Chapter 3 / Full Remote – Yes, I know that Skype is gone.

I blocked one hour in my calendar for couples therapy with Dr. Windheim. Outlook paints it in a threatening, fire engine red. “Private appointment,” Wednesday from 3 to 4 p.m.

“Private appointment?” Stephan asks in the quick morning meeting we’ve started doing every other day at eight, to go through the daily plan.

“Just a doctor thing.”

“Preventive prostate check?” Stephan says. “You’re at that age, my friend. You have to take care of yourself. It goes fast. Straight into a walker.”

“Laugh riot, Stephan.”

It’s not good that Stephan keeps bringing up my age now. This new morning meeting makes me nervous too. Why do I have to go through my damn schedule with anyone? Is Stephan tightening the leash? Does he trust my magic less?

Here’s the thing. The super important Series B, our mega money raising round, is not going smoothly. Okay, that’s the understatement of the year. So far no investor has warmed up to us. Not SoftBank, not Sequoia, not even the pathetic High Tech Gründerfonds. Nobody seems to care about algorithms right now. Sustainability and female empowerment are the topics that matter. AI was big on the hype cycle about two years ago. Now our trend curve is swinging down in a way that feels dangerous.

That’s how tech works.

A few years ago everybody thought ultra intelligent robots would soon carry us around on their hands, or artificial pets would grin at us when we came home stressed. Welcome to Star Trek. In reality we’re still fighting the dumb voice control on Alexa every day. Not exactly genius. So expectations crash. It’s dangerous. And we have to push the curve up again. Because our startup burns a solid five to six million euros every month. The pressure is real. And it sits mostly on Stephan, who owns the funding round.

“How do we turn this around?” he asks in our call. “Any idea is welcome.”

In the background you can hear dogs barking and Stephan breathing hard. He’s doing the meeting as a walk and talk. That’s his new thing. Since he started walking around for two to three hours a day while he’s on calls, he’s already lost three kilos. He mentions it casually, but with intent, at every possible opportunity. So basically always.

I honestly don’t know anything about funding rounds. Another giant misunderstanding. Just because the corporation raised tons of money from investors in the past doesn’t mean I was materially involved. I’m the marketing guy who likes to talk about Pantone colors. Anyway. My little improvised moment at Kickdown showed I’m decent when I freestyle. So I just go.

“Okay, okay, Stephan. Can you hear me? Can you understand me? It’s pretty loud behind you.”

Now the call alternates between aggressive dog barking and sharp screams from children. Plus Stephan’s fast breathing. Maybe he started running. Maybe dogs chased him into a daycare. Something like that.

“Fucking park here in Berlin,” he shouts. “All these assholes with their attack dogs. But I’m listening. Fully.”

“Okay. Topic one. We’re full remote as a company, so our CO2 footprint is way lower than Siemens or BMW. I mean, it basically doesn’t exist. Apart from the charging energy of our laptops and phones.”

“Bullshit, Torben,” Stephan says. “Nobody buys that.”

“Okay, then we tune the algorithm so it weighs investments by sustainability score. No weapons, no porn, no nuclear plants, no fossil fuels. Instead, solar, vegan meat replacements and…”

“Female founders,” Stephan cuts in, suddenly more enthusiastic. “If you menstruate and pamper sea turtles, bingo. You’re the top stock in our portfolio.”

I’m not sure if he said “pamper” or meant “pimp.” With all the noise it’s hard to tell. Doesn’t change the core idea. I’m just curious how far off mainstream Stephan is willing to drift these days.

Then Stephan continues: “Okay, fine. That’s at least a thought. You go get a finger shoved up your ass by the urologist so he can palpate your prostate, and then we’ll keep talking.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

A urologist’s finger is the best metaphor for my relationship with Microsoft products. Complicated fuck ups, including Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011. Because our beloved monster corporation from Redmond has made it its life mission to make my professional existence harder through a needlessly complex password routine.

So three minutes before the call with the couples therapist I realize I forgot my Skype password again, the one that also rules the entire Microsoft universe. I can’t log into Skype. I can’t log into Microsoft.com either. After three failed attempts the empire strikes back and recommends I call a hotline and have my serial number ready.

It’s already five minutes past three.

Only now do I remember that in a moment of madness I once entered all relevant codes and logins into a program called 1Password. I just have to remember the master password for that app. It’s seven minutes past three when I finally get into 1Password because I saved the access in a Word file.

Old school.

