A dead cell phone battery... Are you kidding me?

Wanna talk about a stunning reversal of fortune?

Sometime in the morning hours, I got a call from the placement agency that wanted to put me together with the defense contractor. I was at work when they called. I didn't pick up the call. Didn't much like the idea of discussing the debacle, and I certainly didn't want to talk with a placement agency at work.

I called them back when I was on my way home. The conversation was not what I expected. The recruiter apologized profusely on behalf of the deputy director; the fellow who screened me yesterday. The deputy's cell phone ran out of juice during our conversation. Evidently, this was not an intentional hang-up. It was a technical difficulty.

The recruiter assured me that the DD was interested in me, and wanted to complete the phone interview. He wanted to know if he could call this evening. Naturally, I agreed.

I don't want to go over the conversation in detail, because that would take quite a bit of space. We talked for nearly 90 minutes. The conversation revolved around Dos and Don't in the management of a programming team. We talked about two-horned dilemmas. We talked about cardinal sins. We talked about cardinal maxims.

In short, I explained my point of view pretty well. A programmer manager is a head coach. He's a veteran of the wars who is a profound expert on how the game is fought and won. He does hands on code review to monitor progress, identify problems, and make on-the-spot correction. If you cannot write excellent code, or read code with excellent comprehension, you have absolutely no business managing programmers.

He seemed to like what I had to say. He likes the fact that I am American citizen and veteran of the U.S. Army even better. Better still, he loves the fact that I was a 31V10 who handled KYK-13 and KYK-15. In order to do this, I had to have an active Top-Secret (TS) clearance. That TS clearance is dormant in good standing.

This is the bargaining chip that gives me leverage in negotiations.

What a difference 24 hours makes. There was a simple Japanese Haiku that went something like this:

Now that the tide has come in,

I see the boats floating and bobbing in bay.

You would never know that a few hours ago,

they lay beached on a dry harbor.

Just lost a professional opportunity with a noteworthy defense contractor

I'm going to have make this short and sweet because I don't have much time to blog about it.

Last night I had a first-phone interview with a noteworthy defense contractor here in Southern California. We are talking about a billion-dollar organization. I was being interviewed for a IT directorship in the info-tech section of their firm. I was being phone-screened by a fellow who was the right-hand man and proxy for their CIO.

The first question out of his mouth was very interesting: "So tell me why a nearly 45 year old man who has been in a comfortable slot for 4 years is interested in making a profession move in this economy?"

I wondered if he had been reading my blog. Obviously not.

I told him about the dead-end position, and I told about the high-jinx we are witnessing in my professional environment.

"Do you know that we have customer facing apps and no QA team here at my company?", I said rhetorically.

[Dead silence on the phone.]

"That's... a little hard to believe. You're telling me you have customer facing apps, and no QA team? What is your release proceedure?" He questioned me.

"Nothing you would recognize as a release procedure. We have no test book or formal testing methodology as you would recognize them."

I explained our code yellow/code green system to the guy. There was more silence on the other end of the line. I got the distinct feeling he didn't believe me. I was hearing the silence of an incredulous man.

"That's not the only thing incredible about this firm either. How about this fact: The COO recently tried to install a SCRUM system and he made a glorified data entry clerk the SCRUM master... er... mistress."

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.

"Ah... well... I'm sorry, but that's a little too much to believe. "

"I'm sorry to tell you this but it's true."

"Ahh.... mmmm... I doubt any COO is stupid enough to misunderstand scrum that much." He said, sounding profoundly uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry to tell you it is true." I replied

[Cick! BEEEEEP!]

He hung up the phone on me.

I am still processing that one emotionally. The phone interview terminated abnormally with a thud. Without saying so, I am sure this fellow though he was talking to a fork-tongued lying asshole who was slandering his former company.

So this professional opportunity is now gone, and presumably gone forever. It is gone because I told the truth about my firm, and the hearer of the true story could not believe it.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, SCRUM is a system in which there is a morning meeting of the programmers, every morning, conducted by the most senior [and presumably most skilled] programmer in the shop. The senior coder and architect offers his help to junior programmers who may be hung up on a bug or thorny coding problem.

