New Waves

by Kevin Nguyen

  “I can’t believe that guy. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.”

  “It happens. This is how people are.”

  “Yeah, and they keep acting that way if nobody says anything.”

  “You’re not gonna change someone’s mind by harassing them on the subway.”

  “I’m the harasser?”

  “I just don’t think you need to stand up for us when it happens. Like, I don’t need to be protected from a guy saying ‘chink.’ I hear it all the time.”

  A moment passed, and it seemed like the whole incident would blow over.

  “I don’t know why you’re not angrier,” Jill said.

  Now I was getting angry. But not at the guy on the subway. At Jill. How did she think it was her place to tell me how to feel about being called a chink? I didn’t like it. But I also wasn’t going to let it ruin my day by making a big deal out of it.

  “Would you have stood up and confronted that guy if I wasn’t there?” I asked.

  I’ll never forget the look Jill gave me then.

  “How could you ask me that?”

  When we arrived at the dumpling place we were both still fuming. We ate in silence, then went our separate ways.

  * * *

  —

  AS I WALKED IN the door, Brandon told me I looked unwell, like I might need another day off. I debated telling him that I hadn’t slept the night before, but instead laughed dismissively in his general direction and walked straight to my desk. I clicked around on my desktop, not exactly doing anything for a minute, before I realized Brandon was standing behind me.

  “Just wanted to follow up on the project.”

  “Mmm?”

  “The email project.”

  Brandon had assigned me the “email project” a few weeks before the layoffs. I’d been too busy managing the customer support team to make any meaningful progress. Now I had no excuse.

  “Oh yeah, I am working on a planning document.” (I wasn’t.) “Should be done by the end of today.”

  “Excellent, excellent.” I could never tell if Brandon repeated words to add emphasis, or because he often struggled to think of another word.

  I turned back to my computer, assuming Brandon had left. He had not. He pulled up a chair next to me.

  “You know you can take it easy. I know you’re still feeling a little raw about the customer service stuff. If you want time off, I can pass the email project off to someone else.”

  I wanted to appreciate Brandon’s offer, but I didn’t want to give him any path to feeling less guilty about what he had done: suddenly and swiftly robbing people of their jobs. I thanked him, assured him I was doing just fine, and wondered if he would leave me alone this time. He did.

  The growth of our user base had flatlined, and a larger and larger piece of the pool that remained was dropping from active to dormant. Active users were people who opened Phantom regularly, sent messages often enough for us to consider them valuable. Dormant users were those who had at one time used Phantom and had since fallen off. I’d always found that phrasing to be peculiar, as if dormant users were just asleep, waiting to be awakened once again.

  “We just have to reengage these people,” Brandon explained. “Remind them how great Phantom is.”

  This meant email. Lots of email. Brandon said these kinds of projects were called “win-back campaigns,” and they were the most effective ways to reactivate dormant users.

  I’d first heard the term “win-back” from Margo back at Nimbus, which had been an operation that was large and organized enough to have already automated something like this. She’d hated saying “win-back.” It supported her theory that all of technology was invented by horny ex-boyfriends who assumed the affections of another person could be won, like a prize, with enough perseverance. What if these startup bros could just understand when some things were gone, they were gone forever? What if they considered that with some things, you only get one shot, and if you blow it, you’ve blown it for good?

  The first step was to come up with email copy. We would test different messaging to determine the most effective “win-back” language. I created a new document and started writing down ideas.

  Subject line: Long time no see

  Subject line: It’s been a while

  Subject line: See what you’ve been missing

  No matter how I wrote it, it sounded pathetic.

  Subject line: Did you forget about us?

  Subject line: We miss you

  Subject line: Come back

  Brandon told me to run copy ideas by Emil, since, like me, he had nothing to do once we’d decided Phantom was a lawless platform. Emil suggested that I come up with ten to twenty variations, and explained that we could “A/B test” them. I asked him what that meant. Emil rolled his eyes, expressing just how ridiculous it was that someone wouldn’t already know. He explained: We could send different groups of users unique subject lines and test to see which one was most likely to be opened.

  “It’s like creating parallel dimensions,” he said, “except the only difference between the two is that in the A universe we’ve sent the subject line ‘Long time no see,’ and in the B universe we wrote ‘It’s been a while.’ ”

  I told him that if we had the technology to create parallel dimensions, this was the most boring thing we could possibly do with it. He did not appreciate the joke and moved on to something else.

  I went back to my desk and attempted more subject lines. I stared at the screen for a long time, hoping the words would just materialize. Somehow hours passed, and when Emil came by again to express his polite impatience, I told him he’d just have to make do with what I had.

  Subject line: ajdklfja

  Subject line: askdjklfajsdl

  Subject line: aklsdjjskldjfalksjfjio

  * * *

  —

  AFTER OUR ARGUMENT ON the subway, Jill and I didn’t speak for a few days. I wasn’t mad, but I didn’t feel like talking.

