This Part 3 and finale of the tale of Mr DDTW, or the worst coworker I've ever had to deal with. I suggest you start from the beginning if you don't have the context, it's been a trip.
Part 1: https://devrant.com/rants/4210605
Part 2: https://devrant.com/rants/4220715

The problem with this man threatening to snitch on me to the professor if I didn't revert my commit was that he backed me into a corner. Letting him go at his pace with his quality standards would have ruined the project for the rest of us, and I'm not going to let three other people's grades suffer because one was lazy. I'm the PM, team lead, the guy who will ultimately be held responsible for this project succeeding or failing and the mediator of problems.

So I snitched first.

The professor knew us. He had an idea of how we worked as a team, who was enthusiastic about this subject, who was diligent, and who wasn't. It'd been half a semester and he wasn't stupid. I'd also taken the not-so-minor task of testing our software and handling all the little integration problems between components and between the professor's server. This had resulted in several calls between me and him because he'd been flying by the seat of his pants with some of the upgrades he'd been doing to the server code and as the fastest group we were the ones running into all the bugs on his end. And he'd also noted our prior complaint and seen the discrepancy in commits, author tags and hours logged. Mr DDTW had been graded significantly worse than the rest of us. So when I sent him a goddamn novel about our team's internal problems, the bomb was set. And so we get to the conference call, with everybody panicking and with no clue what any of this is about. Except me.

Dear god. That call was pure catharsis. Never have I seen a man get demolished so hard. Mr DDTW got a 45 minute LECTURE, a goddamn SMACKDOWN, about how he needs to take some responsibility for this team effort and that in the real world he'd have been fired. And the professor was so incredibly serene throughout! He could've blasted him with the rage of a thousand suns but he said it in such a way that Mr DDTW's only real responses were "yes", "I understand" and "I'm sorry". An entire semester of this useless fucking bitch being nothing but a leech on our team in three separate projects and he was finally getting SCHOOLED. And then, it gets even better. The professor asked how we could solve this problem, as Mr DDTW needs to do work to be graded but he can't hold us back.

I dropped a suggestion: As I had implemented the module in a way that worked, we could carry on using my version while Mr DDTW could work on a separate branch. Everything else was working reasonably well for an MVP, we just needed to improve and test now, so if Mr DDTW got it working we could merge it back into the main branch. This solved the team's problem of not being able to progress, it solved Mr DDTWs problem of not wanting to fail the course, and it solved my problem of not having to work with this shit-for-brains for the forseeable future. A weight was lifted off my shoulders. No more Mr DDTW. No more bitching and no more shitcode. A grating arsehole that had been bugging everyone all sememster put in his place and out of my hair.

On the way home from uni that day, I rang a friend and told him the entire story as I needed to get it off my chest. Every time I brought up a problem, an issue, a setback, an argument, he made a remark.

"Damn, if only he just... did the work."

Every time he said it it was in a slightly different way, but every time it made me laugh harder as he just didn't stop interrupting me with the same comment. If only he did the work. But the funniest part of all was how right he was. Mr DDTW had so many opportunities to just sit down, shut up, and do the work like the rest of us, but instead he decided to do fuck-all until he got flak for it and proceeded to dig his own grave. What sort of delusional entitlement, sheer incompetence or other dumbfuckery was he suffering from to make such terrible decisions? It's his last year of university and he still hadn't learned to just do the goddamn work (I would later find out that his friend had covered his shortcomings a lot and was apparently the reason why he hadn't flunked out of uni yet).

And so ends the story of Mr Didn't Do The Work the worst person I have ever had the displeasure of working with. We never did merge his branch as we ran out of time during testing. The professor passed him, possibly out of pity or just so that he wouldn't have to resit the course and burden some other poor sods. We weren't the top scorers this time, partially because of my shortcomings as PM but mostly because of the huge delays and manpower deficit, but we did well enough to pass the course with some very high grades. With one exception of course.

I’m back for a fucking rant.

