Return of The Amazing Spider-Van

Spidey sense was right after all

Once upon a time, I was sold to a customer as part of an Enterprise Software Bundle (AKA Enterprise Agreement or Microsoft EA).

The customer wasn’t sure they needed all this software, so Microsoft said - don’t fret, we’ll throw in a warm body to show you how amazing it all is. A carbon-based life form is useful to coax the best work out of all those silicon-based machines.

But first, I had to show up and prove I was the human they were looking for. My gladiator moment came at AT&T Park, home to the San Francisco Giants. In Microsoft’s luxury box (ironically named the Oracle suites) Andrew Spiderman prepared for the show.

The sponsor of the EA was a big square guy with a grand mustache and a heavy accent. I remember he liked cigars - so in addition to throwing people at him, the sales team would ply him with boxes of Cubans.

One of the sales guys ushered me over to sit on his lap and I must’ve passed the test because for the next year I was Schwab’s personal brain-on-a-stick. I took BART over into the city and did the 8-5 grind daily at their office just below Market street. This was early in my tenure at Microsoft, and it was the closest I ever got to having a standard desk job.

Ok, no, I didn’t sit on his lap. I was introduced, firm handshake, and sat with him for an inning peppered with random awkward exchanges like if the Giants had a chance this year … or something like that. Who remembers this nonsense?

Bought and paid for by the sales team, I was their mole. Their man on the inside. The Microsoft office was a few blocks away on Market street in a gorgeous old AT&T building gutted and modernized with big steel girders busting throughout, reborn through the dotcom boom and bust. I’d grab a fat chocolate cookie from Specialties bakery on my way up from the Schwab office to the Microsoft office, and sit in the weekly sales strategy meetings, bored out of my gourd.

The Schwab sales exec was very buttoned up - it was her job to know and cultivate relationships with every key player on the account, and she was good at her job. Every path to power or influence was explored. She didn’t know much about software, but that’s where the rest of the sales team came in.

The Solution Specialist on the team was my ally. If I was Robin, he was Batman. But I’m Spiderman in this (and every) story, so he was my squeeze Mary Jane. We’d shoot the shit about customer and account team drama and brainstorm ways to get Schwab to use more of our software. He was an older guy - wise as I am now - and after the sales meetings I’d sit in his office and tell him my problems and he’d help me work through them.

One time I went in to see him and noticed he was looking at Sailboats on his computer. I was surprised by this. He thought of things other than work? Over that year I came to realize he looked at Sailboats a lot.

He was ready for the next thing, but it wasn’t yet his to take.

Years later - the year before I retired from Microsoft - I got the same bug. For me it wasn’t a sailboat, it was a camper van and I named it - The Amazing Spider-Van. She represented freedom, what was next and nearly in my reach.

I followed #vanlife influencers on Instagram. I subscribed to YouTubers who got loaner vans and vlogged their trips with extensive walkthroughs on their channels. I found the local shops that did custom builds and created my ideal floor plan. I conduced DEEP research on the best toilets for a poo palace on wheels. On weekends I’d tee up the highlights to watch in bed with JFran.

My van fantasy got me through that last year, it quieted my increasing loud spidey-sense telling me it was time for a change.

When I finally left Microsoft, there was other stuff to do, so we put it off. This is the year. I pick up The Amazing Spider-Van Tuesday.

Where should we go?

Best, Andrew