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

Calculator company shutdown!

Its not clear what Henry is doing, at least to me. I hope that he and the board have a plan.

So we buy this online calculator company after another round of funding last year. The idea was to embed this in all our applications. It basically would become a service so every application would calculate correctly. It was marginal at best, but I'm sure there were other reasons.

However, the technology was a total mismatch but their team were awesome entrepreneurs, real salt of the earth types. They were in some part of the country that most of America flies over, but they are just a few states over from my hometown. They were my brothers.

So Constantine and Iron-Mike fly out there this week and basically shoot them all. They had to have a security guard because those guys pack full on assault weapons in their trucks, just in case the Soviets invade or they see a sweet buck.

So they killed them all, apart from a couple of "keep the lights" on. Its totally bogus. What do we do with their customers? Not clear, but certainly getting features is not going to happen fast if you don't have the staff. Apparently Stacy and his team are going to re-build it at HQ and hire a new team. That's bogus, that dude has totally not delivered iPhone since I have been here. There are companies that have made a fortune and then sold themselves to Apple in a shorter period of time. I hear from one of the architects that they are going to rebuild in Rails and MySQL, that's a totally High School project tech stack. I mean that is already so last century dude! I know Stacy reads Techcrunch, always forwarding links to the "this is so cool, we have to buy/integrated with this" headline. The dude is so last year.

My heart goes out to the Calculator dudes. Great idea which they were executing on. Got screwed twice, first by getting bought and second by thinking the purchase would allow them to expand and hire. Its a shame, but another example of a poorly thought out strategy, executed by the incontinent.

I'm starting to see why we burn through cash. Sure you have to throw some spaghetti against the wall to see if its sticks. You don't need to throw the whole pasta aisle at Safeway to see if two strands stick. Some people say "scatter gun approach", I say "squirrel".

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 14 (We just drink at our desk now, who cares)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 191 lbs

Office move!

Another office move. I'm not sure that this is a great use of the investors money, but it kind of makes sense. With the trim down last year and the constant departures it no longer makes sense to be on three floors. Stacy put the plan together and we all packed our crates. The floor plan makes no sense, basically its puts our team at an opposite end to Euro-Fools platform team. It may mean we just get more exercise having to walk down there, but it may also mean that we can just ignore those idiots!

Euro-Fool has been under fire, Mega Enterprise is running so late its making the rest of us look great! Truth be told its nothing to do with the code that was written for Mega Enterprise, its all down to getting the product through QA. I think all the directors are relying on Apps to be the long pole so that they can fix up all their code without Constantine knowing anything about it, just blame Apps. Its an easy target but a great target! There also seems to be less Apps QA people as well these days.

So its weird being back in the new old office. I see where I was interviewed, where I sat in those first few formative months when I started, the place where I got my first build to work, the smashed wall where Beam-Me-Up punched a hole with his bare fist and the first time I saw Geek-Babe. Ah those memories.

Since then they have painted in the new corporate look for Mega Enterprise, Hank Orange Soda (tm), its pretty sweet if you don't have a hang over. I did notice that Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir now gets in even later, probably working really diligently with Ops I guess.

Seen Stacy, Lonely-James and Cab-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir (aka Three-Amigos) in a bunch of meetings. Weird group to have together, sometimes Zen-Dude is there, sometime not. Not just in the office, but at Una-Mass and at Starbucks. Probably some product planning or something big and important for Hank Commerce.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 7 (I can remember why I drink, but I do)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 188 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

I beat my performance improvement plan!

I had to laugh. I have had Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir check my hours, all my check ins and my dates for delivery like a friggin' hawk. So its my fault for asking Constantine why I did not get the promo that I had been promised, but the medicine that Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir punished me with was a like, dude this totally sucks I'd rather drink eggnog.

So I had my follow up with Old-Dude-In-HR-That's-Cool and he basically said that if this was a cop show on TV I would have beaten this rap before the first commercial. He did not sign off on it, but Henry said that Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir gets what he wants, he's mega key to the success of the organization.

