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[Thursday afternoon on a call...]
Client: Before we get started, can you create a sitescape outlining all of the pages and sections of the new website?
Me: Sure! I'll go through the website and shoot you a full layout in xls format as soon as possible, that way you can easily make notes on what you want added, modified or removed.
[Two hours later...]
Client: Hey, did you build that sitescape yet?
Me: Actually, I've been on back-to-back calls with other clients.
Client: So when are you going to get it done?
Me: Well, I have to go through the current website in it's entirety, which I'm guessing is about 1,000 pages. I have to determine which pages work fine on their own, which need to be combined for better presentation and which should be removed due to redundancy. That's something that is tedious and takes some time to complete. That, in combination with having an existing work queue that I need to fit you within and being at the end of the work week, we're looking at Tuesday morning to have it ready.
Client: "Existing work queue"? This is ridiculous. We're paying you good money to make our project your only priority. If we wanted to wait days for work, we would have saved money and paid for a cheaper service. You're already gouging us as it is! If we don't get the sitescape by end of day Friday, we're going with another company.
Me: I would tell you that I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm not. I'm not going to feed you a line to make you happy. I'm also not going to work on my days off just to rush something out to you. You hired us because you wanted things done right, not quickly. Your current website is the result of not focusing on quality, but by how fast you can deliver it. We don't work that way. We only build quality products.
By rushing your project, not only do we alienate our current clients, affecting our reputation, but we build product of less than the highest quality. That will upset you because it isn't perfect, and it reflects poorly on us to use it in our portfolio.
If you want to hire someone to pump out this project to your unrealistic deadlines, be our guest. But you paid a 50% non-refundable deposit, so not only will you lose money, but your end product will suffer.
I'm going to let you sleep on this. If you decide tomorrow that another direction is the way to go, we wish you luck. But please understand that if we conclude our business, we will no longer make ourselves available for your needs.
Please find the attached contracts you have signed, acknowledging the non-refundable deposit, as well as the project timeline and scope, of which a "sitescape" was never originally mentioned or blocked out for time.
I hope that tomorrow we can move forward in a more professional manner.
[Next morning...]
Client: My apologies for yesterday. We're just very anxious to get this started.
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Don't let clients push you around. Make them sign a contract and enforce it whenever necessary.7 -
tl;dr; I've worked 117.5h/week for a month because of a project lead that doesn't understand what I do despite countless attempts at explaining
So, once a year I do this large project for a voluntary organization, it takes me about 80h (and this is of course on top of my normal work and voluntary engagement (60-80h/week))
This year, I realized I don't have as much spare time as I used to, so I emailed the project lead several months in advance like "hey, you know that I do all my work on this before the rest of you start working on it, and you know I need you to sit down for about an hour and put together the list of things I need to know to get this done properly. Could you please do that a bit earlier than usual, a week or two extra would make a big difference", they replied "absolutely, no problem!"
Time went by, and about two weeks before I wanted that info I emailed a small reminder. Shit me not, a month later, after a countless amount of reminders I finally get a half finnished version of the list I need, note that this is two weeks before I'm supposed to be done. Which is fine, it's the usual timespan, not what I hoped for as I hoped for an extra two weeks, but not too late either.
Then shit starts to happen
I reply to the list I've gotten with some requests for the project lead to complete some of the information, to which I receive multiple replies with different answers to the same questions, okay, that's fine, I'll just use the last answer.(?)
So, I finnish the thing on time, clocking out on a total of 117.5h of work per week, two weeks in a row. Still fine, it's just two weeks.
Release day!
I arrive at the release meeting, and is greeted by the project lead handing me two papers with the words "we haven't been able to look through your work yet to make sure it's like we want it, but we sat down yesterday and here's a list of how we want things to be". So I remind them that the thing is supposed to be done that day, and that it takes me 80h to redo, and those papers will require me to redo everything from scratch. To which the project lead responds "but it doesn't have to be finnished until December, right?"
That is not true, not at all, in any way.
See, there are 600 people that depend on this project, and they need, yes, need to be able to access it from the day it's launched every year. That is an absolute requirement.
So after trying to tell this project lead, for multiple years, how much time I devote to this project (for free) every year, during a short period of time, and after trying countless times to explain why it has to be done when the project is released, I became quite irritated.
So, during the two weeks that have passed since, I've been receiving about 200 emails from people wondering why the thing isn't finished yet and why they can't use it. (forwarded every single one of them to the project lead) and have been redoing it all during the past two weeks, from scratch.
I'm finally done, I released it yesterday, finally! I accompanied it with a bitter email to the project lead.
Because seriously, this is the worst respect for both my time and the people that should use the project's time in all of those years I've been doing this. This year, I've been ignored multiple times; they've shat on my work because it didn't live up to their expectations, even tough they never told me their expectations; I've been misinformed etc.
