I know there are plenty of others out there like me in this regard. So, I wanted to share some of my experiences throughout my working life with the hope that others out there who are going through something similar can find solace in knowing they're not alone. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
There are some personal finance bloggers who have recounted their working careers, focusing on each year spent with the various companies they've worked for. I won't do that here. Instead, I'm going to focus on the memorable yet nasty experiences I've had while working. Just in the twenty years I've spent in IT, I've moved to more companies than I care to count.
Company: Obviously No Talent
Boss: Fat-Jim-No-Chin
I worked as a software developer for this company (the name was actually a play on Obvious and something else, but I forget; a former colleague and I affectionately refer to it as Obviously No Talent) from 2005 until 2009. In the beginning, it was pretty fun working there.
I was solely responsible for one of our flagship desktop applications. Our clients were utility companies, mainly electric companies at first, until we started to branch out to other utilities just before I was let go. My application was an editor that allowed users to create small web pages that fit onto a web-based dashboard to show electrical outages, inventory, etc., etc.
<Geek Alert: technical garbage ahead>
The users weren't necessarily technical, so this application was kind of like an overblown wizard that built queries to pull the required information from either a SQL Server database or an Oracle database. There was an option for the user to view and/or edit the generated code behind the webpage. The user could produce graphs, reports, and KPIs (key point indicators), which they saved to the dashboard repository.
I built this application during my tenure with the company, starting with a simple editor that produced rudimentary graphs and reports until it evolved into a full-blown IDE (integrated development environment) that let more technically inclined users to "tweak" the underlying code (read: totally hose the widget and call us in a huff).
</Geek Alert>
My boss, Fat-Jim-No-Chin, was responsible for the dashboard, which means he did web development. Fat-Jim-No-Chin was one of the founding members of the company. When I started, he and three buddies (also founding members) worked there with 2 members of a different company that merged together. Fat-Jim-No-Chin was the guy with all the technical experience, so he was in charge of the developers. In short, Fat-Jim-No-Chin was a fucking imbecile who had no business behind a computer keyboard.
(Aside: This isn't unusual in many mid-sized companies. All it really takes are some people who can muster enough capital to start a business if they think they've got an idea they can capitalize on. Managerial skills don't necessarily apply. This was the case at Obviously No Talent.)
Like I said, the first few years were great. I was allowed to work with relative autonomy. I would be given a list of features users requested and set free to implement them in any way that accomplished the job. I learned a great deal in this time. However, learning on the fly like this also introduced quite a few bugs that I would have to go back and fix. I was a wiz at exterminating the bugs. Someone could just describe the bug and I could pick out where in the code the problem was; sometimes I could envision the necessary fix, too. I knew that code intimately.
I was a productive member of the company. I was well compensated, respected, and helpful. I was a member of our company's bowling league and got to take off early on Friday's to go practice at the nearby bowling alley. I went to company outings: ball games, for drinks with the team and boss, to the bosses house for Christmas. I felt like I was in the inner circle.
Then, I slowly became aware of something. Something that, I think, might've led to my down fall. One day, I noticed that the people I worked with were phony as hell. There'd been some red flags popping up along the way, but I must've buried my head in the sand or something. Also, at this time I was going through a nasty divorce, so I was distracted with that.
Some of the red flags came from Fat-Jim-No-Chin himself. He had a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going on. One minute he was laughing and cutting up with you. The next, he was looking to pin the blame on you for some short-coming (usually a bug that made the customer(s) furious). Also, he would tell sexist jokes that some of the women seemed to overlook (but secretly threatened to bring up if they were ever fired).
One day, Fat-Jim-No-Chin came in the office and confided to me that his wife had spent their savings ($90,000) on shopping, which was more than my annual salary at the time. I was furious for him. Later, I learned she did it because she found out he was sleeping with the company secretary (how cliche!) and didn't feel so bad for him. A colleague and I suspected he was sleeping with this woman before others found out because his car was seen very early in the morning at my colleague's apartment complex. The secretary lived in the same complex, but Fat-Jim-No-Chin lived several counties away. (Yeah, big red flag right there!)
