So do bubbles burst?
The financial crisis that occurred to us last year has touched almost all sectors of the economy, not passing by the high-tech industry. Startups, until the winter of last year, bred like mushrooms, gifted with the money rain of investment funds, were put in difficult conditions - especially for those projects that were developed during the recession. Many resources have been suspended or collapsed.
In this topic, I want to talk about one campaign in which I happened to be directly involved - the development of a new social network. I specifically will not specify either the name of the network or name names - it will be so.
In early June 2008, having decided to try my luck, I went to Moscow - at that moment, I considered myself a good programmer, ready to work in a serious company. Immediately after arriving in the capital, I had several interviews scheduled in different companies - they offered approximately the same financial conditions, which in my case was perhaps the determining factor.
')
As a result of the first interview with the technical director of the company (hereinafter - TD), I decided to stay at this company - I liked the working conditions and development prospects that were so colorfully described by the TD (and it’s worth saying that much of the promise was fulfilled, and I think if it would not be a crisis - everything would have come true, but I am running ahead).
The organization was new - as a matter of fact, I became the first ordinary employee - a web programmer, except for me in the company were completely director: General, Technical, Creative, PR-director - because of their abundance at first it was ruffled in the eyes.
The first, and probably, the second working week was not remembered by anything special, but even then I had questions: how the project will develop, in which direction (technically) we will move. There was no technical task, there was no objective scheme of the project - there was only an idea, everything was “in my head”, as TD said. It was very difficult to understand initially how the system would be built - because my first three weeks were essentially wasted - almost all of that code, with the exception of a few working classes, and some developments in structure were later rejected. Even then we lost time.
A little later, after three weeks, the lead programmer (VP) appeared, who was waited for some time until he solved his problems, with his appearance at the very beginning, probably, within a week, the work began to boil - the project structure was compiled, the VP sketched a skeleton project, using, in the class collected and written by me, which was adopted.
After that, in the last month of summer, the work stopped. And there are a number of reasons for this:
1) The connivance of the leadership — there was practically no our General Summer — sunbathed on the south; TD is a very kind and pleasant person, comrade, but unfortunately, he is not a manager, he is not his path.
2) From the first paragraph emerged: we began to be lazy. There was a week when, instead of working, we lost in online games, and all this proceeded with the active participation of TD.
3) Oh yes, then we bought a Wii - another week is lost.
4) Birthday after birthday (at that time the organization numbered about 10 people) - it was necessary to have time to eat all the cakes, and other goodies, stored up by the birthday boy.
The initial absence of an intelligible technical assignment, the absence of a realistic statement of the goal and tasks led to the fact that by September 1 we had a semi-assembled project - a bunch of code that sometimes interacted with each other.
The general returned - tanned, pleased, but looking at the state of affairs, he was upset - the tan remained. The ordeal began with the design of the project. Huge money was allocated for the development of corporate identity and design of the project - the company, in general, coped with the company. style, frankly ruined the development of a project template.
After that, several other companies were involved in the development, who also successfully failed the project.
Although perhaps it would be more correct to say that the contracting companies failed to fill up the project - the matter is different. The quality of the design layout was assessed by two people: the general and creative directors are professional people in their work, but not on the Internet, not in site building, and therefore, sometimes we took their head off their remarks, trying to explain to them that on the Internet other standards, other solutions are suitable here.
Therefore, I can say for sure: only professionals should be engaged in every business!
Time went on, but there were problems with the design, for some time even a version drawn by the VP was on the beta version of the project. Nightmare - and it is with such financial and administrative opportunities !!!
About them, by the way, it is worth mentioning separately: the money for the project was allocated enormous, and the administrative capacity because of the people and money involved in the project is simply impressive imagination.
In a hurry, they took the designer to the state - after that the design layout finally appeared, which is still being used on the site.
