The Seven Year Itch - Employee Changes

A 1955 film by Billy Wilder starring Marilyn Monroe (The film in which her dress is blown up past her waist as a subway passes underneath) has created a phrase used to describe failing interest in the monogamy of marriage or disinterest after the honeymoon period of a relationship.

Marriages are not the only relationships that can have a seven year itch. The average lifespan for an employee at a creative studio is 3 years. From running the studio I know there are a few people that dont workout within the first year and that offsets the people who last much longer. In March of 2008 after 7 years, the first employee hired at Hatchling, Jeremy Clough, decided it was his time to go on his own. Personally this was very tough for me since he had become one of my closests friends and my most trusted compatriot. As a creative person Jeremy needed to push new boundaries that were not in line with the rest of the companies skillsets. While his departure did become a great opportunity for 2 very creative people previously under him, it took a piece of my heart and love for working that took me a few months to get over, and finally be able to write about.

When Jeremy opened the door for leaving after 7 years another person who I used to call my brother from another mother took the opportunity to announce his departure as well. Dustin was our main client representative on the interactive side of the business and they all loved him. With these 2 very key people gone our new President who was hired in late January took the opportunity to instill some more process that was not working out with the few of us that still did things as if we were 4 cowboys doing all the work. This process changed really helped unify team members.








In Early July it was clear that the though the new president had some great ideas they were not in line with what drove me to start and continue to run the company so we parted ways. With him another long time staff member is taking a part time role in the company because as we focus more and more on rich media and less on backend web development and databases he is looking for other opportunities that will help him grow.

These 3 key players and friends helped shape the company as to what it is today and they did it with having very few years of experience before they came to Hatchling. That is a similar story of many of the people that come to Hatchling, a real New Englander mentality of we can do it.





With departure comes opportunity and because of their great work and the comradery among all the team players the word on the street is very positive about working for us and the last 6 or 7 people I have interviewed are extremely excited about the opportunity to work at Hatchling. And often they are leaving a place they have been working for 7 years or so and are just looking for a change.