#241: Bird House

Something’s going on. I’ve had this strange vibe for months, ever since the Canlis dinner with Artie where he was so cryptic about why it takes 25 people in a downtown office to put out five single-panel comics every week. Especially when kids all over the Internet are doing it basically solo. When Marv was here, it was just the 4 of us, which was arguably more than we needed. Then after the SynrSys acquisition, the Committee came in, along with Legal, Ad Sales, Licensing, etc, and we started this whole Holacracy HR experiment. The insurance & benefits are fantastic, so I’m not exactly complaining, but I keep finding more expense reports in the copy room. Everyone else seems to paying for all their personal expenses on their corporate Amex cards, without consequence. I tried it myself and bought lunch for everyone the other day despite spending the entire time talking about the Game of Thrones finale, and heard not a word from accounting. So I let it go again, but then Inky just closed on a 3BR/2.5BA “mid-century charmer” on the north end of Green Lake, for which he paid a small fortune. The real estate market in Seattle is crazy, so it’s not like he bought a mansion (& actually it’s disappointing what you get for that kind of money these days). But a small fortune is still a fortune. He didn’t actually tell us what he paid for it, but he sent out a new address email and we all went straight to Zillow to look at the selling price. He did just win a Golden Square at PanelCon. And maybe he’s got family money, I don’t know. I’m not usually a keeping up with the Joneses kind of person, but these things are adding up. Something is going on and even after my last accidental promotion, I am definitely not in on it. But I’m starting to feel the corp Amex warming up in my back pocket, so I may go in for some retail therapy this weekend while I try to figure this out. -Ed.