And now it's starting to get to me, this is the first weekend in a month when I've been able to shut down my laptop, sit down, drink a cup of tea, read a fricking book, chat with some friends etc, and most importantly, sleep. Signs of the stress I've had for a month now is starting to remind themselves.
And there's this little though nagging me in the back of my head: if the project lead would've worked for an hour in September I would've had to do half the job I ended up doing, on double the time. I hate realizing that they don't give a shit about my part of this, even tough I do half the work.
Then why do I continue, year after year? Because I feel that those 600 people that benefit from this really deserve it! But why does there have to be a dick project lead in the middle that makes me feel sick working on the thing I love the most!
So, as I'm not really used to ranting like this, i have to add that I really have no point with this rant. Just had to get it off my chest!13 -
You can believe or not but it’s just one of those stories. It’s long and crazy and it probably happened.
A few years ago I was interviewed by this big insurance company. They asked me on linkedin and were interested. They didn’t specify who they were so I didn’t specify who I am either.
After they revealed who they are I was just curious how they fuck they want to spend those billions of dollars they claimed in their press notes about this fucking digital transformation everyone is talking about. The numbers were big.
I got into 3 or 4 phone/skype interviews without technical questions and I was invited to see them by person.
I know that it would be funny because they didn’t asked me for CV so they didn’t know anything about me and I was just more curious how far I can get without revealing myself.
They canceled interview at midnight and I was in the middle of Louis de Funès comedies marathon so I didn’t sleep whole night. I assumed they would just reschedule but then they phoned me at 8 am if I can come because they made mistake.
So at first talk I was just interviewed by some manager I knowed after 5 minutes he would be shitty as fuck and demand stupid things in no time because he is not technical. He was trying to explain me that they got so great people and they do everything so fast.
From my experience speed and programming are not the things that match. ( for reference of my thought see three virtues of a GREAT programmer )
So I just pissed them off by asking what they would do with me when I finish this transformation thingy next year. ( Probably get rid off and fire at some point were my thoughts )
Then I got this technical interview on newest gold color MacBook pro - pair programming ( they were showing off how much money they have all the time ).
The person asked me to transform json and get some data in javascript .
Really that was the thing and I was so bored and tired that I just asked in what ES standard I can code.
The problem was despite he told me I can do anything and they are using newest standards ( yeah right ) the “for of” loop didn’t worked and he even didn’t know that syntax existed. So I explained him it’s the newest syntax pointing mozilla page and that he need to adjust his configuration. Because we didn’t have time for that I just did it using var an function by writing bunch of code.
When he was asking me if I want to write some tests probably because my code looked ugly as fuck ( I didn’t sleep for more then 24 hours at that point and wanted to live the building as fast as I can) I told I finished and there is no time for tests because it’s so simple and dumb task. The code worked.
After showing me how awesome their office is ( yeah please I work from home so I don’t care ) I got into the talk with VP of engineering and he was the only person who asked me where is my CV because he didn’t know what to talk about. I just laughed at him and told him that I got here just by talking how awesome I am so we can talk about whatever he wants.
After quick talk about 4 different problems where I introduced 4 different languages and bunch of libraries just because I can and I worked with those he was mine.
He told me about this awesome stack they’re building with kubernetes and micro services and the shitty future where they want to put IOT into peoples ass to sell them insurance and suddenly I got awake and started to want that job but behind that all awesomeness there was just .NET bridge with stack of mainframes running COBOL that they want to get rid off and move company to the cloud.
They needed mostly people who would dump code to different technology stack and get rid of old stack ( and probably those old people ) and I was bored again because I work more in r&d field where you sometimes need to think about something that don’t exist and be creative.
I asked him why it would take so much time so he explained me how they would do the transformation by consolidating bunch of companies and how much money they would make by probably firing people that don’t know about it to this day.
I didn’t met any person working permanently there but only consultants from corporations and people hired in some 3rd party company created by this mother company.
They didn’t responded with any decision after me wasting so much time and they asked me for interview for another position year after.
I just explained HR person how they treat people and I don’t want to work there for any money.
If You reached this point it is the end and if it was entertaining thank YOU I did my best.
Have a nice day.5 -
What a shitty day.
3h sleep
Lead very pissed bcuz backend don't know specs
Boring meeting where everything is repeated like 6 times
In a few hours boss wants to talk with the whole team
My co-workers jokingly say they want to fire me.
I should be the "hero that will make things better"
Please just kill me instead...
