The end!

Shocking news for some of you reading this. It had to come to an end some time, especially since I had put on 42lbs and taken 15 years off my life with all the drinking. I got an amazing offer from FaceTwit this week. They are not just talking about writing the next web story they have already written it and have money to prove it. I could not turn down a pay raise after two cuts here and a chance to work in a cool place with smart people, free lunches and dinners and probably less drinking. I mean, Hank Orange Soda (tm) colored walls are cool, but a company making money using the best technology and looking after their staff, its the way to go dude. And the babes are super cute!

You are too good for Hank Commerce, despite what they may tell you in the interview. It took me time to figure that out, but here's the Cliff Notes.

You get to go home sometimes and have an occasional free weekend away from work interruptions and the emergency pager.

The turnover speaks for itself. Ten years worth of code debt that is impossible to change because you are stuck in emergency escalations because of the same code you can't change. The endless two-weekly release cycle that puts you further in debt because you cannot realistically test the product before the customer test it for you. The customers think the product sucks because its always breaking or running "slowly". They are often right.

If you work for the right manager (there is maybe two of them), then it can be rewarding. All the others will teach you is how to play cut throat island (they know who they are). Cut throat island is a game that involves sucking Henry's dick and pretending that you are doing the right thing for the staff and your co-workers and delivering zero. In fact all you care about is yourself. Take one step forward the Three-Amigos.

Come for the politics, leave for a real position with real growth. Alternatively watch from a far and read the gossip on Glassdoor and TechCrunch and laugh along, you don't actually need to be there. Its more fun than the Daily Show.

Henry should prove to the employees and investors that Hank Commerce is not an elaborate ponzi scheme and start showing some return for 10 years of effort and investment. Cash is always a better marker for viability than "vision". As the character Rod Tidwell said in Jerry Maguire, "show me the money". That's what Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir told me and for once he's right about something. There is always a first for anything.

I loved working at Hank Commerce, but I really loved the people I worked with. Glad I have a real job to go to now. Over and out comrades! Viva la revolution! See you on the other side!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 8 (celebrating my job offer!)
Shots : 20 (celebrating my job offer!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more official eating!)
Weight : 194 lbs

Euro-fool leaves!

Wow. I have never seen Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir so happy. You could see he smile all the way from the East Bay where he lives. I'm super happy about Euro-fool leaving, he was such an arrogant guy, always thought we has better than all of us. So what if he had a cool clothes and a Porsche Cayman.

I went drinking in the city with the "Three-Amigos" to celebrate, they got shit faced. Stacy was so wasted he picked a fight with some Mission hipster (and lost) and that was just after three beers. Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir went around hugging everybody in the bar like they were all some long lost friends, Lonely-James drank a Miller Lite by himself at the end of the bar. He can't take his beer either. Had some Indian food after the beers, Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir said it was the worst he had, and then phoned up Constantine to say that he was so sorry for the shit he did to him. You could hear the reply of "Go F**k yourself" from across the bar.

It came out that they had forced Euro-fool to quit, they now have Franks-Mom in the right place so that they can continue to enjoy their lives and f**k around and she gets to carry the can. When the next shit hits the fan they will use the same story with Henry, that she is out of touch, does not get it, their passion shows their commitment, staff aren't behind her etc. The key is that they stick together and back each other up, if Henry tries to fire one of them then the others say they will go as well. Its one sweet deal.

I know who is really running this place!

The good news is that I think the Platform team will finally report into us, which makes perfect sense and I know that Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir always wanted this.

So things are finally looking up, at least for the Three-Amigos.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 18 (death of euro-fool celebration!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more official eating!)
Weight : 195 lbs

Another CFO is fired!

Well that is the big rumor, I don't know for sure. Its kind of weird that Henry would fire his Brother-From-Another-Father after such a short time as CFO, that has to be the shortest time at that position in Hank Commerce's short history!

I spoke to one of Lonely-James' lieutenants and he was told that it was to bust up the coup plotters. Wow! I mean Henry is a bit of a tyrant but you only have coups and mercenaries when you try to overthrow a despot, not Henry. Everybody loves Henry! I love him as well, but only in a fatherly way, not in that Castro way.