My previous post I was happy, I’ve had an interview today and I felt the interviewer acted with integrity and made the role seem worthwhile. Fuck it, here’s the link:
https://www.devrant.io/rants/889363

So, since then; the recruiter got in touch: “smashed it son, sending the tech demo your way, if you can get it done this evening that would be amazing”

Obviously I said based on the exact brief I think that’s possible, I’ll take a look and let them know if it isn’t.

Having done loads of these, I know I can usually knock them out and impress in an evening with no trouble.

Here’s where shit gets fucked up; i opened the brief.

I was met with a brief for an MVP using best practice patterns and flexing every muscle with the tech available...

Then I see the requirements, these fucking dicks are after 10 functional requirements averaging an hour a piece.

+TDD so * 1.25,
+DI and dependency inversion principle * 1.1
+CI setup (1h on this platform)
+One ill requirement to use a stored proc in SQL server to return a view (1h)
+UX/UI design consideration using an old tech (1-2h)
+unobtrusive jquery form post validation (2h)
+AES-256 encryption in the db... add 2h for proper testing.

These cunts want me to knock 15-20h of Work into their interview tech demo.

I’ve done a lot of these recently, all of them topped out at 3h max.

The job is middling: average package, old tech, not the most exciting or decent work.

The interviewer alluded to his lead being a bit of a dick; one of those “the code comes first” devs.

Here’s where shit gets realer:
They’ve included mock ups in the tech demo brief’s zip... I looked at them to confirm I wasn’t over estimating the job... I wasn’t.

Then I looked at the other files in the fucking zip.

I found 3 of the images they wanted to use were copyright withheld... there’s no way these guys have the right to distribute these.

Then I look in the font folder, it’s a single ttf, downloaded from fucking DA Font... it was published less than 2mo ago, the license file had been removed: free for Personal, anything else; contact me.

There’s no way these guys have any rights to this font, and I’ve never seen a font redistributed legally without it’s accompanying licence files.

This fucking company is constantly talking about its ethical behaviours.

Given that I know what I’m doing; I know it would have taken less time to find free-for-commercial images and use a google font... this sloppy bullshit is beyond me.

Anyway, I said I’d get back to the recruiter, he wasn’t to know and he’s a good guy. I let him know I’d complete the tech demo over the weekend, he’s looked after me and I don’t want him having trouble with his client...

I’ll substitute the copyright fuckery with images I have a license for because there’s no way I’m pushing copyright stolen material to a public github repo.

I’ll also be substituting the topic and leaving a few js bombs in there to ensure they don’t just steal my shit.

Here’s my hypotheses, anyone with any more would be greatly welcomed...
1: the lead dev is just a stuck up arsehole, with no real care for his work and a relaxed view on stealing other people’s.
2: they are looking for 15-20h free work on an MVP they can modify and take to market
3: they are looking for people to turn down this job so they can support someone’s fucking visa.

In any case, it’s a shit show and I’ll just be seeing this as box checking and interview practice...

Arguments for 1: the head told me about his lead’s problems within 20mn of the interview.
2: he said his biggest problem was getting products out quickly enough.
3: the recruiter told me they’d been “picky”, and they’re making themselves people who can’t be worked for.

I’m going to knock out the demo, keep it private and protect my work well. It’s going to smash their tits off because I’m a fucking great developer... I’ll make sure I get the offer to keep the recruiter looked after.

Then fuck those guys, I’m fucking livid.

After a wonderful interview experience and a nice introduction to the company I’ve been completely put off...

So here’s the update: if you’re interviewing for a shitty middle level dev position, amongst difficult people, on an out of date stack... you need people to want you, don’t fuck them off.

If they want my time to rush out MVPs, they can pay my day rate.

Fuuuuuuuuck... I typed this out whilst listening to the podcast, I’m glad I’m not the only one dealing with shit.

Oh also; I had a lovely discriminatory as fuck application, personality test and disability request email sent to me from a company that seems like it’s still in the 90s. Fuck those guys too, I reported them to the relevant authorities and hope they’re made to look at how morally reprehensible their recruitment process is. The law is you don’t ask if the job can be done by anyone.