Naturally, it is pure foolishness to install a glorified data entry clerk in the roll of the SCRUM mistress. Such an individual cannot offer advanced technical assistance to the junior programmers. Only a fool who has completely misunderstood the process would ever mistakenly to do such a thing. Nevertheless, this is precisely what has been done in my firm.

A big-shot at a serious defense contractor hung up the phone on me, because he could not believe that this story was true. He believed that there are no such fools among the COOs of the world. It was fundamentally unbelievable to this fellow. I had to be a slanderous liar. This was the only conclusion he could reach. He didn't want to any further communication with me after this point.

Wow... I am still processing that one emotionally. What do I do now? Do I omit any references to why I want to leave this firm?

So I cleaned out my desk today

So I cleaned out my desk at work today. I did that just in case the boss wants to fire me tomorrow.

I took down my Jim Brown and Roger Staubach jerseys, I disassembled the Aerogarden, I packed up the protein powder and Bullet mixer, I carted out a wagon load of computer books. I also threw away a ton of junk and scrubbed the place down. Three big boxes, one Radio Flier, two full waste baskets and 30 Lysol wipes later, the joint was clean. I will take a photo of it tomorrow and post it here for your viewing pleasure.

There are only two articles left in that cubical that belong to me. The first is a Wacom Intous3 touch pad that I use in lieu of a mouse. The other is my custom-made Canadian Lifeform executive chair. I can unplug the touch pad in split second and walk out the door with it. Transporting my Lifeform chair will prove much more problematic. I will figure something out. The chair and the touch pad are the only two things [of mine] that I need to function until the day split for good.

This created quite a buzz at work. Three coworkers asked me what the hell was going on. They wanted to know if I had found a new job, or... or... or... "Not yet", I answered rather ambiguously. The two fleas, who have been sucking blood out of my ass for the past four years, were visibly shocked. There was no mistaking the meaning of those expressions. Neither dared to ask what I was doing. I suppose they were/are crushed that I am leaving them.

It may not be time to go just yet, but we just got the two minute warning and I am in my four minute offense. I am grinding the clock down. I am just making sure that everything is ready so I can sprint off the field when the final gun sounds. I got the lead and you can't have it.

I'm not the only character who is unhappy in this mix. Everyone of my teammates has a plan. We're like the 1960's Rams Al Davis once targeted: Everybody wants to leave the team. Everybody's got an escape plan. Some are sharing, some are not. We're all working on leads.

I've already got an offer on the table from what was formerly Country Wide and is now Bofa, and it is for a sizable pay increase, but who the fuck would be stupid enough to accept that position? It's literally right down the street from my present job, but this is no career move any wise man would make.

Right now I am big-game hunting. Getting the white lion may require a move to Livermore California. I am up for it, if that is what it takes.

Positive steps towards a good change in employment

The employment market is very difficult today. Making a smooth & successful transition to a better position is far from easy. What does a man need to do to maximize his chances of success? I've given that some serious thought, and I have developed the following list of items:

