Human Resources

11/09/2009 : 2PM

Placement Firm Manager (PFM): Your interview with "Company B" went well but they decided to go with a different skillset.
Me: Ok, thanks.

11/10/2009 : 10:15AM
PFM: Good news, "Company B" is interested in you for another position and would like to proceed with the next round of interviews after all."
Me: Great, thanks.

11/17/2009 : 1PM
PFM: Looks like you got positive reviews from everyone. "Company B" would like to bring you on as a direct hire and they'll let us know more this week.
Me: Wonderful, thanks.

11/17/2009 : 1:30PM
PFM: "Company B" has determined that they will already have the resources they need for this position so they are going to have to let you go but will contact us know should something open up in January.
Me: Let me go? I haven't been hired yet. They are messed up.
PFM: Yeah, makes us look as if we operate smoothly.
Me: Right ... thanks.

My Not-Last-Day At Work

Manager: Well, today is your last day, huh? I'd like to thank you for the help you have provided us during this difficult situation.

Me: You're welcome.

Manager: Actually, we'd like you to stay on a few more days to help us out if you can.

::: negotiations occur :::

Manager: Good, so now we have until 11/25. Go ahead and start looking over 'Project A' and I'll work on getting you some tasks for Monday.

Me: But I've been working on 'Project B,' it's far from ready, and I'm the only one with the expertise.

Manager: Yes, I know, but technically only the overseas folks can bill that project right now.

Me: So, you're keeping me for a project that is not mine and that you do not have any tasks for?

Manager: Correct. Have a good weekend!

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.

Pulling 70+ -- An Addendum

As a follow-up to what I wrote here (where I was complaining about my job), I don't want to sound inconsiderate to those who would love to be overworked. While my complaints are valid, I am not insensitive to the current number of unemployed people who are going through very frightening times right now. I am grateful, for now, to have a job but I am aware that it could end at any moment.

Pulling 70+

... So another company had offered me a position 2 or 3 times over the past month but I turned them down because it did not seem to be a stable company. But, last weekend, my management staff got into it with the CEO so that yesterday we were told that we are to work mandatory 10-hr days (at least ), 7 days a week, for the next 60 days or as long as it takes. We are to report our progress in the morning and then every evening. Anyone not regularly meeting their goals will be shipped out at the end. If none of us can meet our goals then the software development work will be contracted out to a firm (in INDIA !). It is beyond me how he thinks he can get ANY firm (who does not know the product!) a set of requirements as to what the customer wants if he cannot get it to his own developers so I only assume he was blowing steam.

Regardless, for quite some time now I have spent anywhere from 5 - 20 hours a week WAITING on a bottle-necked co-worker and other management to get work to me. I've even offered to do the business part for them just to get the process moving but no one had been concerned ... until now ... when I have to make up for their screw-ups with 70+ hour weeks.

The company that is pursuing me raised the offer in salary and I took it. I do not know what will happen. I actually really do like it here but it is so crazy that if they do not get their software development process under control then I do not see how they can pay me at all. It does not help that our main bottle-neck is a very angry man who rips into the rest of us on such a regular basis that I did not realize how little confidence I have left until I seriously considered changing over. I'm not sure I can even pull any weight at another company.

I've gotten very little in the way of documentation about what it is I am supposed to code. This week Mr. BottleNeck got so angry at me that he grabbed my notebook and started yelling and writing instructions about who-knows-what. I was glad to get something on paper but then he walked out the door ranting and took the darn notebook!

Since I changed careers years ago, I have been grateful to be in a field where employees are in demand but software development everywhere seems to be a large hole-in-the-pocket. No one can get the process to work and money bleeds all over the place. People think we have a high salary but they do not compare the salary / hours-worked ratio. I don't know very many people in this field who do NOT have some type of cardiovascular disease and many work 70-hour-weeks in sweat-shops as the NORM. All this and our jobs still get shipped overseas. They claim we can't develop but it is management who can't manage. Honestly, I think software developers in the US need a union.

Sunday-Before-Work-Monday-Anxiety

I have the Sunday-Before-Work-Monday anxieties.

First, there was the loss of health insurance which resulted in the "high-deductible health plan" (HDHP) which caused me to for-go multiple health treatments.

Second, the office had to be relocated an extra hour away so that my daily commute has been AT LEAST two hours a day.

Third, we were informed that due to the drastic budget-cuts of ALL our corporate customers, matching 401K has ceased to exist, we have all had to take a significant pay cut, AND we now have to pay all premiums that go along with our HDHP. Now I cannot afford the physical therapy prescribed for a pinched nerve in my neck and am trying to make due with online exercise tips and generic Massage Envy.

