My Second Life

It has been months since I posted an update to this blog, and you have probably noticed that the Pütz is still not available. This fact makes me very sad. It is a shame to my family name. Meanwhile, the Zune is winning awards and taking the public by storm. It is not right that a product design stolen from DuroSport is doing so well while we struggle to ship the real thing.

You probably wonder why it takes us so long to get our new media player out to the public. You are probably waiting with your money, hoping to buy a Pütz very soon. I know the feeling. Even though I’ll get one for free, I would gladly pay for a product as advanced as the Pütz will be.

So what is our problem? In my opinion, it feels like we are losing our focus.

First of all, the marketing consultants are sending me off chasing wild geese. This blog that you are reading was the first one. While I am glad to have the opportunity to speak directly to our loyal customers, I would be happier if our new product was on the market. Then there was The MySpace. I can’t tell you what a waste of time that was. Worst of all, our Chief Product Engineer Vladamir jumped on The MySpace bandwagon and has been wasting most of his days there chatting with his new girlfriends. He’s even letting them suggest new product features! The Pütz is way past the point when new features should be introduced. If you want to know why the Pütz isn’t available yet, it’s because there are teenage girls on The MySpace telling Vladamir how to design our products.

Now the marketing consultants tell me we need to get The Second Life. What’s The Second Life, I ask? It’s some sort of “virtual” reality world. Apparently, some people don’t get enough reality in the real world, so they need to create another world where they can get even more reality – although not real reality, but “virtual” reality. It’s all very confusing to me. But, it’s big with “the kids,” so we have to do it.

So now we are starting a new DuroSport project in The Second Life, but it’s very confidential at this point. I can’t give you any details – except to say that it will probably delay the Pütz even further, which is the last thing we need right now when we are losing so much market share to the Zune.

Anyway, this past week I signed up for The Second Life (because I had to), and let me tell you, there are many things about this “virtual” reality world that bug me.

• I can’t have my own last name. So what’s wrong with the name Nero Tarlev? I am proud of my family name. But for some reason, in The Second Life, I have to pick another family name. The name of a family I know nothing about. So I’ve become Nero Rang. Why? Because it will hopefully remind you to return my phone calls.
• There is no Moldova in The Second Life. This baffles me. During the signup process, I was asked to enter the name of my home country. There was a huge list of every country in the world EXCEPT Moldova! Instead, the closest option is Moldavia!!!! As EVERYONE knows, that’s not the same thing. What are they trying to do? Start a civil war in The Second Life?!
• The currency exchange rate is too complicated. There is a thing called the Linden. First of all, who’s ever heard of The Linden? I called the bank that handles all of DuroSport’s banking, and they had never even heard of it. And yet, I’m supposed to convert my Moldovan Leu to Linden? How’s that supposed to happen? I’ve checked all of the currency converters on The Internets, and not one of them can convert Leu to Linden.
• Too many meetings! I’ve posted before about how many meetings we have here at DuroSport and how it sometimes seems like I can’t do my job because I’m spending all of my time in meetings. And now that I have The Second Life, it turns out I have meetings there as well. I’m even having more meetings in my First Life because of my meetings in The Second Life. How is this supposed to make DuroSport better? Please, no more meetings. Let’s just finish the Pütz and sell more DuroSport players.
• Worst of all, Vladamir is now running around The Second Life dressed like a pirate. I am losing my patience with that man. We are very close to looking for a new Chief Product Engineer.

I could go on, but I’ve already said too much. So if you don’t hear from me for a while, it is because I am trapped in The Second Life.