Why startups aren't gothic

Newsgroups: alt.gothic 
From: lemay@netcom.com (Killer of Trees) 
Subject: Re: Are startups goth? 
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 17:14:14 GMT

In article <JET.94Jul18163810@abulafia.genmagic.com>
jet@abulafia.genmagic.com (J. Eric Townsend) asked: 
>Are startups goth?

Answer: No, they’re not (you should have asked me this before you started. :). On the one hand, they do let you dress funny and dye your hair weird colors and they consider it a plus for your reputation (because you *must* be brilliant in order to get away with it). On the other hand, after 6 months or so of 100-hour weeks and crushing deadline after crushing deadline after crushing deadline, you won’t care what you look like, and you’ll stagger into work every day wearing the same jeans n t-shirt (well, not the *same* jeans n t-shirt but jeans and t-shirts that are all remarkably similar because its an easy no-brainer to put them on in the morning). And then you’ll stop going to clubs because you need all your spare time for sleeping and it gets really painful trying to do the work you need to do with a bad hangover and 2 hours sleep. And then you’ll realize 2 years or so down the road that you’ve gained 20lbs because you do nothing except sit at your desk all day, you haven’t worn eye makeup in six months, your cool red/black/blue/purple hair has grown out into its natural color and any semblance you had of a social life is long, long gone and what has all this work gotten you, really, in the big plan of life? so then the whole concept of how fucked up your life is from working at a startup will make you really depressed and you’ll sit there in front of your computer for 14 hours a day sobbing quietly and withering away in utter and total despair, which is actually quite gothic so I suppose in the long run yes, startups are gothic.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.