Currently, we are continually getting emails to let us know that a cut in staffing is coming soon. Ironically enough, I had been getting 3-4 phone calls a week from recruiters offering me interviews; that is, until our local market became saturated with unemployed IT workers laid off from multiple businesses - the latest being our no-longer-really-local brewery.

So ... I'll be spending all my spare time this week updating my web site, resume, and studying for that one last exam that will upgrade my certification.

“This country was the moral leader of the world until George Bush became president.” -- Howard Dean.

Today I Went In to Work To Find:

• that half our staff is under one company name the other with a different company name.
• that I have not been paid and was supposed to have been paid last week so I have no money.
• that the company is yet again in health-care negotiations. wasn't this decided already?
• that one of our two best developers is leaving (unless he can strangle more money from the big guy).
• that I still don't know how to do my job.
• that there were injuries last week due to an electronic fly-swatter experiment.

why am I not too stressed about it? because I am tired.

why don't I leave? because I am tired and there is less political crap here.

Corporate Hell #5 : Fleeing Again

This was the first place to which I sent my resume when I changed careers and went into software development. Completely green, I didn't have a chance getting a job here then so when I landed place here last August I was very pleased.

Six months later and I have left. Though being able to say where I worked and what I did was epitome of total coolness, the reality of the environment was quite hopeless and miserable (as I've mentioned in previous posts).

Now I have another dream-like job. There actually seems to be allot of opportunity at this smaller but established company. I wish that I could grasp hold and go flying up through the ranks but I am so tired. A good job but I never would have guessed that the rest of my life would be such a mess. I'm getting too old to have made so little of my personal life.

Typical VI: The System

me: I'm at a stopping point in my workflow. Is there anything else I should be working on? I ran a report that lists all the update requests on my software.

mgr: you can't do those because they haven't been approved and budgeted for yet. work on the 346 project.

me: I finished that already.

mgr: work on it some more.

me: How do I bill for that? Wouldn't that be overbudget?

mgr: yes, but it is approved.

Typical V: Vasoline

mgr: will you enter these request items into the system?

me: that will take about 4 hours.

mgr: yes...

me: how do i bill that?

mgr: bill it to the accounting dept

me: these projects aren't from the accounting department.

mgr: yes, but we like to "round out" the billing so all is equal.

me: (you are paying me the salary of a mid-level software developer and making me do secretarial work...usually i might revel in this but somehow i suspect i'm being scr*wed in the *ss so i don't particularly care for it .. plus my skills are softening ... i may as well bend over and get some Vaseline)

me: ...ok... do you have any Vaseline?

mgr: yes, actually, i do have some at my desk. ....why?

me: dry lips.

mgr: oh, ok ... you're WELCOME to it.

me: thanks, i figured ...

Typical IV: What The ...?

mgr (passing in the hall): hey, girl! how ya doin' today?!

me (startled and watching her pass): um ... ok ... thanks ...

(later in day)

mgr: i need this break fixed asap. every one's tired of getting 400 + error e-mails a day.

me: ... earlier when i pointed it out you said to let it pass and not fix it ...

mgr: fix it asap

me: ok

(couple hours later)

me: the code is fixed, tested, documented, and ready to promote to production.

mgr: why?

me: pardon?

mgr: why does it work now? how do you know how it broke?

me: ... .... .... well, what happened is you requested that we remove component "A5" and all of it's references but you were not aware that the DLL component "Z12" was even being used more less calling component "A5" which you had me remove -- so, of course, when "Z12" tried to call "A5" the software errored out.

mgr: great. prove it to me then you can promote it.

me: pardon?

mgr: give me detailed documentation and proof of what happened.

me: ..... ok. (g*d*mn-geometry-teacher-gestapo-wanna-be-piece-of....)

(post-5pm)

co-worker: hurry, aren't you coming to happy hour?!!

me: i gave the proof of the "A5" error resolution to (mgr) and she said to promote it immediately so i have been waiting for the promotion to go through.

co-worker: she just left for happy hour ... see you there!

me: ....

me: ....

me: (wait ... mgr just left ... did she give approval to the database team for the promotion? .... hmmm.... (looking up promotion status) ... holy crap! she did not! she is gone and did not even give approval after the whole g*d*mn piece of *s386$*@! )

Note: I work for one of the top 10 IT shops in the United States.

Typical III: The Release of v1.6 - Part 2

mgr: about that bug you stayed late last night trying to fix ... we figured out that it is not a bug but was purposely designed that way.

me: so it wasn't my fault? ...that's good. why was the software designed that way?

mgr: we don't know. research that and let me know ok?

me: sure...

mgr: ...oh, yeah, and about those extra hours you put in last night? make sure you leave early so that we don't have to pay you over-time.

me: ...