Now I find the Microsoft password, open Skype, and at ten past three I am so ready to rumble.

With Zoom I would have been on the second.

After Skype takes forever to join the meeting, Dr. Windheim finally materializes on my screen. A man whose best years are decades behind him, sitting on a plain chair in front of a sideboard filled with what looks like homemade clay figurines. Unfortunately I can’t see any details because the therapist is apparently using a laptop from the early nineties with the matching webcam.

Dr. Windheim is trapped in a fog of polygons and artifacts.

“Mr. Jacobsen,” the doctor begins. “I have to inform you that your wife already left our conversation. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with your time management, if I may say so.”

“Sorry, sorry, first,” I say. “But I had technical challenges with Skype. A program in the Microsoft family which, if I may note this as someone in the digital industry, is in very few cases suited for ad hoc use.”

“Mr. Jacobsen…”

“No, I want to get this out before we start. Sorry. But there are better and far more widely used solutions for online calls today. Zoom, for example. I use it multiple times every day.”

“Mr. Jacobsen, no one has had major problems in the last four years of therapeutic practice with online support,” Dr. Windheim says. “From that I conclude: Skype is a solid program.”

I bite back the remark that people call them apps now, and I start pitching like I’m the damn Director of Sales for Zoom in San Jose.

“With Skype, first there’s the forced account. No Microsoft password, no party. And then integration into Outlook and other calendar apps is limited. Those are the first disadvantages of Skype that come to mind.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Windheim says. “What comes to mind when you think about your marriage. Since we’re already here. Together. On Skype.”

“Yes, okay, we’re on Skype, Dr. Windheim. But I could send you the link to my personal Zoom room in the chat and then we continue the session there.”

“No,” he says. “I see no need.”

“Okay. I can do Teams too. It’s also Microsoft, but much more user oriented.”

“Your marriage, Mr. Jacobsen,” he says. “We should also talk about your marriage in the last fifteen minutes of this session.”

My marriage. My God. What does this couples therapy relic know about my marriage. About the purity of this bond. I met my wife in the same year I started at the corporation. Everything is finally going in a good new direction, I thought. After all those years as a freelancer, the constant stress with the tax office, the endless waiting for clients to pay. Finally employed. With a mission. Make German tech brilliant again.

And my wife.

I never thought a woman that smart and beautiful would want anything to do with me. I didn’t deserve it. This is how my life would run now: I had turned away from a world of tangled crossroads and stepped onto a road with a clear direction.

Finally.

But the issue isn’t fate and crossroads.

The issue is that my head is a crossroads machine.

At every possible turn I see new options. I don’t want a clear road. I don’t want to grow old together. I am plus ultra and my wife is pure here and now. At my core, self doubt rages like lava boiling in a volcanic crater. But above that frantic surface sits the conviction of being a righteous warrior on a true mission.

Further. Always.

Step one: I have to beat Stephan and take control of the startup. I can’t stay a marketing schmuck forever. It has to be bang, bang, bang forward now.

Step two: I have to start fucking again. Not my wife. I don’t want a replay. It’s time for a reset. I need to meet someone who levels me up. Maybe she’s Head of Legal Global at Accenture and I’m Managing Director. We have wild sex and then we go to the gym and deadlift in silence, forging our bodies. I wear AirPods Max. She uses Bose with noise cancelling on. She devours books through Blinkist, buys fashion on Farfetch, always moving. I text her from hotel rooms or send my boarding passes with seat A1 on WhatsApp with a winking emoji.

Don’t stop. Move every day.

Rolex Air King. A business uniform of navy tech merino. Rimowa Off White. Senator status. Sleepover at the Kempinski airport between two red eye flights. Fast. Win. Become CEO. There’s still time. But it isn’t endless.

I turn fifty next year.

It’s not okay to get that old, but everyone at the startup thinks I’m forty six because I entered the wrong date during onboarding. Still. Time is against me. I have nothing left to give away. This call isn’t helping me. It’s costing me valuable minutes.

So I adjust the camera above my monitor.

“Wait a second, Dr. Windheim. Something’s wrong with the tech.”

Then I mute my microphone. Dr. Windheim tries to talk to me but I point at my ears, confused.

“I can’t hear anything.”

Dr. Windheim shrugs and starts messing with his own settings.

Then I end the Skype call.

The program closes with a little pop up window: “How would you rate the quality of this Skype call?”

I select zero stars and submit the review.

Fuck off, Microsoft.