No promotion!

Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir is a piece of work. So I have been working for months on Mega Enterprise, really pulled out all the stops to show what I can do and how I totally add value to his team and the whole organization. He made me promise after promises about what he would get for me if I did all this.

So the promos were announced this week. You would never guess that I was totally screwed. Went to see Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir afterward and his attitude sucked. He said that I should be grateful that I have a job in this economic climate and that I should not complain. When I called him on his promises he said that it was his motivation technique to get his staff to "pull one out of the bag". I call that plain old fashioned lying.

I was so pissed I went to see Constantine. I explained the time line, what had been promised and what I had delivered. He nodded in a wise-old-man kind of way. He took a sip of Whiskey and then said "basically, you are fucked". I thought about this for a moment and then realized that this was the first truth that I had been given since I arrived. I thanked him and went and found a bottle of Tequila in my top drawer.

I went back to my day job. I worked hard and diligently. The next day Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir pulled me into a meeting room. He passed me a letter, perhaps more of an ultimatum. I read it. My blood boiled. Basically he has put me on a Performance Improvement Plan. I don't think this was a constructive act, since I think he took a poor view of escalating this to Constantine.

So he records every hour I am working, which makes me laugh since I get in at 8.32am every morning and the scum-bag gets in at 10.45am, claims he has been "on-line" since 6am. Does not seem to be able to answer an IM at that time. I don't have a lunch hour. I often work from home in the evenings and at weekend, but those are not credited. Every hour I'm late with a check-in he writes it down in a Black Moleskin binder.

I went to HR, they said, "You are out of f**king luck". Super. Glad I work at the next big internet story, aka "You are f**ked the first second you walk in".

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 11 (I don't give a crap, so I drink at my desk)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 183 lbs

Its expensive to fix it late!

So there was an Engineering all-hands this week. Constantine took everybody through a bunch of metrics on the cost of bugs in production and having to fix the stuff our customers find. It was mega-scary, it was like an exponential multiplier at each later stage in the process to fix the bug. Wow that gets expensive!

Other places I have worked you hold the release until its ready and then push it. We use a different method here, its Tuesday so we push period. I though this was super agile, until I saw the facts of the cost of fixing bugs rather than holding the release. I get the fact that we have customer commitments, but wouldn't they want the release to be late and working than on time and full of bugs? Now I see that we could have employed a dozen more people (or not let a dozen people go). I see the faults in the process. What we have is bogus despite what the "old-timers" say. That includes Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sire, Stacy and Lonely-James.

I talked to Dave (Chief Architect) afterward and he said "Its sucks, but its so much better than we had a YahBay". I say that's not good enough, we need to be better than everybody if we are to be the next big story. YahBay are dead, Hank Commerce will live long into the shared internet memory.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!))
Shots : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 179 lbs

Henry has painted his office!

Turns out after a few days of panicking and a multitude of rumors, that Henry is just getting his office painted (again). He wants to match the new Orange Soda look of the destination site. I mean I like the kindergarten look of the color scheme of this place, but that color is directly out of a bottle of Mexican soda. Wow! I can see anymore!

Other rumors this week is that there may be promotions. I have been working on my plan with Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir, successful delivery of Mega Enterprise is part of how I get promoted, he says its in the bag. I know there will be no more money, all I really want is the recognition of the effort and commitment I have shown!

I love this company!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more drinking!)
Shots : 4 (we downed a few after finding Henry's new color scheme)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 179 lbs

Henry's office is empty!

Super crazy, Henry's office has been cleared. OMG, this crazy shit has gone down. The plotters have somehow got Henry removed from his position. That is just astonishing and so quick! What are the board thinking about, clearly not our success.

I personally don't believe the rumors that we will have a new management team here next week. I think things are going too well for us. Henry did send a note last week telling all the deals that are well into contract discussions with all the big banks. He also talked about a strategy to take over the back end for a number of the Fortune 50. It makes no sense to make this sort of change so close to the finish line! Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir was in tears (again).

This is out most desperate hour. Help us Henry, you are our only hope!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more drinking!)
Shots : 7 (we downed a few after finding Henry's office empty)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 180 lbs