So you meant to be a programmer ...
BY SCOTT C. REYNOLDS
How much do you remember yourself, computers and electronics attracted you. By the time of your majority you have truly stood in the way of a professional programmer. The first Internet gold rush was in full swing, and you, nerds, were everywhere called Heroes of the New Economy on the covers of the Fast Company and Wired magazines, and the nerds were rowing money with a shovel, doing the same things you love to do.
You left the vocational school and started looking for a job in a startup. Because to quit school and create something great - the great Steve Jobs and Bill Gates just asserted, like a spell, about it. Companies recruited anyone who somehow understood Boolean logic and was eager to create, and vocational school graduates were not averse to doing more, getting less if they were given options for their salary [the right to receive a part of the company’s employers for a symbolic amount will be priced in the market].
So you got a job at an e-commerce site selling parts that you bought from wholesalers and delivered to customers. You just got into the thick of the dotcom boom, working for a company that embodied everything that era was:
Your first project was to create an algorithm for a site that generates a selling price based on the delivery method. This was your first hint that everything is not as good as it seems. The second hint would be a raid on the office of representatives of the bodies, if you were at this time on the spot, and not to interview in search of a better job.
')
It turned out that your office did not actually ship the goods to customers. She sold the goods on the site and took the money, but the supplier wasn’t sent the corresponding order, unless the buyer threatened with the court. For that time it was an acceptable business model, well, you know, minus those things that are illegal.
When you came to work the next day, the office was completely empty, only in the room with the copier was the head of the company, his sleeves were rolled up, and he fed the industrial paper shredder with the ease of a man who knew a lot about it.
Your next job was the development of medical software. It already seemed like a more legitimate business, and you were happy to work on a product that really has a real relationship with people. You have been told that you will use the latest technology to create an electronic system for recording the next generation of medical records. You came to work on the first day with trepidation at the opportunity to plunge and write code. Instead, your schedule looked like this:
9:00 - 10:30 Meeting of the working group for current issues
11:00 Midday SCRUM
12:30 - 14:00 Meeting on the demonstration of the product and its architecture
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Halo 3 Tournament
16:00 - 18:00 Video chat on Skype with Hindu colleagues from Bangalore
And every next day went the same way. It was expected that the programmer in this startup will work hard at night, really starting to work in the evening, and work until it is visible behind a pile of soda bottles and pizza packages. And you worked hard and worked hard, adding features for features, every day trying to surpass yourself for the product demo. On New Year's Eve, you opened a can of beer, raised a toast, without speaking to anyone specifically, and again buried yourself in the monitor. You should have released the product. In the release of the product was all. Nobody, in essence, didn’t determine what exactly was going to happen, but the hope was that if you came up with a bunch of features, then someone could end up making a sold product out of it.
Three years have passed like one continuous day. Holidays and weekends, even nights, were artificial formations that made sense only for other people. You became 12 kg harder and it was easier for one girl, and neither this nor that had any effect on your work. You took on the responsibility for the success of the company, your bunch of options pushed you beyond reason in dedication. Future wealth and recognition are worth the effort today, at least you said to yourself.
And then the day came when the product was officially launched, but something wasn’t heard fanfare. No premium. No sense of satisfaction. It was just a quiet launch with one beta user. You did not know what to do on that day, you just sat and periodically launched a request to the base to see what they were doing there. The answer is: almost nothing. And what they do, do wrong. They found glitches! They found ways to circumvent all your carefully tuned rules and validations. Not because they were cool hackers ... they were just stupid. They clicked on things that should not have been clicked. They introduced things that should not have been entered. They did not read simple instructions. They did not listen at the training. They personally insulted you by using your software so badly.
In the field “Enter the number of analyzes:” they have hammered in “five analyzes”
In the field “Number of insurance:” they entered “he does not have it, because he is illegal
Instead of clicking the “Create a new patient record” button, they changed the information in one single record in the database, saving it constantly.
Then calls from the sales department began, demanding to explain why the system is so crooked, and why something that clearly does not work was written for so long.
There was nothing left for you to do except respond to the bug reports and release patches that did not add anything to the system, but led the user through the system by the hand. You were wondering out loud how these people lived to this day without accidentally drinking white. When new customers came, you hoped that the work you did for the previous ones would allow them to successfully use the system. But alas.
One special case after another was piled up, and your life soon became filled with making even more specific and annoying changes to your beautiful program, until it took on such a form that you stopped recognizing it yourself. You hated your users, even though the money began to drip, and everyone began to see tangible results of several years of work. You wanted to quit to do something else instead, but you did. The money was not very big, but better than you could get somewhere else. You would lose your options if you quit, and it would wipe out all your efforts, and you would no longer be able to flirt so hard with a pretty girl from the sales department with whom you have secret love.
So you stayed and maintained your software, hating the users you already wanted to physically beat. A pretty girl from the sales department got engaged and left. Your options by this time began to cost you more than the shares of the company on the market, and so it remained. Ten years later, you found yourself to be a manager of a team of programmers who were unable to do the only thing you really wanted: coding. Your job was to take young programmers who love what they do and squeeze the soul out of them, motivating them to follow your path. You hated yourself and your work every day, but you decided that you were too old to do anything else. You acquired a taste for whiskey and began to seriously engage in your retirement contribution, hoping that cirrhosis of the liver will come before you have to leave here and work as a packer in a grocery store ...
(original www.mcsweeneys.net/links/dreamjobs/dreamjobs5.html )
Note: the author has a series about different professions. Well, everything ends badly.
