled and hostile. Lately the phone calls have tapered off, but there was a period of time when Toblerone would call a few times a week to check in and see how things were going, just so he could get Butterfinger riled up.

Although this post may seem to portray Toblerone as an annoyance and hindrance to the startup, I think his behavior and pessimistic attitude has taught Butterfinger and myself some important lessons about doing business with friends and the type of people you need to surround yourself with in life. Toblerone is a great person to have as a friend, but he sucks at driving automobiles, and he is not a good fit for the startup at this time. Perhaps you will make a loyal employee.