Then it became more fun. The management, in the person of the general, trying somehow to rectify the situation, invited to the team a person who, in theory, was to become the chief editor of the project (GR). At first everyone didn’t like the GR, but the girl-designer suffered from it, then they got used to the requirements, we all got used to GR, and later he became “ours”.
Inviting the GR, carrying with it in general a good goal led to the opposite effect - he didn’t understand right away what this project was - and in fact proposed to rebuild it into a sort of mini-habr, which apparently he was an admirer of. General ordered to fulfill all the wishes of the GR. And so it began ...
After each meeting between the GR and the general, the “concept changed”, disregarding the code that was already written, and we, the programmers, had to rewrite some parts of the code several times a day - this was infuriating. Many of the ideas adopted before the GR, on which a lot of time was spent, have sunk into oblivion as unnecessary. For example, I spent a week studying the Jabber protocol for organizing an online messaging system between project participants through the corresponding site functionality, it was possible to organize for example an online conference between members of one community - all this was forgotten - probably, until now, this code is lying on server sprinkled with ash. It’s good that I managed to beat the time and defend Sphinx in the search for what is extremely important for a project like this.
The concept changed, and changed ... Tired. We began to work without days off, and until late - for this, of course, no one paid us.
And in view of the crisis that broke out, they began to delay wages, began to save on everything - they even stopped buying water to the office.
I had to leave for a few days to my historical homeland. Arriving in Moscow, I was asked to write a statement on my own, and not only me. Well, it happens that I was not alone, something else is interesting.
According to the accounting, the money accrued for the unused vacation was transferred to payroll cards, but the general did it slyly.
We were all asked to write an application for leave at our own expense for the month preceding our dismissal, and thus the company was given the opportunity not to pay us money officially this month. As has been said, the money deposited on the card (the ones for the holidays) is our advance payment, that is, in one amount two hares were killed. The balance was given in an envelope, and what is even more ridiculous was the money given less than it should be and the TD from its personal funds repaid to me what they had not given.
Many people can immediately argue did not need to sign anything. It is not necessary, but at that moment I wanted the best, and honestly, expecting the same from management. Got another: no advance payment, no money for spent half a month.
So burst bubble.
ps probably missed something, but not the point.
In this topic, I want to talk about one campaign in which I happened to be directly involved - the development of a new social network. I specifically will not specify either the name of the network or name names - it will be so.
In early June 2008, having decided to try my luck, I went to Moscow - at that moment, I considered myself a good programmer, ready to work in a serious company. Immediately after arriving in the capital, I had several interviews scheduled in different companies - they offered approximately the same financial conditions, which in my case was perhaps the determining factor.
')
As a result of the first interview with the technical director of the company (hereinafter - TD), I decided to stay at this company - I liked the working conditions and development prospects that were so colorfully described by the TD (and it’s worth saying that much of the promise was fulfilled, and I think if it would not be a crisis - everything would have come true, but I am running ahead).
The organization was new - as a matter of fact, I became the first ordinary employee - a web programmer, except for me in the company were completely director: General, Technical, Creative, PR-director - because of their abundance at first it was ruffled in the eyes.
The first, and probably, the second working week was not remembered by anything special, but even then I had questions: how the project will develop, in which direction (technically) we will move. There was no technical task, there was no objective scheme of the project - there was only an idea, everything was “in my head”, as TD said. It was very difficult to understand initially how the system would be built - because my first three weeks were essentially wasted - almost all of that code, with the exception of a few working classes, and some developments in structure were later rejected. Even then we lost time.
A little later, after three weeks, the lead programmer (VP) appeared, who was waited for some time until he solved his problems, with his appearance at the very beginning, probably, within a week, the work began to boil - the project structure was compiled, the VP sketched a skeleton project, using, in the class collected and written by me, which was adopted.
After that, in the last month of summer, the work stopped. And there are a number of reasons for this:
1) The connivance of the leadership — there was practically no our General Summer — sunbathed on the south; TD is a very kind and pleasant person, comrade, but unfortunately, he is not a manager, he is not his path.