  Without evenings at Jill’s or any steady thing to do at work, I found myself sliding back into the same habits I’d had earlier. I showed up late to the office, barely did anything at my desk, went home and drank by myself. At night, I could just focus on transcribing the rest of Margo’s stories, which I’d do until I passed out.

  At work, Emil was frustrated with me, since I was the only thing holding up the win-back project. All he needed was copy for the email, and I kept reassuring him that I was working on it even though I clearly was not. I promised that it would be done by the end of the week. By Friday, I still hadn’t written a word.

  * * *

  —

  I WOKE UP ON Sunday to a string of frantic texts and voicemails from Brandon. I was feeling groggy, but I showered quickly and headed into the office. As I approached the building, I saw Emil by the elevator.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Emil asked, looking both concerned and pissed off that he had to be at work on a weekend.

  We found him in the conference room.

  “I sent the win-back emails,” Brandon said, as if it was some kind of confession.

  “Those aren’t ready,” Emil said. “Lucas hasn’t finished copy for them.”

  “I know. I wrote them myself.”

  “Oh, okay. What’s the problem then?”

  Brandon turned his laptop around to show us his screen. It was his inbox, and the most recent messages were:

  Subject line: Long time no see

  Subject line: It’s been a while

  Subject line: See what you’ve been missing

  Subject line: Did you forget about us?

  Subject line: We miss you

  Subject line: Come back

  Subject line: ajdklfja

  Subject line: askdjklfajsdl

  Subject line: aklsdjjskld
jfalksjfjio

  I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Brandon leaned back in his chair and put his hands over his eyes. “I fucked up.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  Emil was typing and clicking furiously. “Why didn’t you wait for us to do this?”

  “I thought if I could send these win-back emails over the weekend, I could cause a spike in active users.”

  Brandon was flying out to San Francisco tomorrow to meet more investors, and it had been a last-ditch attempt to make it appear like Phantom’s growth hadn’t flatlined.

  “What is up with these subject lines anyway?” he asked.

  “I just had some placeholders in there until I could finish writing,” I said.

  “And what was taking so long with the writing anyway?”

  “You’re not going to turn this around on me. I’m not the one who sent out the emails before they were ready.”

  Emil wasn’t finished, though. He was slowly understanding the gravity of what Brandon had just done. “Instead of receiving one of the test treatments, every person got nine separate emails with nine different subject lines all at once,” he explained.

  So what Brandon had showed us in his inbox—the consecutive messages in a row—was what everyone had gotten. Best-case scenario, it had flagged spam filters and maybe no one would see them. But more likely than not, users were probably confused as to why the messaging service they no longer used would send them nine emails in a row, asking for them to come back, like a wildly needy ex.

  “That’s not great, but it’s not the end of the world,” I said. “It’s embarrassing but we were only targeting a few thousand people for the first test anyway.”

  “It…went out to more people than that,” Brandon admitted.

  “How many more?”

  Emil tapped around a little more on the laptop.

  “Holy shit. You sent this to two hundred million people? Where did you even get a list like this?”

  But I knew exactly where Brandon had gotten those email addresses. I hadn’t a single doubt where they came from. Emil kept yelling, but I was staring straight at Brandon. He looked upset, but not nearly upset enough. Brandon knew exactly what he had done.

  * * *

  —

  I UNDERSTOOD THAT EVEN quiet people need to let off steam. And Emil really let it off, for about half an hour, at Brandon, basically until he had run out of things to yell about. With that, Emil packed his stuff and headed out, fuming. On his way out, he asked if I wanted to grab a drink—the first time he’d ever offered to spend time with me—but I told him I’d catch up with him later.

  Brandon and I were silent until Emil cleared the vicinity, until we heard the front door of the office close and the locks click into place.

  “I know what you did.”

  Brandon eyed me for a moment, then let out an unconvincing “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The list. From Nimbus.” I stepped closer, didn’t break eye contact. “I know.”

  He didn’t seem intimidated. Or surprised. He betrayed nothing.

  “Before Margo and I quit Nimbus, we copied the database of all their users, including all of their email addresses. There were two hundred million of them. Kind of an odd coincidence, isn’t it?”

  Now Brandon looked annoyed. “Is that what you think happened?”

  “It’s exactly what happened,” I said. “But what I want to know is: How did you get the database from Margo?”

  “She came to me, after you two stole Nimbus’s data—which I might add was hugely unethical and immoral.”

  “And what does that make you, the person who bought it?”

  “I didn’t buy it.”

  “Then how did you end up with it?”

  “She gave it to me.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “You know what I think? You used that as leverage. You used her offer as blackmail, to get her to come here and work for you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Margo came to me because she knew what she’d done was wrong. And she wanted me to tell her how to fix it. She was terrified.”

