Almost everything in my life, with a few exceptions is out of control.
Starting with my job.
I have been consulting for 2 years for a great company that could do much better with a different management.
It's like behing part of a dyslexic, ADHD ridden, disfunctional family.
Our company uses 3 different databases. Oracle 9i, MsSql 2000 and mysql3. (don’t ask me why mysql 3)
Where servers are unmantained and nothing will install correctly.
Servers might or might not appear on the network.
Every project comes with unreasonable deadlines and no spec, maybe after the fact, if that.
There is no reliable source control.
Where the Ceo of the company or somebody else for him puts extraordinary limitations to the production pipeline with no though behind.
For the exception of ** marked comments everything else does happen:
- The company fires the only oracle DBA leaving nobody with root access to the oracle box, and keep developing and migrate everything to oracle.
- Forcing the implementation of Linux only servers abbandoning anything microsoft based even though we don't have any linux administrator, only microsofts ones. BTW, don't hire any either. You also have microsoft only programmers.
- Rush a migration to a brand new, untested back-office system. Oh yeah, some team in India is going to work on it and no, they are not getting any spec either. You, don't even get their contact names. How long is it going to take? 45 days? Make it work by monday.
- Make the website look awesome, interactive and sexy. Btw, you can't use javascript, css, images or cookies. GO! I need it by tomorrow.
- While your doing that I am going to need you to work on these other 3 projects.
- Also stick this broom up your ass so you can sweep the floor on your way to the bathroom.**
- The ceo suggest to switch all .net serverside code to php so that we can leverage the skills of the dumbest fuck in the company that is going to get laid off within a couple of months.
- You're laid off, just kidding you're rehired. What, You want a vacation? Then you're fired ... hold on you're rehired again. But just as heads up, we are going to let you go in 2 weeks, cheerio!!:D
- The use of the F-word is totally accepted and encouraged by upper management.
- Yelling, screaming and cursing is also approved.
- BTW, there is no HR to complain to. Well, there is but we won't tell you where it is. If you don't like it, well fuck off!
- BTW, you know that project that the whole dept. has been working on for 6 months. We just decided that it's stupid and we're going to scrap it right after launch. But we still need you to keep working 80 hours a week so that we can make the deadline. Also, here is a list of changes and new features that we want to see implemented.
- The regular development cycle from request to production spans between 1 minute up to 10 days for the really big projects like database-migrations.
- That's a great idea, I love it and I am totally against it.
- After 6 months of the development team requesting to implement qa personell the upper management says: What the fuck do I have to do? Hire a qa person.
- A brand new qa person quits the same day that he starts.
- The other one gets laid off.
- To much of the management dismay the released software is buggy.
- We are a hardware company, no a software company, no wait, b2b service??? no no software. Yes, but we do hardware and websites too.
- Btw, starting today you are the web development/customer service department.
- Here is the org chart, you are under me and I am under the ceo, but you also report to the ceo and cto directly, and the cto reports to me and the ceo. Pretty much anybody will report to the ceo if he feels like it.
- No matter what you think, or you know, you'll do as told.
- Don't ask questions they won't be answered anyway.
- Upper management yells at staff because there is not enough thinking going on.
- Upper management yells at staff because they should do as told, they are not paid to think.
- Lower management yells at upper, and that's ok too.
- "Why are you talking? You can't even handle your fucking job." are actual spoken words from UM to lonely workers.
- Referring to a browser related product "Address ?! Address ?! WTF does 'address' mean? nobody knows wtf that means. That's not intuitive enough. It should read something like website url location" is yelled during a meeting.
- The sales team, makes a sell and submits a request to the dev team, unfortunately UM has a different view and takes the dev team away from the sales team and gently suggest that they (the sales team) should go "pound pavement".
- The CEO tells the VP of marketing to sit and just listening to a presentation from a prospective partner then calls her "morbidly dumb" for not speaking up during the presentation.
Finally, the ceo of the company does not and will not use a computer but is intimately involved in the design of HCI side of any web or software gui.
Wow, well... that actually felt pretty good.
btw, for who doesn't know Lemony Snicket is the author of "a series of unfortunate events". Which is a pretty f-ed up story about 2 horphans and their crazy uncle.
