2011/12/15

I'll most likely kill you in the morning

Well, now that's a good life lesson.

I left a good company and team that was taking a turn that no good will come from. This post isn't about them though so let's not get hung up there.

Anyway, I joined this small company at the end of October, I knew there was going to be legacy code base and some very old ways of doing things. But they were "doing agile" so that was a big plus. I was being brought on board though to make with the new hotness; begin migration to MVC; do a bit of jQuery; work out what middleware/backend/SOA stuff needs changed or created to enable the mobile platform initiatives... pretty hot shit, right?

So I make it through the last week of October and am learning the architecture, "their way" of doing things and how much tech debt I have to work around. Now I'm looking forward to getting into an iteration/sprint to really show the value-add of bringing me on board to tackle a good bit of refactor and optimization while adding new features.

But the iteration never comes... I ask about it and get "We're waiting on a contract from XYZ. We'll start the iteration (next week, Monday, tomorrow, soon)." Until then, I get to work on an InstallShield project (which I used to do as a primary task and HATE!!!).

So a month goes by... still no iteration. No value add. No refactor. No job satisfaction. Worst of all, I realize I really have no team. Instead, there is a group of people that get paid by the same corporation and touch the same source code (sometimes) but don't communicate. I'm pretty much in a complete vacuum working in installation hell.

All the while, I continue getting recruiter calls even though my resume has been taken off Monster. Then it happens. As I'm telling a recruiter that I just started with the company and I am not one the market, he asks, "but are you happy there?" This question haunts me through Thanksgiving and through the end of November.

Then we have the company meeting where the recurring theme was "we're going to build this company so that someone will buy it and we can retire". So I stop ignoring the calls. I meet a few teams (real teams, mind you). I talk with more folks that enjoy tech... And I get a couple job offers. I make my decision to accept one and will be starting Jan 3rd.

Then, in an attempt to be respectful of the people I am about leave, I give them a full 2 week notice this morning. There's my next big mistake. Apparently, I shouldn't have more respect for others than they do for me. Lesson learned. My boss tells me that he doesn't think they'll have much use for me since they still aren't going to start an iteration and he might just have me GTFO today. But he's all vague about it until past my normal end of day.

And there's an outstanding issue on the installer crap. I'm the only one that's worked in that kind of tech. Her's where it gets funny... "maybe we do need you to come back in tomorrow to see if you can get that fixed".

Yeah, sure Dread Pirate Roberts... Good night, Paul. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely fire you in the morning. I don't think so. You've shown your hand on what you plan to do when I am done with a task beyond your skill set.

So now I need to figure out what to do to bring in some income for the next two weeks. Going to call my upcoming employer in the morning and see if they can handle me starting earlier. If that doesn't pan, I'll see if I can score some quickie data/TFS/coding goo on 1099. Maybe try to crank out some ideas I've had for Windows Phone apps.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to brush up my "Welcome to WalMart" or "Would you like fries with that"... God I wish I was kidding there.

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