a tale of pets, the internet and intrigue

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Last February I held a Pets Amore Love Story Contest to promote my pet portraiture business, Van Gogh My Pet. For months following, my aunt Liz hounded me to submit the tale to This American Life. What follows is the pitch that Will and I put together, that both my father and my aunt found sub-par, and that we submitted anyway. Seriously, the two of us could spend years on just about any project…if we had it.

And..without any further ado…the pitch for This American Life:

Jennifer Heller is an artist and web designer in Oakland, California. In February she decided to use Valentine’s Day to promote one of her business projects, VanGoghMyPet.com. This is a business where Jennifer paints portraits of people’s cats and dogs, rendering them in the approximate style of Vincent Van Gogh. On the website Jennifer announced a contest: pet owners could submit their “pet love stories,” and viewers of the site would vote on which submitted story was the best. The pet owner voted best would win a free, original portrait of his or her pet.

Jennifer hoped that this contest would bring more attention to her website. She had no idea what was in store.

Quinn may look like a real dog, but she's not!

Thirteen pet owners submitted stories: pets ranged from dogs and cats to angelfish, a stuffed Yorkshire Terrier, and a horse. The voting was to last just five days–Monday through Friday, and each IP address was allowed one vote per hour.

One entry quickly pulled ahead, a horse named Weekend. The young woman who owned Weekend, Kayla, mobilized her large family to vote for her story. Her family viewed the contest with particular poignancy, because the horse she had been wanting her whole life had been a consolation after the painful passing of her father.

Kayla’s supportive family voted heavily: Kayla’s elderly grandmother slept with a laptop by the bed and set an alarm to wake hourly during the night. Family and friends as far away as Canada, Arizona, and Florida took part in the voting. Weekend’s love story on the website accrued regular comments from her supporters gushing with love and support.

Kayla and Weekend

Though he had a strong lead, Weekend was not without competition. A few of the other pet owners were putting up a good fight. Two coworkers at the office where Jennifer’s mother works had entered the contest. Among them was the mother of a girl and her Chihuahua, Libby. Jennifer recalls, “Throughout the week, I got phone calls every hour from my mom reporting what was happening at the office. The contest was a constant topic of conversation. My mom felt really sorry for the losing entries, and called me to say she voted for the underdogs, or why she thought that the Angelfish story was really the best written. I don’t think either of us got much work done; all we did was watch the voting.”

Late Wednesday, one of the other entries began to claw at Weekend’s lead, a story about a feline named Fence Cat. In contrast to most of the submissions, which told of the owners’ love for their pets, the Fence Cat story professed no such love, but told of an amorous liaison between Fence Cat and another cat. In contrast to Kayla and her emotional connection to her horse, the contestants who submitted the Fence Cat story were not even the animal’s owners: Fence Cat was a stray who lounged about on their property, and they viewed him with a sort of detached respect and bemusement. In contrast to the suburbanites voting for Weekend, Fence Cat’s hosts were residents of Oakland, recent graduates of UC Berkeley and still very much part of the student counterculture. It appeared for the first stretch of the contest that their feckless hipsterism would win them some laughs but fail in the face of Weekend’s mobilized effort. But they had a surprise up their sleeves.

As the weekend neared when the vote count was to wind down, the Fence Cat contestants whipped up their own voter mobilization scheme. They began having parties for students and recent graduates, giving them beer to sit around and vote, hour after hour, for Fence Cat . They formed a group on Facebook called “1000 Strong for Fence Cat.” Jennifer was surprised to see votes for Fence Cat mount swiftly, to the point where it appeared that Fence Cat had a chance of catching up with Weekend.

Fencecat pictured here without her fence.

As this change became apparent, Fence Cat’s hosts redoubled their efforts, bringing in even more people. Weekend’s supporters had already maximized the productiveness of their voting, and so they could do nothing to meet their rival’s challenge. Realizing that they stood to be overtaken, they became bitter about the possibility that their effort would be wasted. This demoralization was not helped by the rudeness of some of Fence Cat’s friends. A Fence Cat partisan, Ken, commented on Weekend’s love story under a pseudonym, declaring himself “an ardent Marxist,” and suggested that anyone who owned a horse was “bourgeois scum.” Kayla and her family members did not have thick skins when it came to such internet rudeness. Jennifer was left fretting, trying to placate the wronged parties and to keep the other parties on best behavior. She urged all contestants to “stay positive” and began monitoring the comments sections obsessively to prevent name-calling. She found this task to be a new headache, as some comments struck her as humorous but were taken by contestants to be hurtful. Jennifer could not believe what a Pandora’s box her Valentine’s Day contest had become! The contest had taken on a life of its own!

