The end of an era

Today, Virgin Digital announced it will be closing down in about a month's time, following the MBO at Virgin Retail and the accompanying rebrand to the defiantly non-digital 'Zavvi'.

This hasn't surprised me (or anyone else) in the slightest, but I can't help feeling a little bit crestfallen about the whole thing. An ex-colleague (and good friend) of mine once described working for the company we then worked for as like being in an abusive relationship. Sounds like a joke, but he'd noticed that the behaviour patterns are exactly the same: you hate it, you're constantly beaten down by it, you become a shadow of your former self, but you keep telling yourself that things will get better. When you come to leave, they say 'don't go, hang around, things will change', and when you finally pluck up the courage to go, you realise how abused you really were.

But still, when you hear about the hard times they've fallen on after you've left, the old feelings come flooding back and that tiny little ache makes itself felt inside. Call me unnecessarily poetic, but I (and those around me) poured a lot of ourselves into that business and, although we're all going on to bigger and better things, it is a real shame that it didn't achieve what we hoped it would.

I'm thinking specifically of the 14 hour days, the working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the bank holidays, the 3am calls from LA, the constant, bitter battle with Virgin Retail's board and the frighteningly bad coffee from the machine on the 1st floor. No one can say we didn't give it everything we had.

So, shame it didn't work out, but some things are beyond our control.