bios
our regrettable purchases
Ori Schnaps, Co-Founder
Natural dreadlocks. They don't put wax in but actually use glue to hold the dreads in place and then you don't wash your hair for a month. Surprisingly my hair didn't smell that bad, but yeah, not good. $300 later, I realized my hair is too fine and will never ever get tangled up like that.
Lynn Rawden, Creative Director
The idea sounded great: eyelash extensions! I imagined a more glamorous life, a more amorous life, a life where I could just bat my eyes twice and all my wishes would be granted. Let's just say I was disappointed. The result wasn't bad, but when i was leaving, they told me to avoid swimming and getting soap near them, which didn't bode well for my favorite exercise or for any form of face-washing. Two weeks later, i was back to where I started, minus $160.
Will Koshuta, Lead Engineer
Got a one-year, paid-in-full gym membership at a gym which was cheaper than any other place I looked at, but was not convenient to either my job or my home. I never managed to integrate going there into my daily routine and therefore never went. I could have spent a bit more on a gym that worked better for me, but instead decided to be cheap and ended not getting much exercise that year.
Katie Wilsey, User Interface Engineer
A one gallon tub of environmentally safe 'Peel Away 6' for $70 to remove cruddy paint from my newly purchased home. Did not peel away anything. You're welcome, Mother Earth.
Colin Nederkoorn, Product Manager
Rims - stylish shoes for your cars are a waste of money anyway, but especially bad on the brutal roads of the Northeast.
Aya Kaneta, Community Manager
Half the shoes in my closet.
Elisa Cundiff, Outreach Coordinator
I paid $120 for a synthesizer on Craigslist. The first day home, the keyboard and I had this lovely agreement where I would touch a key and the matching tone would play out. Two days home, the keyboard changed the agreement so to throw in lovely surprises, so that sometimes the keys would play and sometimes they wouldn't! And then one week later the keyboard stopped playing entirely. As if we'd never had an agreement at all.
Christine Tadler, User Interface Engineer
So I'm in college, and I decide I'm going to learn to play the theramin. Because how awesome would I be if I played the theramin, right? So I order one of those build-your-own-theramin kits, because it's $300 instead of $400 or something, and I sit and wait and imagine how great life is about to get. Except then it arrives, and I realize I need a soldering iron to put it together. Long story short, I sold the unassembled kit on eBay a few years later, and no, I still don't know how to play the theramin, so please stop asking.
Rich Desiano, Senior Engineer
When I was in college, I made an attempt to collect every X-Men comic since the 80's. Seeing as how I was a college student at the time, money was limited, and I didn't exactly know how to budget. So I end up spending a ton of money on about 2000 comics, become addicted to eBay, and years later, selling the collection at a huge loss. I'm not sure I even read half the comics I purchased.
Michael Boufford, Software Engineer
Whilst nervously awaiting a flight to London, I did a bit of impulse window shopping at the airport. I had intended in earnest to conserve my dollars in advance of my trip--"browsing surely couldn't cost me much." Ten minutes and a cool grand later I was the guilt-ridden owner of a nice Swiss watch; five minutes after that, I checked my free-with-the-plan cell phone for the time and sprinted to gate 32.
Michael Hansen, Front-End Engineer
While on holiday in Stockholm, I purchased a large, hand-drawn world map that I thought would be cool to frame. I bought it on Friday afternoon, and then the post offices closed for the weekend at 4pm, so I had to leave it in the hostel when I left Sunday morning for London.
Stephanie Raill Jayanandhan, Support Specialist
I research every major purchase I make - every one, that is, except the down comforter I bought from Macy's last year. After all, a comforter is a comforter, right? I took it home and put it on my bed. It was warm, it was luxurious, it was... covering my red sheets in tiny white feathers. I inspected for holes - nothing. I washed it to 'remove the feathers stuck to the outside' - it still caused problems. I spent 2 hours with a lint remover de-feathering my sheets, in case they were just old feathers that didn't come off in the wash - the next day, it looked like it had snowed in my bedroom. Stubborn gal that I am, i kept using that comforter for 6 more feathery months, before I finally gave up and bought a new one for half the price on overstock.com. I haven't seen a feather since.
Gene Volovich, Senior Engineer
I once bought a relatively cheap old classic car, a Citroën 2CV, that was running, but only for a month. Unfortunately repairing the transmission was beyond my mechanical, or financial, capabilities at the time. I sold it to a mechanic for £20. It looked nice with the top rolled down though.
Christopher Aviles, Copy Editor
One Halloween, when I was in elementary school, some neighborhood bullies told me they were going to find me and steal all my candy. So I told my cousin, who was in their grade, and he offered to protect me for a small fee. The bullies found me later that night, and instead of protecting me, my cousin helped them pin me down and take my candy. To this day, it is still the worst dollar I have ever spent.
Hadley Franklin, Contributing Writer
In high school I bought a sweater-jacket that looked like I'd killed a Muppet. I dyed it black and strung it over my back in victory. It shed little clumps of polyester fur everywhere I went. Fortunately, I gave up wearing it after a few weeks.
Stephanie Cuellar, Contributing Writer
Adolescent hormones surging through my veins, I took the beauty-magazine advice for landing that special man. Seventeen told me to buy a flowery, alluring scent that my gangly crush would come to identify with me. I spent an entire month's pay on a trendy scent that was nice on the sniffing paper, but made me smell like old lady. Eau de granny didn't catch gangly boy's attention; and almost a decade later I still feel bad throwing the nearly full bottles away.
previous employees
Avinash Karnani, Co-Founder
I regret buying this $400 brown coat that I didn't need. It was at a sale and looked great, but I already had a brown coat and I ended up not wearing it often enough to justify the cost.
Matt Wallaert, Lead Scientist
I can think of a few meals from when I lived in Asia that could qualify, but it isn't the purchasing I regret: it is the eating. There was this girl, though. We had been dating for two years and I bought her a flight coupon so she could come see where I'm from and meet my parents - she never used it, even though we dated for two more years.