The contest was scheduled to end at 12:00 am Pacific Standard Time on Friday, February 12, 2010.  At 9:11 pm that fateful day, Fence Cat took the lead, surpassing Weekend’s impressive 800 and some votes.  Liz, who submitted the story of Fence Cat, mistakenly commented on Weekend’s story under the pseudonym Judy, “FENCE CAT takes the lead!!!! Love you Fence Cat 1,000 by midnight!”

Liz immediately posted again to apologize and explain that she meant to post that on Fence Cat’s story, but the damage was done. Weekend’s supporters, still glued to their computers, took it personally, and geographically, somehow interpreting the many comments to be directed against the city of Tracy, where Weekend and Kayla reside. Weekend supporter Ken Houzzier posted, hyperbolically, “As a candidate for Tracy’s city council, I fully support an investigation into said rude and shady actions. I promise that the killers will be brought to justice.”

Demoralized by Fence Cat’s recent lead, Kayla posted on Facebook that everyone should give up, and texted Jennifer to let her know. Weekend’s supporters largely threw in the towel. Some felt used and angry. The comments got worse. A saddened Jennifer began to realize that a week of pure fun had turned into a horrible PR debacle when someone named Cheryl commented on Weekend’s story, “Sorry, Kayla, that some people had to be rude and shady. I can’t wait to hear EXACTLY what went down. I’m sure there’s A LOT of people interested in this company and their true intentions.”

The finished portrait of Fence Cat

Jennifer tried to bolster the spirits of Weekends supporters and restrain the enthusiasm of the Fence Cat team. At one point the idealistic young artist even phoned the authors of the Fence Cat love story and asked above the din of their voting party if they could have their friends vote half the time for Weekend. Unsurprisingly, her plea went unanswered. Fence Cat won a robust victory, and Jennifer promptly made a Van-Gogh-style painting of the amorous cat for the ecstatic winner.

Jennifer no longer utilizes competitive contests for promotion having acutely learned a tough lesson: the passions of people who love animals are not to be toyed with.

Great pitch or greatest pitch ever?

My pet portraits make unforgettable gifts.  Portraits and gift certificates available at Van Gogh My Pet.

$500 Mistakes

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I’ve made a number of $500 mistakes in my life.  One time, I let a guy convince me that he would pay for my airfare to come see him.

The most recent one involved trusting a company to be honest and upstanding when it came to paying the commissions I was due.  It became a long-standing argument which I have mentioned before.  I am bewildered why they would think that someone would want to continue working for them when they hadn’t gotten paid in six or so months, and why they were so offended when I would bring it up again and again.  Of all the labors of love in the world, did they really think that slinging high-end barbecues was one of mine? Continue Reading

thou shalt not covet another man's (or woman's) party

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Last night I went to the best party I have ever been to.  It was an open house thrown by the local, organic catering company Devoted Catering by Aimee Alan.

I hired Devoted for an event I coordinated for the Berkeley Student Cooperative last year.  The food was excellent.  I remember when I was first talking to them being concerned about running out of food. The event coordinator I was working with, Zoe, said, “We have never run out of food.”  I was heartened.  I have since been to another event that they catered which also had excellent food.  When I got the invite for their open house, I responded with a “Hell yes!” and RSVPed for two right away.  Next year I will RSVP for more!

I knew that last night was going to be special when we were greeted by a red carpet stretching the length of the sidewalk and speckled with rose petals.  ROSE PETALS!  Faint red lights lit up the gorgeous space.  I felt like I was walking into a ball. Continue Reading

The Right Question

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I’ve been involved in an unfortunate dispute with a company I work for as a sales representative. As a sales rep, I make only commission on what I sell. I put in tons of time last year researching and contacting leads. It went pretty well, though I bet if I had tracked my hours last year as I do this year, the average hourly wage wouldn’t be very impressive. But it was a gig, and I was glad to have it. I was glad to have it again this year, and I was pleased to receive repeat orders from a few customers. I was excited to continue seeking out orders, if not to the extent I had the year before, but at least a few hours a week.