So what the hell, he lost and I won. We had our regular 1:1 where he basically said "I knew you could do it, I have the faith". Bullshit. He just didn't like the fact that I stood up to him and escalated when I saw I was being screwed. He did not like that fact that I beat his rap. He did not like the fact that despite his best attempt I rose above it all and won!

So the work? Its kind of crap right now. We are in the death march that Mega Enterprise has become. We are grinding out a result just like the Yankees, not fun to watch but the result will be another world series.

Henry seems pretty joyless at the moment. Stacy said something about another assistant being let go, I'm thinking that was probably the leggy blond this time. I asked him "How's it going" in the elevator. He told me to "Go fuck your pimply self". Sure I could do with more Clearsil, but dude don't make it personal, I can't help my zits.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!))
Shots : 18 (celebrating beating my performance improvement plan)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 187 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

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

No iPhone!

Bad news at the company meeting. Henry gave an update on the product roadmap meetings. Looks like American City Bank have decided that they don't need an iPhone application but they do want support for Windows ME. Stacy broke the news at the company meeting, you could hear the tears in his voice. Henry kind of pushed him off the stage (with a "sit the f*k down") and quickly changed the subject and then went on to talk at great length about "the scenario".

It goes something like this

• Somebody just like you has a super cool credit card (yes, much better than Platinum)
• You buy some stock, lets say in Washington Mutual
• The analytic component in the platform then whirs it cogs and come us with a suggestion "go take a train to Seattle"
• The train is auto-booked for you, but you decide to "opt in" to the train arrival notices
• As your train arrives in Seattle, a Fax is sent (your preference on the mechanism, fax now SMS later next year) to the local Taxi company
• The Taxi is dispatched and picks you up
• The driver already knows that you have a table booked Spearmint Rhino at 8.45pm, so takes you directly there, no questions asked
  

Now that would be super cool! What Henry is doing is a Vulcan Mind Melt on his how Hank Commerce makes money with this. Its not in the transactions but its the data as he explained to the Asian guy in glasses. He then had to explain it all again to that Indian guy who always falls asleep in company meetings.

How cool is that!

Another first. It was a "dry" week.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : zero (down 2 from last week)
Shots : zero (same as last week)
Dinner : 3 nights (3 x pizza)
Weight : 180 lbs

Awesome office!

Wow! The new office is awesome. I mean, its exactly like the old office, the kindergarden color scheme, weird names for offices and the super post-industrial-look-at-me-we-have-money-to-spend vibe. I can't wait for the open house that has been planned to lure even more people into the Hank Nation. My friends are going to be so jealous.

So two more weeks in the old office. I had my second HAHA (Hank Architecture Holistic Assessment), and I got slammed. Stacy (Mobile Director) totally killed my design because he thought it would not scale to the 1M transactions / hour that he has to design the mobile server for. I mean I get it, but we are running at 48 transaction a day, a million does seem a bit of a stretch. Back to think through the design again.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 5 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 1 x Bourbon (4 down from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x pizza)
Weight : 175 lbs

Our mobile product rocks!

Stacy, who runs the mobile team, gave an overview of the product at the company meeting this week. OMG, we are going to kill that market! I had just not thought about the horizontal synergy that mobile gives the digital butler. Its just everything, everywhere and at anytime. We rock!

Stacy walked through the product roadmap. We are looking to support the 62xx and 65xx range of Blackberry's late this year. It makes total sense to support technology that has been out in the market place for quite a few years. That way its prevalent because all the business dudes already have them rather than support a new or current model which nobody has. Its really pushing our engineers, those models have no memory and use a version of Java that's older than my mommy. Those platforms are tough to crack, which explains why the team have been at it for some time.

The Asian dude with glasses asked what about the iPhone. The answer made total sense. We are aimed at the business market and not the consumer market so we need to support business. It kind of sucks because I can't show my friends and family the digital butler on my iPhone and looks like I will not be able to for a bunch of time. I'm sure Henry is right about the strategy.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 3 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 2 x Tequila (down one from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x Pizza)
Weight : 171 lbs