  “Why would she go to you?”

  From the breast pocket of his collared shirt, Brandon pulled out a cigarette. From his pants, a lighter.

  “You smoke?”

  He lit the cigarette.

  “You smoke in the office?”

  “I only allow myself one cigarette I bring from home, and I only smoke it on the weekends, when no one else is here.”

  Brandon spoke with a long, exaggerated drag and exhale. He looked like an idiot.

  “Lucas, you act like you’re the only person that knew Margo. Like you were the only person in her world.”

  “You two were friends before she started working here?”

  “I would say it was…more involved than that.”

  I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t.

  “There’s no way you two were together. I would have known.” I was yelling now.

  “Well, you didn’t. So I don’t know what to tell you.” Brandon took another drag. “You’re not the only one who lost something.”

  I felt the anger welling up in my stomach, my body getting warmer. I was furious at Brandon, even though, rationally, I knew he’d done nothing wrong. Really, I was mad at Margo for keeping this from me—why wouldn’t she tell me?—but you can’t yell at a dead person.

  “What kind of boss dates one of their employees?”

  “Okay, let’s not pretend that you didn’t have a thing for Nora—”

  “Nina,” I corrected, which I realized immediately was a confession.

  “Margo and I were involved before she started working here. You were Nina’s manager and you acted inappropriately with her. So don’t lecture me about inappropriate behavior in the workplace.”

  “Wait, how did you know about that?”

  “She filed an HR complaint. And since there’s no HR here, it just went to me.”

  I’d had no idea. I mean, Nina had not reacted positively when I was trying to comfort her. But to write a formal complaint about it?

  “Why would she tell you about it? She could’ve just…told me that I’d done something wrong.” I felt the need to explain myself, but could only muster, “We were close.”

  “How do you tell your manager—who creepily touched your arm at the office—that he’s a complete asshole?”

  “I was just trying to do the right thing.”

  “Well, she doesn’t feel the same way.” Brandon rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, though, Lucas. I took care of it. Because that’s what a good boss does.”

  “What do you mean you took care of it?”

  “In exchange for a couple weeks of severance, Nina signed some paperwork. You’re off the hook.”

  I’d fucked up, and Brandon was priding himself on protecting me from the consequences. I was mad at myself for not understanding the situation. It was humiliating, and that feeling now translated into anger at Brandon for hiding it. I wasn’t exactly the kind of person to get in a fistfight, but the thought of pounding his smug face was deeply satisfying. I’d just watched Emil yell at Brandon for half an hour and it seemed not to have any kind of effect on him. What I wanted was for Brandon to feel bad. As bad as possible. Not physical but existential pain. For him to question the decisions he’d made that had brought him here, the very nature of who he had become.

  But I didn’t know how to make a person feel that way, so I reached across the conference table, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, and tossed it on the floor.

  “Come on, man.”

  “You shouldn’t smoke.” I stood up and walked away. Just as I reached the front doors, I turned, searching for something to say, but he was lighting another cigarette, the fucking liar.

 
; * * *

  —

  THE FIRST BAR I found was bad. Very bad. But it didn’t matter. I’d never understood people who were picky about where they went to get very drunk.

  I rolled into a place by my apartment around midnight and ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey.

  “What kind of beer?” the bartender asked.

  “Your cheapest.”

  “And whiskey?”

  “Your cheapest.”

  I must’ve looked like hell. By that point, I’d been drinking all day. The bartender—a clean-shaven, mostly trim guy in his early thirties—looked me up and down with the casual concern of an off-duty cop. He asked if he was going to have to keep an eye on me, which was less of a question and more of a warning. I waved him away.

  I’d sent Nina an apology text, and immediately started drinking. I don’t know why I thought I would hear back. Five drinks later, when they were closing, the bartender asked me to settle up. I fished a handful of loose bills out of my pocket and started counting. He poured two more whiskeys, drank one in an impressive gulp, and said the other was for me.

  “This one’s on the house, but these drinks aren’t helping, kid.”

  I usually hated being called “kid,” but this time it didn’t bother me. He was right. My behavior was downright childish.

  I started talking and couldn’t stop. It was late and there were just the two of us. I talked about Jill, about Brandon and Phantom, about Nina and how I was a complete creep, about the headache that seemed to weigh me down as I rested my head facedown on the bar. But mostly, I talked about Margo.

  He was putting away glasses and wiping down the long wooden countertops from end to end. Barstools were turned upside down and set in their place.

  “I have this friend,” he began. “Her mother passed recently. It was sudden. A car accident—just driving along one day, it’s rainy, car spins out and hits a tree. She dies immediately. Awful, awful story. My friend, she gets a phone call with the terrible news in the middle of the night.