Last year I was paid pretty regularly. Once in awhile a check would be late, but I’d contact the people over there at this organization I’m not going to name, and they would get back to me right away. A check was mailed pretty much right after that.

I made my first sale this year in the Spring. No check came, so I emailed and called. Ooooh they were working on it. I waited. I was patient at this point. Very patient. I continued being patient as I emailed over forty times, receiving around six total emails in response, and none ever from the accountant who was supposed to be looking into it. I was told at various times that “checks were being processed” and would be mailed the “next week.” At a certain point, I was told that “checks should have already been received.” I emailed back informing them that I had not received my check, and asking them to update me as to why. I received no response.

I grew madder and madder. An okay-paying side job turned into a thorn in my side that I couldn’t ignore. Here I am, working on the promise of commission for the sales I make, and this company doesn’t have the decency to even respond to my emails, let alone pay me! I like everyone there who I have worked with, but as an organization, I grew to hate them. My acupuncturist told me that the best way to deal with difficult people was to send love and light their way. I practiced that daily, as frustrated and insulted as I was. And still no response.

I like to think of myself as a pretty shrewd business person. I predicted soap opera characters having blogs and myspace pages years before it ever happened. I read Inc Magazine from cover to cover. The idea of treating your work force with such complete and utter disregard makes me shudder. I wish I had the contact information for other sales representatives, because I honestly cannot believe that they treat us all like this. How can they expect to survive when the people who should be out there promoting their products aren’t getting paid and their inquiries are ignored? And how could they expect us (me!) to continue promoting their product and seeking out sales when I hadn’t been paid for the sales I’ve made?

Finally I listened to my attorney friends and sent a demand letter. And finally I started getting responses to my emails. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. But I noticed that they were only addressing part of the due commissions, ignoring the other part. I asked about the ignored portion, and once again, did not receive a response. I emailed again to ask for an update. But this time I tacked on, “If you are not the right person to update me, can you please provide someone who can?”

Boom. Twenty minutes later I had an email to someone I had never heard of asking them to update me. I don’t know yet if she’s going to, but I am struck by the absurdity of the situation. Perhaps if I had asked that question back in March this whole situation could have been avoided? Was it really my responsibility to ask the right question?

I definitely don’t think so. They’re in an industry with a few layers of customer service; they have people who buy their product who they should want to be happy. They also have a force of sales reps who are out there selling their products in exchange for their commission. They aren’t what you think of as typical customers, but they are buying money with their time. And they, like the customers who buy the products, are out there in the world sharing their experiences. I can’t tell you how hard it was for me not to buy www.[name of company I work for]sucks.com. Months ago I wanted to start a blog about their disregard for my work and time, but ultimately I knew it wouldn’t help me professionally or personally.

So here I am, as anonymously as possible, sharing my experiences. Hopefully the checks come in and I don’t need that looming court date. When the checks come in I will email them urging them to think of their sales reps more as customers. This time I won’t expect a response.

On Andy Warhol, Art and Business

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I’ve been thinking a lot about Andy Warhol lately. He’s an artist I have a lot of respect for because he was so financially successful in his lifetime. And he got to have an awesome warehouse space filled with rad musicians and other artists.

When I win the lottery, the first thing I’m going to do is take a month-long European vacation. The next thing I’m going to do is rent a warehouse space and deck it out. I probably won’t paint it silver, but I promise, I will paint it. It will be the best few weeks ever. Then all day, every day, I will create–movies, paintings, sculpture–whatever strikes my fancy. I’ll invite other artists to share the space; rent out the film studio to artists for rock bottom prices. I’ll immediately take up neon sign making, an interest I’ve always had to forgo pursuing due to cost. Continue Reading

my first movie!

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I had not edited any video since the 90s. This was such a challenge, and I must have spent about 40 hours on it. It was complicated by the fact that I have this need for perfection before I can move forward with any project, and Van Gogh My Pet was never going to be perfect until I had completed this movie.

The background music is from one of my favorite bands, The Real Tuesday Weld.