Pretending You Know What's Going On
Right after university I started working at a small company as their only software developer. It was a pretty good job; I did a wide range of development and administered an SGI IRIX box. No one there really knew much about software so I made most of the decisions and I put in a lot of hours doing the work because not everything worked out according to plan. But it was a fun job nevertheless.
Then the company was bought by another company and a few more developers were added. And then that company, in turn, was bought by yet another company. This new company was a publicly traded company and they brought even more developers with them. Suddenly the environment was not at all what it had been like when I first started and despite my best efforts they made lots of dumb decisions. Decisions like blowing a sizeable budget on designing how the application would look, even though no one had even bothered to figure out what the app was actually going to do.
In my defense, I was still a rather junior guy but still, some of the blame likely falls on me for not explaining how things should be done. In the end, I left the company because I felt the entire operation was a complete gongshow. After giving my notice, I told a few people close to me the real reason for my departure but to everyone else, I simply said “it was time to move on”. Even as a 23 year old wet-behind-the-ears developer, I was still smart enough to know that you shouldn’t burn bridges unless you have your entire route mapped out. And in this turbulent work world, it’s impossible for anyone to map out their career. Besides, after I left, who knows how things were? Maybe they smartened up and realized that some of the things I pointed out were right. But I don’t for a minute pretend that I have the faintest idea what’s going on there, because I don’t work there anymore.
Sat, 14 May 2005 19:45 Posted in General