Edit: started working there 3 weeks ago2 -
Well , this isn't a rant or a joke , so I just thought I should post it here in case people are going through a similar situation . So I know this guy , who works at this startup , so he had just joined the company and made a huge impression on the boss ( My friend is fantastic in developing ) , so as great as that sounds , it doesn't . After a year or so , he's been promoted and is now kinda a face for the devs of the company and this made his boss very cocky , like he would take so many projects or requirements of his top clients and place them on the shoulders of my friend and give a bad time limit , which is impossible but he always managed to just finish completing it . Naturally it affected his sleep cycle , his daily life and as a result , his mental health . As time went on and as more and more projects were being placed on him..........he finally broke , he used to miss so many days of work , not return any of my calls or texts , miss lunches , have breakdowns . I became very concerned and didn't want him to end it , I went to his place , spoke to him , found out that he had suicidal thoughts . Fast forward a year later , he's still going to a shrink , everyday but he's better now and after forcing him to talk to his boss and now his boss gives him plenty of time to finish the projects and said to be straightforward with how he feels and so on . I know this isn't what you would expect to find here but I just wanted to say after having this experience , please do not keep quiet , be straightforward with your boss and don't overburden yourself , if you're an introvert , tell it to someone you know , to tell your boss , and if you know anyone in a similar situation , do be out there for them . I'm sorry if this kinda spoils your mood , but people have to be aware . Be careful , lots of love people4
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Could not fucking sleep at all.
Spent the entire night in a combination of:
Weight lifting
Playing with NestJS(its fucking beautiful)
Watching seven deadly sins on Netflix(current fav anime)
And i am still not tired. Even then I am not in the mood for going to work.
Not sure if I want to risk it and drive there since I know I will be crashing at around noon.
I hate it when this happens.
During the week I would do crazy shit to try and get me to fall asleep.
I would wake up early. Work out, go to work, get back from work, kill myself at the gym and nope.
Still wide fucking awake.
To make it better, my stomach begins to act up and fucking kill me the more I don't sleep for some reason(although it could be related to me piercing my stomach years ago)
I really dislike being human. Such fragile bodies.
But yeah, NestJS is frickin amazing. Typescript is sexy as all hell with it. Just what i was looking for in terms of out of the box architecture for JS apps5 -
Weather is changing so frequently.
I'm switching since 1 1/2 weeks between being tired, no sleep, migraine.
On top of that I have to unclog a multilayer cache architecture based on varnish.
My brain poof.
Plus a lot of management tasks.... And planning.
I just want to enter a hibernation mode and sleep for 3-4 weeks.
Please?6 -
This week's huge fuck you goes to... Drumroll please...
Slack!
You earned this prize for your stupid auto-sleep if there is no interaction for x minutes!
I don't want to install your crap software on my system, so i am forced to alt tab every 15 minutes just to press space and then delete, because God forbids i am being productive on my freaking IDE, second computer, test device and/or meeting!
Also lovely how phone notifications are not sent on mobile unless you are on sleep mode... How could I ever ask for urgent notifications if i take a small break? Oh, right! I should go to sleep mode, so people will think i didn't touch your shitware for 30 mins every fucking time i go to the toilet! :D
Please get your prize whenever possible!12 -
At 12:38 AM, I am working in the office alone on a project that I hate with my guts.
Since last month I am feeling nothing. In the morning I don't want to get up and go to the office. I do not feel any excitement in my job. Even I hate talking to people, I still have to join 4 meetings and talk to them.
As the Project Manager, I hate taking responsibility for other people's code.
Writing emails to stupid business people and talking to them at the meeting, I hate those people.
I have worked for almost 16 hours per day for 2 months to finish this project. Even worked on Sunday. The project is not finished. The scope and requirement get changed daily. The client has no fucking idea of what they want.
I have no fucking idea what I want to in my life. I just want to go home and get a good fucking sleep.
Whoever is reading this, I hope you have better time in your life than me.
And please tell them this will get better. I need to hear it.5 -
I'm tired. I don't want to do these tests anymore. These vague test scenarios I have to decrypt on my own lest asking business shows signs of weakness. I'm slow to test and going way beyond the hours the client estimated and you folks just accepted. How can I finish this when I get pulled to meetings which I am not the decision maker but I'm supposed to be the technical one to help them decide. In between this testing I get emails to help check on issues I'm not even a part of. Production issues I can understand because those have a feel of critical and priority but if you pull me to that I lose time testing. I'm trying. But I'm truly very slow at this. I'm a slow tester for this set of test cases. I'm hating myself every minute as the hours inch to the deadline which is today. I want to sleep but I want to finish as well. Shitty days of drone work that could have been given to somebody else but I can't say no to because you guys accepted. Someone from management just see please, don't give this to me. But you can't see. You probably don't even understand. They asked, you caved because you can't see the list of tasks and level of detail that comes with each thing they ask. This testing is a ridiculous use of my time but I can't say that to the client. You could have. I want to. I truly want to say "Fuck these tests". I tried to push back. But the client of course reasoned back and it was understandable to ask. To do what's good and what's best. How can I say no to that?! I'm almost depleted. I'll just finish this somehow.
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