Selling Out Your Heroes

Today I sit at my desk stewing my blood pressure to greater heights as I listen to management around me dividing up my job duties amongst a list of overseas staff. Often, developers become so entrenched in their products that it becomes very personal. This particular project is personal to me. I put it's insides together, I molded it and I shaped it. It feels as if they may as well be dividing up one of my own cats. "Ok, who gets the thigh and who gets the leg?"

Heartless. It has all been heartless. Management had started pursuing me in March and despite working seventy hours a week under lousy circumstances, I turned them down three times before finally conceding to their alleged ideal working conditions and pay. A week into the job the company was acquired by a larger company (who was later acquired by an even larger company) and it was announced that all developer jobs will go to India. My job was going away.

Next Friday the thirteenth will be my last day. I am the only developer left and then there will be none. I do not have to say that now is not a good time to be unemployed but that is not what bothers me the most. What eats away at me is that they knowingly lied to lure me from a permanent job to one that would be gone. There is no doubt upper management knew my fate but proceeded anyway just to get a couple projects out the door a little faster.

So here I sit listening to them. With the profit they are making, they do not care. There are 50 developers in India that are replacing the six in this office alone. I can't imagine how that is possible. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't met them on the phone. I've been patient and professional but, sitting here now ... my rage has not only sprouted but multiplied into a monster living in my chest.

I open up the command prompt and remember a developer who simply deleted his entire hard drive, picked up his stuff, and walked out the door. He had helped make this company from it's first day of existence and was devastated. I listen to the suits, then look at the blinking prompt waiting my next move ... I ponder ... then I debate some more ... but finally, I type 'exit' and the window closes. Picking up my backpack, I tell myself that I just won't come back -- leave their product hanging undone -- but I think of the customer and I know I won't.