Started at ILX − 9 April, 2001
I began working at ILX (Thomson Financial bought them out later) on this day. My boss, Lena, welcomed me and I did the obligatory department tour and the security card photo. The building was 111 Fulton Street in downtown Manhattan. it was light years from Doubleclick. Instead of people in casual dress and cubes of red and grey and walls very similar and windows galore, it was people in business casual-formal, grey cubes, white walls, and about 13 windows on each floor.
I felt like I worked in a basement for a while because I rarely left my cube due to the fact that I didn't know anyone. I was also known as the guy that was "surprised" by the dot-com bubble bursting even though i wasn't. Only now have I developed friendships with people there and I've been there for 6 years next April.
Being that it was a completely different type of culture, it took some getting used to. Many people didn't understand ideas I brought to the table and automatically thought my ideas were from the dot-com bust and said things like, "Those ideas don't work for real companies, Brian."
I did like working for a private company though. I was turned off of public companies due to Doubleclick offering useless stock options instead of increased wages for a job well done. Public companies are often slaves to their stockholders and people in those positions in old world business, especially finance, are often against change and swift progress.
One day, a rumor started that Thomson Corporation was buying out ILX, it turns out that Thomson was a principle investor in ILX from the beginning and they were just exercising their right to take over. The rumor became true very quickly, a day later actually. Thomson Financial, in essence, used the ILX Workstation platform as a basis for it's Thomson ONE product it provides to Financial analysts and brokers all across the world.
Thomson removed ILX's CEO and many upper management personnel and gave the old boys of Thomson those positions and moved almost all the employees of ILX into a new building near Greenwich Village. We're (as in all of Thomson Financial's smaller companies that make up the division) still trying to consolidate into one, more cohesive unit. It's taking a long time, but we're getting better every day.
Overall, the inital rumors about "Big Bad Thomson" were wrong. It's a great company to work for and all the people in my department that wanted to be and that were truly worth a shit are still there. I'm proud to work there and the culture is more like an Internet company one now. But I miss being at 111 Fulton, because I loved going to the South Street Seaport for lunch all the time.
I felt like I worked in a basement for a while because I rarely left my cube due to the fact that I didn't know anyone. I was also known as the guy that was "surprised" by the dot-com bubble bursting even though i wasn't. Only now have I developed friendships with people there and I've been there for 6 years next April.
Being that it was a completely different type of culture, it took some getting used to. Many people didn't understand ideas I brought to the table and automatically thought my ideas were from the dot-com bust and said things like, "Those ideas don't work for real companies, Brian."
I did like working for a private company though. I was turned off of public companies due to Doubleclick offering useless stock options instead of increased wages for a job well done. Public companies are often slaves to their stockholders and people in those positions in old world business, especially finance, are often against change and swift progress.
One day, a rumor started that Thomson Corporation was buying out ILX, it turns out that Thomson was a principle investor in ILX from the beginning and they were just exercising their right to take over. The rumor became true very quickly, a day later actually. Thomson Financial, in essence, used the ILX Workstation platform as a basis for it's Thomson ONE product it provides to Financial analysts and brokers all across the world.
Thomson removed ILX's CEO and many upper management personnel and gave the old boys of Thomson those positions and moved almost all the employees of ILX into a new building near Greenwich Village. We're (as in all of Thomson Financial's smaller companies that make up the division) still trying to consolidate into one, more cohesive unit. It's taking a long time, but we're getting better every day.
Overall, the inital rumors about "Big Bad Thomson" were wrong. It's a great company to work for and all the people in my department that wanted to be and that were truly worth a shit are still there. I'm proud to work there and the culture is more like an Internet company one now. But I miss being at 111 Fulton, because I loved going to the South Street Seaport for lunch all the time.