1. Polish up that resume. This is everybody's first step in getting that next job. I'm going to have to look at what is trendy right now in resume righting. Of course, a computer programmer's resume must be bloated with all of the latest buzz words.
2. Hold until late July. Make ready to get underway until then. Continue weight loss unabated. It will take some time to execute all the steps on this list. Give yourself a modicum of time to get it done.
3. Get a custom tailored business suit. The cloths make the man. In SoCal, it's all about style over substance. The moto is "You are your image; you must control your image or your image will control you." It is an odious and egregious fact, but in the glamour capital of the universe, personal appearance means more than any skill or merit.
4. Get a professional photographer to take executive portrait shots of you. In line with position #1, many employers want to look at you in the way casting directors do. Does this man look convincing in the role? If I take still shots of this guy, will he convince anyone he is the character we cast him as? I have been told that one way to land a big desk in a nice office is to have a Hollywood photographer do portraiture of you behind a big executive desk. First impressions are lasting impressions. If the first shot an employer sees of you is a man in custom tailored business suit behind an executive desk, odds are this will become the frieze chiseled in the mind's eye.
5. Be open to a move out of state for new and better employment.
6. Look in cities such as San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
7. Get Bump. Bump is a little phone app that allows you to exchange business cards with people you meet by simply bumping your smart phones together. It automatically adds these individuals to your database of contacts and keeps their business cards in an orderly fashion.
8. Get a FaceBook.com account. Folks, this tip comes straight from Monster.com. Why should they recommend another website other than their own? It is an odious and egregious fact that more and more employers are seeking information about their prospects from social media. If you don't have a FaceBook.com account, some treat this fact as a lack of ID and credentials. This is particularly true in the hipster-huckster bleeding-edge technology market. This is not entirely without merit. You can recognize a problem case based on certain key warning signs found in social media. Still, it is vastly more difficult to assign positive merit points based on what you see in social media. Regrettably, many employers do both today.
9. Get a Twitter account. Regrettably, many placement agencies are using Twitter these days. They use it for communication purposes. I don't particularly like this idea, but it you will either play or pay for it.
10. List yourself on Dice.com. Dice remains a leader in placing technology professionals. I am going to have to see there is something better these days.
11. List yourself on Ladders.com. Most of us have seen the commercials for Ladders.com. Should we believe the hype? I don't know, but I think it is worth having a look at this site.
12. Consider joining the Masonic Lodge. I know this going to sound wacky to some people. When all is said and done, the Masonic Lodge is just an old-boys network. This is a back-slapping club in which the men pledge to help each other in their careers. I have two uncles who made it to the 33rd degree in Scottish Rite. There is some power in this outfit. It is not what it used to be, but there remains something to be said for it.

Time to say goodbye?

Intro

It all began at a Hollywood website I joined in the wee hours of the 2007 new year. I was hired on by a full-Ph.D. computer scientist named Jamal. We’re not talking about an honorary or mail-order Ph.D. either. We’re talking about the real thing from UCSD. Jamal was of Syrian extraction, and he was good. This guy was not an ivory tower scientist. He really knew something about computer science and software engineering.

Jamal had been hired by the owner of this website to be the company CIO. All future development of the website was to be directed by Jamal. The owner wanted to focus on strategic partnerships with studios and production companies. He did not want to deal with the grind of software development anymore.

A funny thing happened on the way to that division of labor. It turned out that the owner could not stand being out of the website development business. It turned out that he could not accept the true meaning of delegation of authority. He just couldn’t allow anyone else full creative control over his website. It turns out that he had to have his hands on the baby.

A power struggle ensued between Jamal and the owner. Step 1 in winning the battle was to fire the three developers Jamal had hired. You take away his chess pieces first, then you go in for the kill. Unexpectedly, I found myself on the street looking for a new job in Mid-June of 2007 after just about 5 months of employment. I had been fired.

Looking for a new home

No one expects a job to end in 5 months. You really don’t expect that in a situation when you know you are good. I hadn’t planned financially for this problem. Further, my brother and I were splitting rent in a relatively expensive house in Van Nuys California, and he was planning to move out. I was unemployed, and my rent was about to increase.

In this sort of financial jam, you don’t have a lot of time to select the perfect job at the perfect company. You cannot afford to be selective. You need to accept the first decent offer you are given. This is one of those moments when a perfectionist needs to make concessions to real-world expediency. So it was with me. This is how I landed in my current job.

The interview process was simple. I made two visits. I had several conversation with a pair of developers I will call T and R. T & R had been in the organization for years before I ever showed up. I asked them a short list of questions about the company to help size up what brand of outfit this was. The both answered the question in essentially the same way. Based on their answers, I reached the following conclusions about my current company:

1. This was a very family oriented company. Execs were more concerned about taking their kids to baseball games than growing a trillion dollar organization.
2. This was a mellow, low-pressure company, where quality of life was basically paramount.
3. This was a low-pay company. Most of the people working here had been hired straight out of college or from low-end jobs at very low prices. There were theoretical bonuses and raises. Most people didn’t get any such thing.
4. This was a low-tech company. Elementary CRUD applications and websites were the warp and woof of daily life. VB.NET and FoxPro were the two dominant paradigms. There would be no real technological challenges or adventures in this business.
5. In terms of software development, execs were more concerned with cosmetic appearance of things than actual logic or data integrity.
6. Programmers were not managers, and managers would never come from programmer stock. If you wanted to be a manger in this organization, it would be best if you held an MBA from USC or Pepperdine. Otherwise, it was good to be a pretty girl.
7. They didn’t like change in the roster and they didn’t like firing people. If you joined the firm, you had job security.

