Meet the Geeks: It’s Tori Stone!

No matter who you are, where you live, or what you’re doing right now, we know that the one thing going through your head is…”Whopper, Whopper, Whopper, Whopper, Junior, Double, Triple Whopper.” There’s only one guaranteed way to make it stop: by checking out this week’s Meet The Geeks profile. 

We pulled Geeks Who Drink controller Tori Stone away from Quickbooks long enough to talk about the fun part of tax law — she swears that’s a thing — and the so-called ‘best’ way to eat an apple. 

How did you learn about Geeks Who Drink? I first heard about Geeks around 2006 or 2007, because my sister wouldn’t stop talking about this Quizmaster that she just thought was super handsome. She just wouldn’t stop [saying things] like “I can’t get him to notice me” or “I went up and talked to him and he didn’t ask me out.” I got a lot of messages like that…and that Quizmaster is now my brother-in-law Eric Kohen. 

Did having a Quizmaster in the family make you want to go to Geeks trivia nights? I’ve been to a few and every time I just feel like “Well, I know nothing.” 

That’s how I feel in our daily editorial meetings. How did you turn this connection with your brother-in-law into your full-time job?  I was working at a country club that was a little less-than-great, and Eric knew about my grievances with that place. He heard through the grapevine that Geeks was hiring for a controller, and sent me their way. I had a great interview and really liked [CEO] Christopher [Short] but I didn’t get picked for the job that time. But then some things happened in the accounting office and I ended up getting the controller position. 

That’s great. What does a typical day look like for you? I get on the computer in the morning, check the bank, then I go into Quickbooks and that’s where the fun happens. Most of my morning is spent fixing things in Quickbooks, and then I can have some more fun learning about taxes, trying to ensure that we’re compliant in all 50 states. 

That may be the first time in human history that the words fun and Quickbooks and fun and taxes were used in consecutive sentences. Ever. There’s a thing called forensic accounting and, although that’s not what I do, my little True Crime-loving brain tries to tell myself that it’s what I am doing. I try to figure out problems and see where they’re coming from, and that’s what makes it fun for me. 

So is that kind of problem solving what you enjoy the most about working at Geeks? Yes. At the country club, there were processes in place for what I was supposed to do and they were owned by a huge corporation. Here with Geeks Who Drink, it feels like we’re the small guys who are growing, and I feel like I get to grow with the company. I can learn things that other people in the department may not have known, or that they did learn and have passed down to me. That makes it a lot of fun, because I feel like I’m constantly learning something new. And our team is great to work with. Aldo [Monterrey], our payroll specialist cracks me up, and Danielle [Sena], our most recent hire, has been a great help too. 

As someone who has worked in other companies, what makes working here different? I’m a single mom to three kids, and all of my kids go to different schools. My mornings and afternoons are kind of insane with drop-off and pick-up, and working at Geeks Who Drink has changed my life. It makes me feel like I’m no longer in survival mode, but I’m actually able to live. It takes me about an hour and a half every morning to take my kids to their three different schools, and then I can just go back home and get started on work. No one is like “Where are you?” or “What’s taking you so long?” It’s nice to have some flexibility with my schedule. We have meetings at 2:00 every day, and my nine-year-old always pops in during the meeting and gives me a hug, which is always cute. 

Since we’re a trivia company, everyone seems to encounter some weird little fact or strange tidbit about…a little of everything during the day. Have you learned anything interesting while working here? [Chief Technical Officer Jon] Pio has taught me how he thinks all apples should be eaten. He says it’s the proper way, but it just weirds me out too much to ever try it. 

OK, now you’re going to have to explain how we’re meant to eat apples. He says you’re supposed to start at the top or the bottom, at the stem. If you eat it that way, you eat straight through the core and then you essentially have no remains. I have no idea if you’re supposed to eat the seeds or spit them out: I never really asked. It just weirds me out to think that you could eat an apple without having a core. No thank you.