Lisa Scheuplein:  

before the Nortel aquisition took place. In June 1998, I went to work for EMC corporation and at EMC I participated in the development of their first Sales Web site. I worked as a project manager on the design, implemenation, and finally as webmaster of this successful sales web site. At the peak of the dotcom boom, I took a position at Furniture.com as a project manager. Working at Furniture was like going to grad school for what not to do at a dotcom. After six months, they offered me a full-time job and I told my manager I loved working for her, but I predicted they would not be there in six months. They filed Chapter 11 six months later after burning through 150 million dollars of venture capital. After leaving Furniture.com, I retreated into the safe waters of telecommunications, an industry I loved. I got a position as a technical writer at Avici Systems. The company was pre-IPO and a very hot start-up. We went public in 2000, one of the last really hot IPO's before the dotcom bust. The company was featured on 48 Hours. The stock shot up to 194 dollars a share and I had visions of an early retirement. On paper, I had my hands firmly on the brass ring! Unfortunately, the technology sector boom was about to come to an abrupt end. A little more than a year after our hot IPO, I was laid off and my stock options became worthless. I was unemployed for four months and was fortunate to get a senior technical writing job at Symantec Corporation, and was promoted to Principal Writer. I resigned my job in 2005. After Symantec, I worked for a startup called BlueNote Networks. I set up a documentation department, hired two previous managers to support this exciting company. This company ended after I was there for about three years. I now work for F5 Networks.