Based on these seven smaller conclusions, it was possible to derive a much larger conclusion. That conclusion was as follows: If I accepted this offer, I will be entering a dead-end job. It would be a very nice and comfortable dead-end job, but it would turn out to be a dead-end job. There would be no opportunities for technical progress, growth in wages, responsibility or advancement in rank. There would also be no significant bonus for massive effort.

How do you play this one?

So the chess master has a problem before him. How do you play this arrangement of pieces on the chess board?

• You are out of work suddenly.
• You are in a financial jam
• You have an offer on the table for a comfortable dead-end job

What do you do? I will give you my solution:

• Turn down the offer of permanent employment
• Tell them that you are really looking for an hourly consulting position. Tell them that you would accept an consulting gig, but not permanent placement
• Go short with this one. Stay in the gig for 6 months to 1 year, deliver as much value as possible, then sell-short and move on.

This was my plan, and I followed it… at first. I declined the hiring offer. I tendered a counter offer for a consulting position. They refused the consulting gig, and offered the perm job again. I declined, and said I would continue looking for a position. They folded. I won. I was brought on for a 150 day contract.

The figure of 150 days was extremely weird. I had never had a 150 day contract in my life, and I had had 16 professional contracts before that moment in time. If I had been as calendar savvy as I am now, I would have understood that this was a setup. I was scheduled to come onboard during the first week of July. 150 days puts you schmack in the Holiday season. Nobody hires new consultants during the Holidays. They knew they could trap me with a perm-offer in late-November or early-December.

This was their plan, and they executed it by the numbers. Come December, I was trapped. I could be unemployed for the Holidays, which would create a true financial jam, or I could accept the perm offer.

At first I was of a strong mind to decline the perm offer and take my chances. No dice. As hard as I looked, I could find no suitable consulting or perm positions open at that time. I really looked hard too. There was truly nothing. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first early warnings of the financial crisis on the horizon.

With no other options available I took the only option available. I took the perm job.

The financial crisis

Once 2008 began in Ernst, I resumed looking for other employment. I never felt comfortable in this job. I always believed I was a programmatic and organizational non-fit for this company. I always expected it to end, and end soon. I never, ever expected this job to run four years. I never thought for one second I had a foot-hold in this company. In brutal honesty, I never really wanted a foot-hold. This was not my cup of tea. This was not in my agenda.

The problem with looking for employment in 2008 was pretty simple: We were on the verge of the worst banking collapse in the history of the world. It could have easily been the worst depression every. It may yet turn into the worst depression ever.

2008 was a rotten financial year, and it was rotten all year long. Some fools believe it only turned rotten in September of 2008. Not so. The financial news was terrible all year long. We were just in psychological denial about everything until Lehman brothers dropped dead, and the system executed the domino theory of collapse.

In this macroeconomic environment, it is difficult for anyone to find a job. It is more difficult if you are a computer programmer in the financial industry who is looking for that perfect job. Believe me, you won’t find it. I sure didn’t.

Once the crisis hit on Sept 15, 2008, I was expecting a pink-slip. I thought it would come any day. I was not expecting them to keep me, and I was expecting to be the second or third man in MIS/IT to be let go. Who was #1, and #2? I thought this was an arbitrary question, as I was expected the first three guys to go in a cluster. All three would be flushed at once, or so I thought.

A strange thing happened on the way to the flush. The high command decided to keep all of us in the programming section. The roster was cut to a very small extent; however, the cuts were mostly problem people who were on the disciplinary chopping block anyhow. I found this move baffling. It was very nice, but it was baffling. I still have a hard time believing they carried all of us programmers through this recession when there was no work to do. We sat around twiddling our thumbs doing nothing… and getting paid for it.

I guess we had good karma. I guess the bosses wanted good karma.

Where we are today

Three surgeries and a little economic non-recovery later, Dave is seriously thinking about moving on. I remain a programmatic and organizational non-fit for this company. If I am going to move, it better be soon. It better happen while I am in the full-bloom of rosy health, and it better happen before September strikes. This September could be a very bad financial month indeed. It might be the worst since 2008.