It blew my mind that some of the backchat appears to be true, a coup? Wow. Who has the vision of Henry and the ability to execute and grow the company like he has been doing? Who has his Track record? None of H-Staff comes to mind, apart from perhaps Franks-Mom. She could kick some ass in an ass kicking contest. Super fierce!

I'm not so sure its true. I mean, I walk past his office most days and he's never there so an empty office means nothing. And what does Henry have to gain by an empty CFO slot, how can we go IPO like that? The markets would never dig it.

Looks like Stacy, Lonely-James and Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir have been meeting to work out the new office plan, more of that next week. I know that's a tough job, but meeting five hour a day for the last week seems overkill. I'm sure the Three-Amigos will get it right.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!))
Shots : 9 (I can remember why I drink, but I do)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 187 lbs

My brother from a another father!

Henry loves his stories. So we had a company meeting on a Tuesday this week, weird but we often have them because Henry is here. So he introduces Henry, one of the board members. Most people have seen him around and Henry always describes him as his bother from another father. Its a strange way to talk about somebody, but its clear the love they have for each other. Not in a gay way, just the fact they like to hang out, enjoy fine dining and wines and that type of thing. I'm from the mid-west, we like to go down to the bar and have a few cold ones with our close friends and don't do this fine-dining.

Since I have been here we have had several CFO. I guess their challenge has been in keeping up with all the cash they have to count. It must be a tough job given how Henry is closing business development deals and Arnold his VP of Sales is "killing it" (Henry's words). It must be such a drag to come in each day and count dollar bill after dollar bill.

The last CFO lasted, probably six week at best. He was introduced at one company meeting and then was kicked out by the next. Apparently he wanted to trade in our ERP system for Excel and Microsoft Project because they are "industry standards". Henry was pissed because that was not what a pre-IPO company needed, so Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir told me, they need Oracle or SAP implemented.

So Henry announces that Henry is the new CFO. Wow! That is super big and important news, we must be so close to announcing our IPO. There have been several successful IPOs in the last few months, I can feel we are close too.

He looked a bit nervous, we are a pretty intimidating bunch. There was a Q&A and somebody asked "As a investor, what do you think of Hank's potential".

What followed was a meandering monologue that in simple terms said we are f**ked. Sure, we may make it if the sun is in the right place, wind behind us and there is a zee in the month. But, its super competitive and we have not shown a dime to the investment community in ten years. Perhaps the best outcome is that we become an IT group at American City Bank Lonely-James said afterward. I think we are aiming too low!

Wow! Henry looked like he was going to explode. I'm sure that's not going to be the last we hear of that.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!))
Shots : 9 (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

OMG!

Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir is pissed. Like I mean really pissed. So pissed that he missed his beloved bocce games all week. All of Constantine's staff have been locked up in a meeting room for hours at a time with various graphs and charts being projected. There were in the conference room next to my desk so I got to watch in real time, mega cool.

Constantine did not look happy as Lonely-James waved his sweaty armpits around. I could not understand what the F**k the charts meant and I'm working on Mega Enterprise. After Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir calmed down a little, apparently the QA testing and bug rates are all to shit and there is no way they are going to make the 1-July release date. All the stuff for American City Bank that has priority, Stacy also wants to get the iPhone Server part released and all sorts of other shit. Pity the client is another 6 months out.

So if Mega Enterprise slips, then it slips into September. The release process is a F**king zoo, with just about every other project (or animal in this case) ready to eat your hind.

Apparently the QA team are always "two weeks away" from having an answer to the basic question of what does your plan look like to execute the test plan. Like, dude that's a bit late in the cycle to be working out that shit! I mean, QA they are like a total waste of time, especially in the Applications team. I want to go up to Constantine and just tell him to "Trust Me". We are so part of the team that if the shit does hit that fan, we will be on it like a flash, debugging and hacking away at production to make this beast live!

Apparently, Henry promised this to the board, so he it totally f**ked.

We have a new rule, after 5.26pm you can drink at work, as long as you don't even look at keyboard. If Henry does not like that, then f**k him and his moccasins.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more drinking!))
Shots : 6 (I think I'm sacked (again)!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 182 lbs

Death by twitter part 2!