The Firing
It was a Friday. We were in pre-release meeting in the conference room. Fat-Jim-No-Chin singled me out and said there better not be any bugs in my software. I remember not taking him serious because who the hell ever heard of such a claim with software?! I mean, no software is 100% bug free, I brushed it off and went about my business. At the end of the day, I went home while the Operations Team delivered the latest release.
Monday, I walk into the office and stop by a friend's desk (the same one who affectionately calls the company Obviously No Talent. Said employee was the only networking/hardware guy employed with us and was cynical. In the end, we'd become as thick as thieves, he and I). He told me Fat-Jim-No-Chin was looking for me. Also, at this time, I had another employee come over and start rubbing my shoulders, trying to coax me over to his cubicle to fix something he was too stupid (or lazy) to do himself. I shit you not! This guy was tiny and creepy the way he would touch you. <shudder>
I got rid of the little, creepy guy and went to my desk where I found a Post-It note stuck to my monitor from Fat-Jim-No-Chin saying, "Come see me when you get in."
I go to Fat-Jim-No-Chin's office. His pudgy, frumpy ass is parked behind his desk. He leans forward as I enter and asks me to close the door. I see a conspicuous piece of paper on his desk. The heading says Employee Separation Notice and it's filled out.
He proceeds to scold me about the bug that was found in my software and that we had to perform an emergency release with a patch. This was news to me because no one reached out to inform me, let alone make a patch. Among the bulleted items listed as infractions was "Fails to perform the required number of hours during a week." I immediately saw red, stepped forward, and jabbed my finger on his desk, at the written line and told him it was bullshit. For the entire time I'd been with the company, Fat-Jim-No-Chin would tell not only me, but other members of our team that "I don't care if you put in eight hours a day, just so long as the work gets done." I reminded him of this and informed him that my work definitely got done. He snatched a nearby pen up and hurriedly crossed out the infraction.
I signed his stupid form and went back to my desk after demanding to remove all of my files from the computer (not the company's property, mind you. My personal stuff). I sat there for an hour copying over my personal files to an external drive. The whole time, a newly hired little brown-noser who sat near me kept eyeballing me as if anxious for me to leave. Once I had my files, I logged out of the computer and left. My tenure at Obviously No Talent was over just that quickly.
I heard later from the network/hardware friend of mine that they fired him, too. He also told me that just as I walked out the door, that little brown-noser was on my computer. Apparently, they held a meeting where other colleagues were preparing for damage control. Someone suggested I might've added a time-release bug that would sabotage the application and possibly corrupt user's data.
That was the furthest thing from my mind when I worked there. Sure, I became a little apathetic toward my coworkers toward the end, but I never neglected my duties and sure as hell loved the programming that I was doing. And that's the thanks I got. Fuck em!
About a year later, I received a message through Linked-In from someone at Obviously No Talent (a name I didn't recognize) asking me to contact them because they had some technical questions about my application and would like some help. Obviously, it was the flunky they hired to replace me. I deleted the message without any response. Sucker!
Morale(s) of the Story:
Never think you're not expendable. No matter how much you think you matter to a company, you're just another cog in the machine that can be replaced (probably for the price of 2 cogs!)
Never become chummy with your boss. At the end of the day, (s)he's still your boss and will fire you if it affects the bottom line. And the bottom line is always a matter of money.
I know I sound bitter and cynical. Bitter? Nah. I'm not really bitter any more. Time heals all wounds. It's true. But I am cynical. Who wouldn't be with experiences like these? This was just one of many in my career. I'll post more in the future. My cynicism arose from too many experiences like this the way callouses form from blisters if you work out too hard. Eventually they heal, but it acts as a reminder of what you went through to help protect you next time.
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