156
Aeron
7y

I am an indie game developer and I lead a team of 5 trusted individuals. After our latest release, we bought a larger office and decided to expand our team so that we could implement more features in our games and release it in a desirable time period. So I asked everyone to look for individuals that they would like to hire for their respective departments. When the whole list was prepared, I sent out a bunch of job offers for a "training trial period". The idea was that everyone would teach the newbies in their department about how we do stuff and then after a month select those who seem to be the best. Our original team was
-Two coders
-One sound guy(because musician is too mainstream)
-Two artists
I did coding, concept art(and character drawings) and story design, So, I decided to be a "coding mentor"(?).
We planned to recruit
-Two coders
-One sound guy
-One artist (two if we encountered a great artstyle)
When the day finally arrived I decided to hide the fact that I am the founder and decided that there would be a phantom boss so that they wouldn't get stressed or try flattery.
So out of 7, 5 people people came for the "coding trial session". There were 3 guys and 2 girls. My teammate and I started by giving them a brief introduction to the working of our engine and then gave them a few exercises to help them understand it better. Fast forward a few days, and we were teaching them about how we implement multiple languages in our games using Excel. The original text in English is written in the first column and we then send it to translators so that they can easily compare and translate the content side by side such that a column is reserved for each language. We then break it down and convert the whole thing into an engine friendly CSV kind of format. When we concluded, we asked them if they had any questions. So there was this smartass, who could not get over the fact that we were using Excel. The conversation went like this:(almost word to word)

Smartass: "Why would you even use that primitive software? How stupid is that? Why don't you get some skills before teaching us about your shit logic?"
Me:*triggered* "Oh yeah? Well that's how we do stuff here. If you don't like it, you can simply leave."
Smartass: "You don't know who I am, do you? I am friends with the boss of this company. If I wanted I could have all of you fired at whim."
Me:"Oh, is that right?"
Smartass:"Damn right it is. Now that you know who I am, you better treat me with some respect."
Me: "What if I told you that I am not just a coder?"
Smartass:"Considering your lack of skills, I assume that you are also a janitor? What was he thinking? Hiring people like you, he must have been desperate."
Me:"What if I told you that I am the boss?"
Smartass:"Hah! You wish you were."*looks towards my teammate while pointing a thumb at me* "Calling himself the boss, who does he think he is?"
Teammate:*looks away*.
Smartass:*glances back and forth between me and my teammate while looking confused* *realizes* *starts sweating profusely* *looks at me with horror*
Me:"Ha ha ha hah, get out"
Smartass:*stands dumbfounded*
Me:"I said, get out"
Smartass:*gathers his stuff and leaves the room*
Me: "Alright, any questions?"*Smiling angrily*
Newcomers: *shake heads furiously*
Me:"Good"

For the rest of the day nobody tried to bother me. I decided to stop posing as an employee and teaching the newcomers so that I could secretly observe all sessions that took place from now on for events like these. That guy never came back. The good news however, is that the art and music training was going pretty well.

What really intrigues me though is that why do I keep getting caught with these annoying people? It's like I am working in customer support or something.

Comments
  • 38
    The lack of humility of some people is scary.
  • 4
    @kunashe Exactly !. You would meet some devs that are so arrogant because they think they're super awesome developers. 🙍 . I'm irritated by them .
  • 26
    😂😂 whar gets me is the fact that this fuckshot lied about knowing the boss to try get his way at a small Indie company, idiot
  • 1
    Excel is actually great for translations, but you have to be careful with right-to-left languages.
  • 1
    @Rabb Hence the short training session
  • 3
    Your new guy pretending to know the owner to get leverage over the group is very common in developing countries. He is arrogant and a liar and should not be on your team.
    Respect should be a two way street, the other type is fear. Encourage your team to respect one another but to also feel free to be themselves because that is the only to get them to produce the best work they can. So in my opinion, by you pretending not to be the boss was not the best strategy. The new guy should be encouraged to say "boss excel is not the best option and this is why..."
  • 7
    Phantom boss is a great idea
  • 3
    @codeblue valid point, but it's not like this guy was a humble person. If he were, he wouldnt of acted the way he did; not to mention that OP stated his own fair reasons for hiding the fact
  • 1
    bamboozled
  • 6
    @codeblue @AllenII Truth be told, the only reason I wanted to hide the fact the I was the boss was because I wanted to mingle with everyone without all that awkwardness, like I do with my current team. To create an environment where everyone is free to express their ideas and discuss problems without the fear of being looked down upon. But I guess my luck won't let me. The smartass never came back. He wasn't the best either. He was good at learning about the engine and using mechanics though. Anyway, we'll pick the best two among the remaining four next week to finally form our new coding team.
  • 0
    @Aeron is your game pushed on the stores?

    My opinion, such people never evolve. I respect my team and earn their respect. People who fail to do so can't be in my team.
  • 1
    @devleb My third, and our(my original team's) second game has indeed been published. If it was still in the production, we wouldn't be wasting time training apprentices so that the best would take over the dojo, you know. We would be working hard and pulling all nighters.
  • 0
    @Aeron would like to get the game link to check it out if you don't mind.
  • 6
    @devleb I'm sorry I would rather not. I want to stay anonymous so that I can rant all I want without offending people. I hope you understand.
  • 0
    @Aeron of course i do 😊
  • 1
    This is insane, i don't understand some people but you did the right thing and removed the problem before it became rooted.
Add Comment