Today’s a sad day for me.
After five years, the Solid Cactus Technology Center in Shavertown, PA will see the last team member turn out the lights at midnight and go home. Tomorrow they report to their new home which they will share with Network Solutions in Drums, PA.
Six years ago, when Solid Cactus was growing at a phenomenal rate, we outgrew our digs in downtown Wilkes-Barre and had to start looking for a new place to call home. After scouting out several different locations we settled on a one-hundred year old school building in scenic Kingston Township. The laughter of children in the playground had ceased years before and the building had suffered from a decade of neglect and damage from Mother Nature.
I’ll admit that it took me several walk-thrus to get a vision for how this building with its multiple classrooms, huge gym, decaying walls and leaking ceilings would make a transformation into viable office space for nearly 200 employees.
I’ll also admit that it wasn’t my first choice, but I was constantly told by the other execs on my team to “keep an open mind.” If it weren’t for just the right amount of parking spots we would need, my “open mind” would have been sealed shut.
I ended up negotiating a lease and for the next eight months started my workday at 6am alongside contractors, architects, demolition guys, electricians and painters supervising the transformation from the Westmoreland Elementary School to the Solid Cactus Technology Center. Some of them were characters. Like the plumber who took his teeth out and placed them gingerly in his shirt pocket every day before he ate his ham and cheese sandwich. He died not too long after the project, may he rest in peace. Then there was the carpet guy who broke wind and shat himself leading to an abrupt end to his workday. The day he just happened to be driving his wife’s new Jaguar.
From the size of offices to the color of the carpet and paint, I immersed myself into a project I took great pride in. This was to be our home and I wanted it to be a place people wanted to walk into every morning, rather than a place they dreaded coming to.
During those eight months, I learned a lot about construction. I learned that drywall dust is a bitch to get off your clothes. I learned that the Converse Chucks I wore everyday weren’t providing enough protection for the multiple nails I stepped on. I learned that the laborers work best when their paint covered boom boxes are playing bluegrass or country music. I learned that expensive fiber optic cable doesn’t work very well when someone crimps it while installing ceiling blocks. I learned that winter is the worst time to try to schedule a crane to bring in huge HVAC units that need to go on the roof.
Most of the construction took place in the dead of winter when there was no heat in the building and the only warmth was provided by big torpedo heaters that burned propane and had to be kept running all night to keep pipes from freezing. The same heaters one of the contractors left a bucket of carpet glue in front of one night. That was a hell of a mess to clean up the next morning.
I had my share of run-ins with the state building inspector who makes a living with a tape measure and a rule book. There were thermostats that needed to be moved three inches lower, a toilet paper dispenser that was a half-inch too far away from the end of the toilet bowl and a hot water pipe missing a little sign that said “Caution. Hot.”
A lot of work went into renovating three floors of a building in dire need of TLC, but in the end it was worth it. When the first group of employees moved into the first floor, the torpedo heaters were still there as work wasn’t completed on the HVAC system just yet. But spring was upon us and the temps were “bearable.” Even if you had to wear a sweater.
The second round of employees moved in a few weeks later and we hit the ground running. We had a ribbon cutting ceremony that attracted the hot shots of the local political world who patted us and themselves on the back before the wine and snick snacks. Some of us got a little drunk, I can’t remember who, but my car didn’t come home with me that night.
Among the invited guests were the last principal of the school along with several teachers who taught class there. As guests filtered in, members of the high school band played reminding many of the good times that were had in the gymnasium (and under the bleachers). I remember doing my welcome speech and glancing over at my father who was beaming ear-to-ear and thinking about my mother who was sure to be looking down on us proud of everyone’s accomplishments in making Solid Cactus one of the “Best Places to Work in PA.”
It was a few months later when we opened our house-run cafe to provide breakfast, lunch and snacks to our employees, a cue we took from Google and Yahoo!. We operated it on a break-even basis in order to provide low-cost options for those who didn’t want to leave the building to eat.
Speaking of Google and Yahoo!, since they played a huge part in our company they were given a subtle nod in the design of our home. Besides “Cactus Red” being a dominant paint color throughout the building and in the 3rd floor carpeting, walls were painted in Yahoo! Purple to symbolize our speciality in designing and programming Yahoo! eCommerce Stores while other walls were painted in blue, orange and green to match the colors of the Google logo to symbolize our connection to pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. Bathrooms stalls were outfitted with Cactus Red divider panels and black tile flooring.
There was nothing sterile about the color choices that went into this office space!
I tapped into the talent we had in our graphic design team and had giant wall murals commissioned to welcome visitors, show off our skills and add a major splash of flash to the space. The giant purple wall that ran the length of the second floor was home to the various awards we earned over the years along with newspaper clippings that told the story of our company’s history, culture and people.
The building was home to many of my eCommerce Boot Camps where online store owners would gather several times a year to take part in educational seminars on how to better run their business. Many a late night basketball game was conjured up among staffers and many a cigarette was smoked in the courtyard – rain or shine. You just can’t keep those smokers down!
I have a lot of fun memories about the building, but one in particular sticks out. In 2008, when we were forced to lay off some employees, we made the decision to move those who worked on the first floor, up to the second to cut back on heating and cooling costs. I asked one of our designers to design some artwork that we could put over the glass doors. He gave me several designs to choose from and I opted for one that gave the illusion that a swimming pool and conservatory were inside. In an attempt to give a plug to the company that installed the artwork, I blogged about the “pool” we had at the Technology Center.
The next day, I received an email from a local newspaper reporter who was “tipped off” by a laid off employee that we installed a swimming pool just weeks after cutbacks. I know it only took eight months to renovate the entire building, but I don’t think we could have dug out the building’s foundation, installed a pool and conservatory in its place in just two weeks!
Maybe I should have went with the shark tank design.
Today, as I walk through the building I see boxes awaiting the movers, walls that used to be covered in artistic murals now bare, and the sad look on employee’s faces as they finish up their shifts and prepare to bid farewell to their colorful, funky and unique home. Depending on their department, they’ll report to their new office tomorrow or Monday.
While the Solid Cactus name will live on, the place it and its team members will call home will bear the name of our parent company since 2009 – Web.com. All of us walking out of the building today have special memories of all the hours we spent inside working on helping our customers be eCommerce superstars. For me, it’s another chapter in the history books and a few more car loads of all the stuff I collected in my office over the years. Since I won’t be making the move to the company’s new location, I have to find a home for all this stuff.
Pictures, awards, clippings, a mannequin wearing a shirt with TheFerretStore.com logo on it reminding me of where it all started, a couple urns bearing the cremated remains of ferrets long gone, boxes full of old records from my days in radio with nothing to play them on, a picture of Kramer from Seinfeld that hangs in my private bathroom, two lava lamps, lots of stress balls, a bobble head or two, a pee pad for Baby the Chihuahua, a framed picture of the Queen Mary 2, an autographed photo of the Soprano’s cast complete with two bullets, a $6.99 Jack-in-the-Box from Cracker Barrel, and a cactus plant that was just a mere two feet tall when I got it and is now the same height as Wilt Chamberlain.
Many are calling it the end of an era. That’s too official sounding to me. I’ll just call it the end of what many knew as the “original” Solid Cactus and the beginning of a new chapter in the company’s – hopefully – long and prosperous history.
Ciao bambino and thanks for the memories.