Typical II: The Release of v1.6

me: the release today cause two problems and one could cause allot of issues

mgr: ?

me: the functionality locked message is occuring when a user clicks on the maintenance add button.

mgr: i thought that was fixed

me: (uh-oh, here we go again.) no, the lead decided it was a data issue that would go away upon deployment to production

mgr: well, have you fixed it yet?

me: (f*ck) no, there is a work-around but it is too risky. i do not believe it is a data issue.

mgr: well, then get someone else's opinion.

me: (would you just fire me already?) the database admin agrees that it is too risky.

mgr: well what caused this to happen?

me: (is this a test or does she need medicine?) i'm not sure but it seems to be traced to the removal of the caustic.aspx component.

mgr: that wasn't in the change package. the customer did not authorize that. why did you do it?

me: (f*ck, the lead screwed me again) the lead decided it could be rolled up under another change package and you concurred.

mgr: well, YOUR release may have to be TOTALLY rolled back and that's NOT going to look good. fix it.

Typical

manager: did you ever locate the Payroll-Group-Code in the PCHR database for the HYPS1 application?

me: i sent you an e-mail with some sample data for your confirmation.

manager: you mean the e-mail dated 11/9/07?

me: well...i'd have to look to know which exact dated e-mail it was ... hold on ... no, not that one. i sent this one yesterday with no response regarding that either.

manager: no, that's wrong, we need real data for the client.

me: that was real data from the actual table.

manager: i know but it is not the right data.

me: can you give me a sample of what you are looking for exactly?

manager: we just need to know if the code is being used by the app. give us the connection string and sample data.

me: i gave you the connection string.

manager: no, that had the database name in it.

me: yes.

manager: ...

me: ... can you give me a sample of what you are looking for exactly?

manager: it will be like our code - Y372 - but that code will not be in there to look for so I can't tell you.

me: so no one knows what this code is that i'm looking for.

manager: i need you to locate the Payroll-Group-Code in the PCHR database for the HYPS1 application.

me: okay, i'll look again.

Corporate Hell #4

After eleven months of working in a hippie-firm, coming and going as I please, wearing sandals and tee-shirts, yesterday marked my first day back in corporate helldom.

Hopefully, it will be better than my last trip through the cubes but I can't say it has started out so great. Like I mentioned, I had become accustomed to getting up when I want and the last month of unemployment didn't help. Stupidly, I drank almost 16 ounces of Rockstar Energy that morning. That's really nothing terribly new for me when I am in the firm clutches of slumber but this time I drank without anything solid in my stomach and I paid for that the rest of the day.

The fall in the parking lot also didn't help as I had to start my first day at work with a bloody and swollen hand. Nice.

Corporate Hell #3 SP1

Another night on the floor has arrived. It feels like a wicked cornstalk is creeping it's way from my stomach up to my throat about to strangle me. I took only a half-effexor again this morning and will take a whole tomorrow morning in another attempt at titration. If that doesn't work then screw it, I'll take the drug.

I've been blaming myself for my piss-poor performance at the new job. I'm not even good at math so I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to switch careers. I'd been contemplating a new career path and then, in desparation, I installed the 350+MB beta Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 and many things worked that did not work before.

I have a long history of blaming myself for situations out of my control. I'd rather have a questionable internal locus of control than feel helpless. One one hand, helpless is so much horrible but on the other hand it is at least some sort of reality. It really doesn't matter because either way I end up wanting to do train-diving.

Regardless, I'm still no genius and cannot read binary code without a tool so if I'm going to be mediocre then why bother. It took at least an hour this morning for me to reverse engineer some gwbasic code to locate and decipher just one of the formulas I need. I'm fairly certain that my mediocrity is glaringly evident at the new job and the VS2005 disaster that killed my deadlines has worsened it ten times over. Being homeless and on the street completely alone is a worst fear of mine so I should discuss my status with the boss and get it over with.

The floor is not completely hard. I took the memory-foam off the bed and folded it in half.

Corporate Hell #3

It's been three weeks since my escape from the depths of the labyrinth cubes in Corporate Helldom to my current desk in the world of small business life. Wildly tossed about and holding on for dear life, I feel as if I have jumped from one the Titanic to the Minnow. At least this boat is not sinking...as far as I know.

Living for so long in the irritating safety of red tape dulled my technical skillset and now I am playing catch up by desparately coding into all hours of the nights and weekends. I may be getting too old for this.

