No Vision All Drive, 3rd Edition

Chapter 10 Why End It?

It was certainly Rolf and Rick’s biggest concern.

“Before we buy you,” they said, “we want to be sure that you’re going to stick around.”

“Of course I’m going to stick around,” I said. “I’m too young to retire and I love Pinpoint too much.”

That’s what I said and I meant it. And for the first year or so it remained true. I enjoyed working on fixing WesTech. I enjoyed learning about the ins and outs of working for a publicly traded company.

However, it gradually became drudgery. You had to keep selling more, you were only as good as your most recent quarter, you had to watch to make sure customers didn’t owe you too much, and you had to deal with audits, accountants, revenue recognition policies, and countless other details. Pinpoint was no longer the company it had been in the early days. Products and customers were a means to an end rather than the purpose itself. I felt like I had become a corporate drone; I yearned for the early days when it was just a few of us trying to make something out of nothing.

It only took one year for me to realize that I wasn’t going to be in it for the long haul. At the second sales meeting that Bob and I attended, a year into the acquisition, I noticed that ZOLL sales reps had tenure ribbons on their name badges that said “five years” or “10 years.”

“I should have one that says three left,” I said to Bob.

Although nothing in my employment agreement or the acquisition agreement compelled me to stay, I felt that I owed ZOLL ...