45
Root
6y

Last Friday company-wide call consisted of the sales CEO bossman, the remote contractor dev, and myself. The only topic of discussion was CTO-bashing (bossman's favorite). Neither person had much of anything to say about their week, and they didn't want to hear my rather-lengthy summary either (I did a lot). All they wanted to do was bash the CTO (API Guy).

The CEO asked how many hours I had worked, and seemed annoyed when I said less than 40. Well screw you. Monday was Christmas, and Sunday was Encroaching Estranged Asshole Day. (Earlier rant)

I've been spending most of my time trying to learn the steaming mountain of rancid hippo shit that API Guy squeezed out, since he's leaving forever in 10 days. Sure, CEO bossman says he'll still be around to answer questions, but even with him right next to me in the office he's less than useful. After he's gone and finally feeling free of this farce? It'll be worth fuck-all.

So bossman is mad at me for both not working enough over Christmas, and not pumping out features at a frantic pace despite multiple explanations of why this is a bad idea. And he didn't care about what work I actually did do.

My every interaction with him makes me angry. Whenever I -- or anyone else -- does something he doesn't approve of, seemingly no matter the reasoning, he makes it out to be a failure on their part, and like he can't trust them as much now.

Well I'm sorry we're trying to make sure our websocket works perfectly before putting it in the hands of our customers who rely on it for cash processing.

I'm sorry I'm trying to recall printers that aren't configured properly, which also prevent customers from using our goddamn service they're paying for.

I'm sorry I'm trying to learn how everything works while I still have someone to talk to and ask questions of.

I'm sorry I'm preparing for the day I have to take over and have you breathing down my neck. Once API Guy's gone I'll be responsible for everything, and you'll be yelling at me and having a @Root bashing session instead if I don't know how to fix everything right away.

But no. All you care about is that I talk to you about what's going in so you can micromanage development despite having zero fucking understanding of goddamn anything. All you ever fucking want is the next shiny feature you can push to make more sales / keep your current contacts happy. Doesn't fking matter if it makes development awful later; that's tomorrow's problem. And yet you have the gall to bash API Guy over and over and over again for the codebase being a mess? Sure he's a terrible programmer, but been putting up with this exact same shit for five years. No wonder it's a mountain of rancid hippo shit. That's as much your fault as his, asshole.

I'm so sorry you "have serious concerns" about me. I don't want to put up with your shit either.

Fuck off and die.

Comments
  • 11
    Felt good to get that out. 🙁
  • 6
    You need to leave right now. Nobody should be treated like this, and it’s not your responsibility to get stomped on like that. CEOs who do this shit deserve nobody that has talent and skills. Leave now and search for another job; they’re waiting for you.
  • 4
    I'm starting to get worried for you the more I read your rants. It sounds like you have an healthy home situation but that gets threatened by some family members. Your work place is toxic

    Your CEO seems far worse than CTO no matter how bad he codes. I think you made a mistake too.

    CEO mistakes
    A. Having a session that critiques someone should only happen when someone is messing up badly and the manager does not know why. The goal of that session would be to assess up to five problems and should also question the potential of that person. If there is potential for change a plan must be made. If not an exit strategy.
    What happend here is a bashing that made some people look better at the expense of someone else and gave people a way to vent their frustration with the company onto someone who is about to get booted. This is a very short term solution and creates an unhealthy culture. Everybody fears to get this crap next and makes sure he does not by lashing out at someone else first; to name a possible effect. At the least unconstructive discussions are enforced.
    B. A good CEO fills his weakness with people he trusts and puts extra effort in understanding them. What your CEO did is the opposite. Micromanaging stuff he does not know and making very poor decisions (service continuity is always the priority).
    C. A good CEO has a strategy all features are tested against the strategy. This helps the CTO that can do the same and causes alignment instead of distrust. Your CEO seems to have no strategy but ever fluid goals, distrust and scapegoats when things do not go his exact way.

    Your mistake is that you did not communicate the problem with the websocket immediately and vehemently (dude do you want to lose your customers style). As he is acting CTO and a micromanaging one you will have to bombard him with info and put in doubt his decisions whenever you can with solid reasons. He will either back off (it's trying for him & his ego) or fire you. Both are an improvement
  • 1
    @hjk101 I'll have to read and respond to this tomorrow. I'm exhausted.
  • 2
    @Root thats okay I'm still fixing it. Wrote it on phone good night dear
  • 0
    I was expecting some sort of rant from you before new year arrives. Given the work load, and then the sudden tech support assigned to you during all these festive and holiday time.

    I hope you are during great.
    Apart from everything, take this also as a positive learning experience to handle such situations.

    We all doesn't belong to a perfect world. With shit ton of annoying people. We grow up learning to handle such situations.

    Imagine, if your CEO also has a devrant account and ranting about this moment.