Fortunately, a couple of times per week there are other refugees from the old place seeking asylum elsewhere and this is beneficial for me because I enjoy the happy-hour-freedom-parties. However, back at the Titanic, the multi-million dollar disaster continues to reek all hell and the hired-gun continues to net up the fish.

You can usually get a profile of any employee by what is on his or her desk but you can TRULY spot a sharp and savvy Information Systems (IS) employee by what is NOT on the desk. This is for two related reasons:

1. When things go really bad in IS, they go REALLY REALLY VERY bad. From the business-critical databases to the core functioning networking of the company, if something goes majorly wrong there is no time to grab stuff off the desk before either running out the door or getting booted out the door. Having access to highly crucial systems means no two-week notices if you are to go because that gives you time to bring down the vessel.
   
2. In addition, the higher you go, the further you fall. More reason NOT to keep personal items on your desk and another sign of your savviness.
   

Naive out-of-touch staff do not realize this and oogle over their photos, figurines, and plants.

As a side note, staff with "attitude-issues" keep the Daily Dilbert on their desks. I took mine home before I ever gave resignation and it now sits alone with me at my new desk on the Minnow as I again struggle to keep afloat.

Corporate Hell #2

A whole is supposedly equal to the "sum of it's parts" but in corporate life I'd say it's more like the "average" -- the average of upper management, that is. Everything trickles down from the top and if the top is full of crap...well, you know.

I tend to look at such matters from a systems-theory viewpoint where everyone is part of a set of relationships and dynamics that are either constructive or destructive. Everyone plays off of their dependencies with one another and so on... However, if the core of the system is full of crap...well, you know.

I really don't care about this whole fecal ecosystem and they can all be left aflame in a paper-bag on a doorstep for all I care. The problem, as always, occurs when truly good-hearted and hard-working people get sucked into these smelly hurricanes.

Let me give you a real example: Greg is the CEO playboy-wanna-be yes-man who hires John the manager playboy-wanna-be yes-man so that he can build his "good-ole boys club." John hires Joan the Barbie-like supervisor, for obvious reasons, who has no business knowledge (or, really, ANY knowledge.) Joan hires Sally the average employee because she can unconsciously relate to her. Sally is married to a man who can't hold a job and makes his living off of creating workman's comps claims. Sally cheats on her timecard, enters fake data because she is too lazy to do her job, and has nooners with Mary Jane (meaning pot.) As a result, the company sucks, business crashes, the board calls in a hired-gun and the restructuring begins.

In the meantime, there is Ann who has been with the company for the past ten years and has been quite faithful by working hard, not missing work, and advancing herself. Likewise, Mike has been with the company for the past eight years and has earned a much-deserved six weeks of vacation which he likes to spend with his kids while they are young.

But when the restructuring occurs, Ann and Mike get demoted to jobs beneath them while Sally comes out unscarred. The restructuring takes five-plus years and people develop depression, high blood pressure, insomnia, ulcers, and heart disease.

We have all kinds of basic human rights but screw anything of a higher-level. Now that employers can just do a mass e-mail of pink-slips to 400 members of their staff...well, you know.

Back to the system's theory and the average of parts, corporate life is really like any other organism from a single cell to a government to a nation. It all comes down to the core and that is you and I. If you change yourself for the better then you have changed the world, correct?

I don't know. Tell this to Mike who had to get a new job and miss his eldest son's graduation or Ann who invested her skills in a company who demoted her to work under staff more than half her age. Why do we bother?

http://www.workplacefairness.org

Corporate Hell #1

I really do see dead people. Each day that I go into the cubicle trenches I see at least one more person whose light has went out; that is, if that person is even there anymore. For simplicity sake, I'll call it a "corporate buyout." No one knows when the ax is going to come or where it will come from. For a while, there was an average of one ambulance a week carting someone off for some stress-related ailment.

Workers just disappear. At 5pm on one day a person will be at his or her desk with family photos and piles of work but come 8am the next day all is gone. I have contemplated filing missing persons reports. Complete Twilight Zone -- no one knows -- people are just GONE.

Not all are average employees but are management who devoted their lives to the company when it was a small startup of ten people. The faithful (or, to be somewhat rude, stupid) who have even had salaries frozen for the past three years (for the sake of the company) are gone. Yep, I have been one of the faithful/stupid.

Despite my best efforts, the bitterness has engulfed my every being and turned me into a giant pus-filled nasty disgusting filthy black acidic canker sore that just keeps on blowing open. The high blood pressure and migraines and insomnia and ... have to go but leaving is alike trying to break through of an abusive relationship with your spouse. All self-esteem has been reduced to nothing and there is no gas to go.

So today I resigned anyway, screw them -- whoever they are. God be with those still there because no one else will.