2) From the first paragraph emerged: we began to be lazy. There was a week when, instead of working, we lost in online games, and all this proceeded with the active participation of TD.
3) Oh yes, then we bought a Wii - another week is lost.
4) Birthday after birthday (at that time the organization numbered about 10 people) - it was necessary to have time to eat all the cakes, and other goodies, stored up by the birthday boy.
The initial absence of an intelligible technical assignment, the absence of a realistic statement of the goal and tasks led to the fact that by September 1 we had a semi-assembled project - a bunch of code that sometimes interacted with each other.
The general returned - tanned, pleased, but looking at the state of affairs, he was upset - the tan remained. The ordeal began with the design of the project. Huge money was allocated for the development of corporate identity and design of the project - the company, in general, coped with the company. style, frankly ruined the development of a project template.
After that, several other companies were involved in the development, who also successfully failed the project.
Although perhaps it would be more correct to say that the contracting companies failed to fill up the project - the matter is different. The quality of the design layout was assessed by two people: the general and creative directors are professional people in their work, but not on the Internet, not in site building, and therefore, sometimes we took their head off their remarks, trying to explain to them that on the Internet other standards, other solutions are suitable here.
Therefore, I can say for sure: only professionals should be engaged in every business!
Time went on, but there were problems with the design, for some time even a version drawn by the VP was on the beta version of the project. Nightmare - and it is with such financial and administrative opportunities !!!
About them, by the way, it is worth mentioning separately: the money for the project was allocated enormous, and the administrative capacity because of the people and money involved in the project is simply impressive imagination.
In a hurry, they took the designer to the state - after that the design layout finally appeared, which is still being used on the site.
Then it became more fun. The management, in the person of the general, trying somehow to rectify the situation, invited to the team a person who, in theory, was to become the chief editor of the project (GR). At first everyone didn’t like the GR, but the girl-designer suffered from it, then they got used to the requirements, we all got used to GR, and later he became “ours”.
Inviting the GR, carrying with it in general a good goal led to the opposite effect - he didn’t understand right away what this project was - and in fact proposed to rebuild it into a sort of mini-habr, which apparently he was an admirer of. General ordered to fulfill all the wishes of the GR. And so it began ...
After each meeting between the GR and the general, the “concept changed”, disregarding the code that was already written, and we, the programmers, had to rewrite some parts of the code several times a day - this was infuriating. Many of the ideas adopted before the GR, on which a lot of time was spent, have sunk into oblivion as unnecessary. For example, I spent a week studying the Jabber protocol for organizing an online messaging system between project participants through the corresponding site functionality, it was possible to organize for example an online conference between members of one community - all this was forgotten - probably, until now, this code is lying on server sprinkled with ash. It’s good that I managed to beat the time and defend Sphinx in the search for what is extremely important for a project like this.
The concept changed, and changed ... Tired. We began to work without days off, and until late - for this, of course, no one paid us.
And in view of the crisis that broke out, they began to delay wages, began to save on everything - they even stopped buying water to the office.
I had to leave for a few days to my historical homeland. Arriving in Moscow, I was asked to write a statement on my own, and not only me. Well, it happens that I was not alone, something else is interesting.
According to the accounting, the money accrued for the unused vacation was transferred to payroll cards, but the general did it slyly.
We were all asked to write an application for leave at our own expense for the month preceding our dismissal, and thus the company was given the opportunity not to pay us money officially this month. As has been said, the money deposited on the card (the ones for the holidays) is our advance payment, that is, in one amount two hares were killed. The balance was given in an envelope, and what is even more ridiculous was the money given less than it should be and the TD from its personal funds repaid to me what they had not given.
Many people can immediately argue did not need to sign anything. It is not necessary, but at that moment I wanted the best, and honestly, expecting the same from management. Got another: no advance payment, no money for spent half a month.
So burst bubble.
ps probably missed something, but not the point.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/55306/
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