|
W
e
b
V
a
n
i
s
h
-- 29 October 2001 by Jeff Dieffenbach -- |
|
A solitary basketball hoop stands sentinel under a cool gray sky. Mourners, observers, vultures, passing underneath, into the non-descript WebVan building to attend the viewing. Open casket. The auction company Dovebid, long in operation before the www.synapses.com had fired inside the mind of Tim Berners-Lee, had prepared the body, arranging its computers and cubicles in room after quiet room. Viewers speak in quiet whispers. First floor. A first auction lot comes into view. The closed circuit security system--lifeless CRT windows unplugged from their lifeless world. Elsewhere, the big iron. Rooms of servers still in operation. Others piled in endless rows like cords of firewood. Cisco. Compaq. Dell. Lucent. An entire room devoted to Sun (the "Sunroom," observed one wag). Stacks of monitors looking more like the kids' ball pit at McDonalds. The kitchen. Auction Lot 3, a microwave oven. Auction Lot 4, a refrigerator. Stainless steel. Sub-Zero? "Where are Lots 1 and 2?" Someone quietly chimes in, "Not sure about Lot 1, but the ping pong table's number 2." I never did see the ping pong table. The fitness room. Stairmasters. Treadmills. Stationary bicycles. Extremely stationary. No ping pong table. The mail room. Standing out amongst the shelves and scales, a crate of creditor letters waits. And waits. Here and there, a few items marked by "Not For Auction" stickers. Obviously cheaper to print these up than the converse. Second floor. Villages of trendy high-fashion green and brown cubicles with portholed sliding doors of blue roam an indoor prairie. Stripes of Southwest colors add a splash of extra character. My children would love them as a playhouse. Other people's children may already have. Fleets of wheeled round and oval tables jostle like bumper cars at an abandoned carnival. Facing off against them, a herd of Herman Miller Aeron chairs (sizes S, M, and L) awaits its future owners. Lesser chairs cower in cubicles, ashamed of retail pricetags less than half a grand. Inside other cubes, whiteboards broadcast obsolete strategies--PeaPod take note. High end projection systems wait for presentations they'll never give, lumens to spare, resolution to squander. The Polycom room. A squadron of conference phones sits grounded and silent. Sound so clear, you can hear a pin drop. The laptop room. Older, heavier models. Perhaps a sign of WebVan moderation? More likely, the docking stations that outnumber machines by more than three to one tell the story. The portables walked away. Or were carried. Finally some color. The Apple room ("The orchard," our wag might add). A row of iMacs shows their distinctive rainbow hues like a preening peacock. Several turquoise G3s keep them company, oversized monitors and all. Then, the auction space itself. A projector. A screen. A podium. A microphone. Row after row of chairs without wheels, Mr. Miller nowhere to be found in this collection. A closer look. Each chair bears a lot number. They'll auction the chairs right out from under you if you aren't careful. Back downstairs. A can of WebVan pens--I'll take one as a souvenir. I don't know what a billion dollars looks like, but I've seen its carcass. And what of the basketball hoop? Auction Lot 1. |