How much do you remember yourself, computers and electronics attracted you. By the time of your majority you have truly stood in the way of a professional programmer. The first Internet gold rush was in full swing, and you, nerds, were everywhere called Heroes of the New Economy on the covers of the Fast Company and Wired magazines, and the nerds were rowing money with a shovel, doing the same things you love to do.
You left the vocational school and started looking for a job in a startup. Because to quit school and create something great - the great Steve Jobs and Bill Gates just asserted, like a spell, about it. Companies recruited anyone who somehow understood Boolean logic and was eager to create, and vocational school graduates were not averse to doing more, getting less if they were given options for their salary [the right to receive a part of the company’s employers for a symbolic amount will be priced in the market].
So you got a job at an e-commerce site selling parts that you bought from wholesalers and delivered to customers. You just got into the thick of the dotcom boom, working for a company that embodied everything that era was:
- Find a quasi-legal niche that may not exist.
- Exploit programmers who want to be at the forefront of progress
- Income! however short-lived (optional item)
- Sell ​​or otherwise dissolve the office
- Repeat as much as you want or until the state is interested in you
Your first project was to create an algorithm for a site that generates a selling price based on the delivery method. This was your first hint that everything is not as good as it seems. The second hint would be a raid on the office of representatives of the bodies, if you were at this time on the spot, and not to interview in search of a better job.
')
It turned out that your office did not actually ship the goods to customers. She sold the goods on the site and took the money, but the supplier wasn’t sent the corresponding order, unless the buyer threatened with the court. For that time it was an acceptable business model, well, you know, minus those things that are illegal.
When you came to work the next day, the office was completely empty, only in the room with the copier was the head of the company, his sleeves were rolled up, and he fed the industrial paper shredder with the ease of a man who knew a lot about it.
Your next job was the development of medical software. It already seemed like a more legitimate business, and you were happy to work on a product that really has a real relationship with people. You have been told that you will use the latest technology to create an electronic system for recording the next generation of medical records. You came to work on the first day with trepidation at the opportunity to plunge and write code. Instead, your schedule looked like this:
9:00 - 10:30 Meeting of the working group for current issues
11:00 Midday SCRUM
12:30 - 14:00 Meeting on the demonstration of the product and its architecture
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Halo 3 Tournament
16:00 - 18:00 Video chat on Skype with Hindu colleagues from Bangalore
And every next day went the same way. It was expected that the programmer in this startup will work hard at night, really starting to work in the evening, and work until it is visible behind a pile of soda bottles and pizza packages. And you worked hard and worked hard, adding features for features, every day trying to surpass yourself for the product demo. On New Year's Eve, you opened a can of beer, raised a toast, without speaking to anyone specifically, and again buried yourself in the monitor. You should have released the product. In the release of the product was all. Nobody, in essence, didn’t determine what exactly was going to happen, but the hope was that if you came up with a bunch of features, then someone could end up making a sold product out of it.
Three years have passed like one continuous day. Holidays and weekends, even nights, were artificial formations that made sense only for other people. You became 12 kg harder and it was easier for one girl, and neither this nor that had any effect on your work. You took on the responsibility for the success of the company, your bunch of options pushed you beyond reason in dedication. Future wealth and recognition are worth the effort today, at least you said to yourself.
And then the day came when the product was officially launched, but something wasn’t heard fanfare. No premium. No sense of satisfaction. It was just a quiet launch with one beta user. You did not know what to do on that day, you just sat and periodically launched a request to the base to see what they were doing there. The answer is: almost nothing. And what they do, do wrong. They found glitches! They found ways to circumvent all your carefully tuned rules and validations. Not because they were cool hackers ... they were just stupid. They clicked on things that should not have been clicked. They introduced things that should not have been entered. They did not read simple instructions. They did not listen at the training. They personally insulted you by using your software so badly.
In the field “Enter the number of analyzes:” they have hammered in “five analyzes”
In the field “Number of insurance:” they entered “he does not have it, because he is illegal
Instead of clicking the “Create a new patient record” button, they changed the information in one single record in the database, saving it constantly.
Then calls from the sales department began, demanding to explain why the system is so crooked, and why something that clearly does not work was written for so long.
There was nothing left for you to do except respond to the bug reports and release patches that did not add anything to the system, but led the user through the system by the hand. You were wondering out loud how these people lived to this day without accidentally drinking white. When new customers came, you hoped that the work you did for the previous ones would allow them to successfully use the system. But alas.
One special case after another was piled up, and your life soon became filled with making even more specific and annoying changes to your beautiful program, until it took on such a form that you stopped recognizing it yourself. You hated your users, even though the money began to drip, and everyone began to see tangible results of several years of work. You wanted to quit to do something else instead, but you did. The money was not very big, but better than you could get somewhere else. You would lose your options if you quit, and it would wipe out all your efforts, and you would no longer be able to flirt so hard with a pretty girl from the sales department with whom you have secret love.
So you stayed and maintained your software, hating the users you already wanted to physically beat. A pretty girl from the sales department got engaged and left. Your options by this time began to cost you more than the shares of the company on the market, and so it remained. Ten years later, you found yourself to be a manager of a team of programmers who were unable to do the only thing you really wanted: coding. Your job was to take young programmers who love what they do and squeeze the soul out of them, motivating them to follow your path. You hated yourself and your work every day, but you decided that you were too old to do anything else. You acquired a taste for whiskey and began to seriously engage in your retirement contribution, hoping that cirrhosis of the liver will come before you have to leave here and work as a packer in a grocery store ...
(original www.mcsweeneys.net/links/dreamjobs/dreamjobs5.html )
Note: the author has a series about different professions. Well, everything ends badly.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/110469/
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