Aaaaaannddd... IT'S GONE! ($leeches 7)
(from the previous time)
We're at the point where, not having a real "official" assigned project, because the original one was completed and the "second" one was indefinitely parked waiting for $leeches to decide what to do and how to handle this "internet " thing, I was basically doing very little, and I wasn't happy about it. At the same time I was skeptic (to say the least) about DB's ideas on how to proceed in the brave new world and where to stear the company.
It was obvious that a change in functions and directions was required, but how and in which way was not so obvious.
At one meeting to show the yearly results and other assorted things, DB's discussed the idea of hiring a real "marketing" man to try to sell other kind of services and one of the "problems" that he saw in the thing was that, if the marketing manage to sell some software development, then the company had to... you know... DEVELOP the software! At that I responded with a very surprised "Really??"...
Let's just say that I wan beginning to feel not much appreciated anymore. If we add to this that UL9733, not knowing how to manage the things (yeah, big surprise, I know), had decided to give me "stuff to do", related to the goddamn "engine", things that were "analyzed" by what was, risibly, called the "analysis office", whose components I've talked a bit about last time. You can imagine what sort of "analysis" were produced by such office.
The major problem about all this wasn't the "work" per se, that was at best 10 minutes of coding, but the fact that the whole thing toke in the best csase 15 minutes of compile time. When there were no problem with the libraries (that were also continuously developed and twicked).
But the major change in the whole situation was that, all of a sudden, $leeches had found competition (!). Something they had never experienced before. And all of a sudden, the term "productivity" had jumped up and was showing more and more in the various "memos" that began to do the round, with that newfangled thing called "e-mail".
And here is the problem. How do you verify the "productivity" of peoples? If somebody is working on a production plant manufacturing (for example) hammers, it's easy: how many did you made today? But if somebody's job is to write code... what are you gonna count? And how do you measure how well an "analyst" performs?
And if you consider that everybody's modus operando was, 'till last week, don't do anything and just wait the end of the month, you can understand tha things had begin to drastically shift.
Also because, apparently, SL1234 had decided that the best way to check ULs' productivity was to check how annoyed and irritated were the underlying employees. And UL9733 wanted to have a very high productivity of course.
The end result of all this was that I was starting to look around for other, more exciting, opportunities. And a nice thursday (I think it was a thursday, it had the smell of a thursday), I found an interesting request for C/C++ Windows developers from a "software house". So I called them up and discovered some more info: the software house was a veritable software house, they were developing their own products and not doing "consultancy", they were operating in a bit of a niche market (that was good: they can call their own prices) and they just got a large german customer and need to do some ad-hoc development and some porting.
After a bit of discussion and a visit to their offices we got to an half-agreement. The "boss" of the thing (let's call him J), was the chief developer and also one of the two that had founded and owned the company, the other one was managing the marketing and sales part of the business. J was, to say the least, a genius, but he had also the tendency to go out on a random goose chase and then the problem was how to integrate whatever he came up with into the rest of the codebase, if at all. So his idea was to hire somebody that then would have taken the role of "lead developer" and also helped to stear the entire thing.
That was interesting, but until then I was only responsible to direct myself, so I had some doubt about it. So I left with a "I'll think it over".
A couple of days later, I was at $leeches, that was thinking other things. I started up another compile of the whole thing, and while CL3587 was babbling about changes to do in the code for this or that (and still no porting to a better version of the compiler), I decided that since I had to wait for at least 15 minutes, I could go and get a coffee.
When I get back, I noticed that the PC is still at work. At this point UL9733 calls me up. So I go to see what does he wants.
Me - What's up?
UL - Well... I've been told by somebody that it seems you spend an awuful lot of time at the coffee machine...
I look at him. He look at me. I get up, get my jacket and walk out. Once out of the office, I pick up the phone and call J.
Me - Hi, it's me. I decide to accept your proposal.
J - Wonderful! When can you came here to sign?
Me - How about now?
J - Great, I'll wait in the office.
The I turned around and put the badge in the $leeches' mailbox.
And that was it.
Of course there were some 'discussion' with DB, but you can't say a lot when somebody open the discussion by placing a resignation letter on the desk and begin with "You can't offer me more money and you can't change my job, so what do you want?".
An this story with the software house? Eh.... no, I'm not gonna say it this time.
Davide
26/10/2020 10:35
