Dru Lee Parsec
08-17-2001, 09:07 PM
Well, it's that time again. The sun is still rising, the birds are singing, the stock options are doing little tumbleweed dances as the wind blows them down the deserted streets of what use to be a dot-com boom town. And so once again it's time for Dru Lee Parsec to move on to a new job.
For those of you who havn't been keeping track let me bring you up to date. Starting about 6 or 7 years ago: [the company names are abbreviated to protect the guilty]
NDS: 4 years. Wrote lots of C++ code and then lots of Java code. It's where I learned Java. But the boss was a major A**hole and nearly his entire development staff did a mutiny and quit.
KES: one year. It's where I met nanode. Did real time data translation of Navy battle simulation software messages. nanode and I had fun but there was no future in the product or the company so I moved on. I don't even know if they're still around.
"The Bank": 9 months. Awesome job. 9-80 hours (which means every other friday off) good benefits. Best boss I've ever had. Not so intellectually stimulating, often quite boring. I helped build a brand new on-line banking software. If I had only known how good I had it.
Reef (no abbreviation because they don't deserve protection. You can't say "Grief" without Reef). 6 months. They offered me X dollars (which was nearly $15K more than my last job) and said I could work from home full time so I signed on the dotted line. 6 months later I was making $2000/year less than my last job, the bonuses were lies, the deadlines were determined by marketing with no input from the developers and I had to drive to L.A every Tuesday, live in a hotel Tuesday through Friday and drive back on Friday. That's very little like working from home! Fuque Ewe Reef!
[side note, I just heard from a buddy who's still there that the 2nd quarter bonuses are now 2 months late. This must be some new form of the concept of "inspiration" that I'm not aware of. It sure inspired me. It inspired me right out the door.]
SA: 3 months so far. It sure looked good. Nice office. Cool people. Cool product. 4 weeks after I started we had a company meeting where we were told "We don't have money for payroll. We need you all to work for minimum wage until the merger with "P" comes through". The merger never came through. We got some bridge financing to stem the money hemmoraging and the 12 of us who wern't laid off were told that we could keep our jobs if we took a 20% pay cut. (let's see, I've made $6.25/hour for the last 2 weeks and I have a $3000/month mortgage and the alternative to taking the pay cut is to have no job at all) "Yeah sure, I'll take that" :mad:
So now we're all expected to work 12+ hours a day (for less money than what I made 2 years ago) But I have enough stock options to choke a good size horse. But before those are worth anything the company has to A) survive B) Become profitable C) go IPO and D) I still have to pay 50 cents per share for my options. [times 100K that comes to. . . let's see . . . $50K that I have to come up with unless I want to sell my stock immediately. That might be difficult to do considering I've been working for a 20% pay cut] :mad:
So I had lunch with my old boss today from "The Bank". We talked about what's been happening and he has basically been waiting for me to see the error of my dot-com ways (and come to my senses) and come back. So I've got an application here in front of me and I'm filling it out A.S.A.P. In 2 to 3 weeks I should have a full paycheck, full benefits, a job that only ask for 9 hours a day MAX and still gives me every other Friday off.
I'm not leaving the Bank until they give me a gold watch and kick me out the door. We're going to see some double digit years at The Bank.
Hey, if I want to work 14 hour days on cutting edge technology then that's what SourceForge is for. I've had it with being lied to, over-worked and seriously under paid. Some friends have seen this as giving up and going back to where it's safe. But hey, I think there's an aweful lot of honor in providing for your family consistently. I sure don't feel like I'm giving up. The Bank was the best job I ever had. Only now I realize that. So it's pretty cool that they're taking me back.
Now, I wonder where SA (current job) will find a replacement programmer for what they're paying me. :D Oh well, not my problem. ;)
For those of you who havn't been keeping track let me bring you up to date. Starting about 6 or 7 years ago: [the company names are abbreviated to protect the guilty]
NDS: 4 years. Wrote lots of C++ code and then lots of Java code. It's where I learned Java. But the boss was a major A**hole and nearly his entire development staff did a mutiny and quit.
KES: one year. It's where I met nanode. Did real time data translation of Navy battle simulation software messages. nanode and I had fun but there was no future in the product or the company so I moved on. I don't even know if they're still around.
"The Bank": 9 months. Awesome job. 9-80 hours (which means every other friday off) good benefits. Best boss I've ever had. Not so intellectually stimulating, often quite boring. I helped build a brand new on-line banking software. If I had only known how good I had it.
Reef (no abbreviation because they don't deserve protection. You can't say "Grief" without Reef). 6 months. They offered me X dollars (which was nearly $15K more than my last job) and said I could work from home full time so I signed on the dotted line. 6 months later I was making $2000/year less than my last job, the bonuses were lies, the deadlines were determined by marketing with no input from the developers and I had to drive to L.A every Tuesday, live in a hotel Tuesday through Friday and drive back on Friday. That's very little like working from home! Fuque Ewe Reef!
[side note, I just heard from a buddy who's still there that the 2nd quarter bonuses are now 2 months late. This must be some new form of the concept of "inspiration" that I'm not aware of. It sure inspired me. It inspired me right out the door.]
SA: 3 months so far. It sure looked good. Nice office. Cool people. Cool product. 4 weeks after I started we had a company meeting where we were told "We don't have money for payroll. We need you all to work for minimum wage until the merger with "P" comes through". The merger never came through. We got some bridge financing to stem the money hemmoraging and the 12 of us who wern't laid off were told that we could keep our jobs if we took a 20% pay cut. (let's see, I've made $6.25/hour for the last 2 weeks and I have a $3000/month mortgage and the alternative to taking the pay cut is to have no job at all) "Yeah sure, I'll take that" :mad:
So now we're all expected to work 12+ hours a day (for less money than what I made 2 years ago) But I have enough stock options to choke a good size horse. But before those are worth anything the company has to A) survive B) Become profitable C) go IPO and D) I still have to pay 50 cents per share for my options. [times 100K that comes to. . . let's see . . . $50K that I have to come up with unless I want to sell my stock immediately. That might be difficult to do considering I've been working for a 20% pay cut] :mad:
So I had lunch with my old boss today from "The Bank". We talked about what's been happening and he has basically been waiting for me to see the error of my dot-com ways (and come to my senses) and come back. So I've got an application here in front of me and I'm filling it out A.S.A.P. In 2 to 3 weeks I should have a full paycheck, full benefits, a job that only ask for 9 hours a day MAX and still gives me every other Friday off.
I'm not leaving the Bank until they give me a gold watch and kick me out the door. We're going to see some double digit years at The Bank.
Hey, if I want to work 14 hour days on cutting edge technology then that's what SourceForge is for. I've had it with being lied to, over-worked and seriously under paid. Some friends have seen this as giving up and going back to where it's safe. But hey, I think there's an aweful lot of honor in providing for your family consistently. I sure don't feel like I'm giving up. The Bank was the best job I ever had. Only now I realize that. So it's pretty cool that they're taking me back.
Now, I wonder where SA (current job) will find a replacement programmer for what they're paying me. :D Oh well, not my problem. ;)