    TAKE REST.
    Have a great day tomorrow.
  • 2
    @Root for what it's worth I agree with
    @hjk101The bad code aside which is solvable,
    You're workspace seem to me toxic as fuck.

    I don't know the severity so disregard if this is far fetched.

    You've had a difficult upbringing, so measuring the interaction you have at work against your baseline (psychologically) from your youth(not the worst but the "normal" times), it doesn't seem that bad. But it seems to me like it is...

    The threshold of mental abuse you can take is higher than is common. This can result in you staying in a bad spot for longer... Since there is no physical abuse it's not "that" bad.
  • 2
    *hugs tight*
  • 2
    Just quit and don't even look back. Let them burn.
  • 0
    Send him this rant... Your passion shows, and if he doesnt see it, well what do you have to loose? A job that will cause you ulcers and panic attacks, if he can't start to appreciate you?
  • 2
    @hjk101 It's true. all of the office politics revolve around keeping him (ceo) happy. The way to progress? say yes to him.

    I went over everything in my mind several times, and tried figuring out why I haven't been playing politics when it's so easy. I realized that it's because I don't see any actual, lasting benefit to it: even if I win every political game, and make him reliant upon me and my input, eventually he's going to turn around and pull the same thing on me. Instead of a group call bashing API Guy behind his back, it'll be everyone else on a call bashing me.

    Sure, I'd get company stock out of the deal, but there is no way it'd all be worthwhile.
  • 2
    @Root this kind of politicking sounds like a dictatorship. So yeah unless you get powerful enough to overthrow the tyrant you will be the yes men, with luck you are inner circle and have some influence; but will be lynched in an uprising and still sacrificed when needed (just like API guy).

    I could not really finish the first paragraph (ran out of characters). I hope you can use your happy home as stable base to expand your happiness and improve life. Let's make it a truly happy new year 🎉🎊🦄
  • 2
    @hjk101 I argued with the ceo about the websocket for a good fifteen minutes (or more) on that call.

    Damn this 1k char limit. I typed 3200+ chars.

    tl;dr: I explained to him (and the lead contractor dev) exactly why thoroughly testing the websocket was important before building features reliant upon it. He simply did not care. All he wanted was single sign-on, a feature that's *totally* useless on its own.

    I explained that having the websocket fail in-office where we can diagnose the issue is far better than having it fail in a customer's hands where we cannot, and where it just looks like our service doesn't work. Somehow, he couldn't understand this, or he simply refused to listen because it wasn't getting him single sign-on faster. The other dev similarly couldn't understand -- though I'm 92% positive he was just agreeing with the bossman because that's how you stay ahead in the company. (He is a little slow sometimes, though.)
  • 1
    @hjk101 That is literally all he wants: people to tell him yes, and then make what he wants happen no matter the consequences. If instead they argue, they're in the wrong no matter what.

    It's awful, and I want no part.

    I'm going to stay at the job only long enough to find other work. (unless things get too awful to stay.)
  • 2
    @YeahOkay Where and what stack? I'm open to just about anything :(
  • 1
    @Root So you actually told him this will result in downtime for the customer and they will blame our product even it's not our fault? Well our CEO and CTO will sign of on anything preventing that, given that the risk of it happing is high enough (e.g. likely not remote). I'd be rather frustrated working at your place.

    The limit can be annoying in long winded mode. Don't think we should have a higher one on DevRant. People scare of long texts. If we push on like this we should find other means of communication.
  • 2
    @hjk101 Agreed. wtb devChat.

    Short short version:
    CEO either didn't listen to my explanation, or didn't care that it would be unreliable. and yes, that means it would fail in a customer's hands.

    In testing, the socket disconnected and/or paused for up to 45 seconds (locally!), and even dropped messages.

    Also: CTO is building a customer support chat to use the websocket, which fails-over to our current SMS solution. This way we have people in-office testing it constantly. Neither CEO nor contractor dev could understand why this is a good idea. (or they simply refused to).

    I give up.
  • 2
    @Root I was not critiquing you in the previous post but just amazed and reflecting how people at my place would react.

    So the problems with the websocket extends to not giving customer support as well... That should not be a dependency 😶
  • 1
    @hjk101 Customer support could still continue in the event of a failure -- staff can always text the customer directly from their phones, which is our current support method. Terrible, but effective.

    and yeah, I know. Every sane person should care more about feature reliability than shipping! especially when handling real money is involved. :/
  • 2
    @Root Sorry I didn't read that correctly (fail-over to sms not fails to send sms). At least you get to say "You should see the place I work at. It's literally insane!" and no one will ever get it's true meaning 😈 (it's the "literally" that does the trick every time)
  • 0
    @YeahOkay Possibly if there's a remote position available? I live on the other side of the country.
  • 0
    @YeahOkay Thanks!

    Also: I don't have one. LinkedIn is gross. 🙁
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