Rantings of a Black Polemicist

You’re fired. Leave your badge and laptop. We’re walking you out.

Monday, July 23rd, 2007 | Work | Comments Off

So I guess confronting my boss last Thursday about being ambushed wasn’t a good idea.

Criticizing his management of the project wasn’t either.

And daring him to find another developer as good as me wasn’t too bright a move.

If my bipolar diagnosis is correct, then some things make a little more sense.

At the core of it, my manager had a problem with my performance. My estimates to be exact. He’d ask me how long it took to do something and I’d give him dates. The dates were based on me coding at my very fastest, based on what I’d seen of myself during manic episodes.

After a while, I’d burn out and the dates would slip. And we’d set new dates and do it all over again. And again.

The masterpiece I built over a 10 month period would’ve taken 2 or 3 average developers to write. Thing is, I told him I could do it in 5 months because I was really convinced I could. The medication I was taking for an ADD misdiagnosis didn’t help me with my feelings of grandiosity either.

A competent project manager would know I was biting off more than I could chew, but he sat by and watched me, not really understanding what was going on. Just that dates were slipping, and that I was the only developer on the project.

When I got out of the hospital and was confronted with my constantly off-target estimates, my manager and pimptress demanded that Manic Melvin come back and finish what he started. That was tougher now with the new medications I was on.

I could barely keep my head up during the day, let alone code like a maniac.

I wasn’t going to stop taking my new meds, period. And I couldn’t code as fast as I’d promised.

So I got defensive, arrogant and defiant.

And now I’m looking for another job.

Update (7/24): Some recruiter called today asking me to interview for the very position I was fired for. I asked him to email me the requirement out of curiosity. They’re looking for a junior-level flunky type. Whoever they bring in won’t even be able to get my old code running, let alone finish it. My boss really didn’t have any idea what I was doing the entire 10 months I was there. Meanwhile, my phone is ringing off the hook from what I learned on that project.

It sucks to be him.

Ambushed at my weakest moment.

Saturday, July 14th, 2007 | Work | Comments Off

Monday was my first day back from the hospital.

Not the regular kind, but the type that likes to lock away your belt and shoelaces for you while you stay.

I was there for a week after finally reaching my breaking point. The stress from home, new parenthood and work finally got me.

I’d been able to call my boss from a social worker’s desk on Monday. I let him know that I was in the hospital and I’d be out for the rest of the week.

When I got back to work and checked my voice mail, my Account Manager (read:pimp) had left a couple of messages for me on my blackberry while it kept my belt and shoelaces company during my stay.

She implied that I was unprofessional and threatened to take me off the project.

At 3:30, my manager and pimp met with me in a chilly conference room.

My boss went on about how he’s getting pressure from Mr. Director.

I explained that we’d agreed I was re-writing the entire system from scratch and that I was doing the work of 2 Senior-level developers in half the time.

Though he’d heard it before from me, he challenged my statement for the first time with my pimp as a scolding on-looker.

She leveled threats against me, with her cheap-ass shoes.

Then he accused me of withholding information from another contractor.

Not true.

The statement was not true.

And he knew it.

He lied about my integrity to cover his own cowardly ass.

And he knows I know that he lied.

And I was covering for him this whole time.

He demonstrated that he has the capacity to lie to my employer when under pressure.

From the sound of things, he’d been lying to his boss about me to protect himself as well.

He knows I see right through it.

How naive he must be to even think that he can fuck with me.

Metaphorically speaking, he just signed his own death warrant.