So New-Marketing-Veep was the next to go. Well how could he stay after his new strategy to attract the 17-35 audience had gone up in smoke after it was leaked on Twitter by his own team. I know what Henry means when he says that you have to love Hank Commerce. Love means that you have to do the right thing by the brand, by the company and by Henry. So another one bites the dust. No tears for this one.

Henry has been hanging at the office more. We had a beer bash this week, not sure why, but he really got into the details. It was a shame that it was not about how we were going to broaden our appeal or get more revenue. But it was super interesting to hear how he thinks its the best time to get a steal on an Aston Martin DBS. He explained it was all about the leverage of cash versus credit in a time where cash is king, demand is low and time is infinite. Not sure about the beige on beige color scheme, seems all a bit Roger Moore.

Demo'ed my ad placement service to Lonely-James and his team this week. I was distracted from the feedback I was being given as I watched the sweat stains grow at a crazy rate. I'll have to see if anybody took notes, I certainly did not.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 7 (beer bash returns!)
Shots : 0 (no more drinking!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 178 lbs

Apple's are cool, Apple's for management is bogus!

So Apple makes some sexy product, no doubt. The iPod was cool, despite being a re-package of what a zillion other companies have done. Yes, it needed that Newton inspired magic that only Apple can provide, but its still a hard disk and it could only play music. So they took it to the next level, went solid state and put in a phone, and then allowed a select few to develop application for it. Ok, so its cool.

Now the laptops? Ultra, mega cool. They are all very aluminum and cool. I have a IBM Thinkpad, which is black and very uncool. I think its a Leveno so even uncooler, its not even an American product, designed and made by Americans!

So Iron-Mike got me at the interview by saying essentially "Apple for everyone". Wow, I thought what an amazing and insightful company, putting its engineers first and not only giving them a cool laptop but BSD instead of Linux and Windows. How forward thinking. How progressive.

First I wanted to fit and and show everybody my true value to the organization. I think I'm there. So last week I ask Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir whether I could order an Apple. He turned around and said, and I'm quoting directly "Go f*king buy one yourself, only management get Apple's here". Thanks I thought, thanks a bunch. Then I scanned around me.

Of course Constantine has one, Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir obviously, but also Lonely-James, Stacy and Euro-Fool‚ he even has a MacBook Air, what a f*king pointless device that it, the poseur! And what do they use them for? Well Constantine does write code, the others just do email, IM, update bugs and PowerPoint, but mostly surf tech blogs and job sites. What a waste!

You know, I'm happy with my Leveno and I'm going to show them that.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 4 (down 4 from last week)
Shots : 4 (down 4 from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x pizza)
Weight : 185 lbs

Popularity contest!

Lonely-James, he heads up a team that I don't really get. I go to see a lot of bands and always, always get a t-shirt or something else to remember the night. So I'm a total sucker for merchandising.

So Lonely-James does the tech-sess this week and its all about "Merchandising" and "Popularity". I mean the guys is pretty weird to begin with, always has lunch by himself and I never see him hang out with his staff like Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir does (my boss rocks). But I don't get it. From what I can work out, they gather a bunch of analytics (sort of a poor mans Google) and then basically decide through some complex algorithm (aka a case statement) that you get either a), b) or c) pop-up displayed to buy something else. Sounds cool, but why do you need 12 people to build that?

Then he talked about "Popularity" and how you get your users to choose which is best. I mean that bogus right, just because Henry choses to buy Feline Pine Scoop Kitty Litter in no way would swing my vote for Safeways store brand even if I was given the choice. I'm sure at YahBay it made total sense (apparently he used to hang out with DJ who runs Ops), but for Hank? Sure I have just brought stock in GM through our Stock App (full disclosure, I'm a shareholder) and then get a recommendation to buy Toyota or Feline Pine Scoop Kitty Litter. No way! Bogus!

Worked out twice with Geek Babe, weight at least stayed the same. Skipping on free dinner sucks. I like, have to go to Safeway to buy stuff, that sucks.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 6 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 2 x Bourbon Shots (same as last week)
Dinner : 3 nights (3 x Pizza)
Weight : 182 lbs