Ask HN: "Is that work?"
I'm the only developer where I work, based in a [car] dealership, which is one of the franchise locations of a car dealer group which owns [more than a few] (or so) other dealerships in quite a large area of the United Kingdom. For the record, I am not writing this on company time [half an hour lunch break, although he still does this even if I AM on my lunch break]
I build websites, web apps, microsites, soon to be Android Apps and iPhone apps. I am in charge of slicing and dicing photoshop templates which we get from our designer (Who sits behind me in the same office) into HTML templates to use with Drupal, CakePHP et al. I am in charge of inputting the copy for said microsites and websites from MS Word documents, this copy is written by the "Marketing Manager", who currently sits behind and to the right of me. To the right of where I sit, is my boss, the son of one of the Managing Directors of this company.
Do not get the tone of this post wrong, I love my job. I love the people, I love the fact that it's only twenty minutes down the road from my house, I love that parking is provided (although, not on site, about a quarter of a mile down the road). I even love my boss, he's a good, capable man and just wants to get things done and do what's best for this company.
However, as my work load has increased over the last two years, and things have gotten more difficult for me (harder problems, taking longer to solve and a lot more thinking) my brain has gotten tired. I've become burnt out maybe three times in the last two years, and have had to take a week off in some cases just to recover from the last project. (Considering we get 20 days holiday and zero sick pay, whenever I AM actually sick, I need to take holiday or I don't get paid for those days).
Sometimes, when I have really lost focus, or a problem has just circled in my head for too long to be solved without taking a break from thinking about it, I'll browse HN or reddit, not for very long, just for about 5 or 10 minutes until my head clears. More often than not, I'll be searching for the problem I have and reading articles about it.
My boss has the tremendous habit (when he is actually in the dealership), of coming into the office and looking straight at my screen, with the now dreaded words, "Is that work?", usually followed by "Come on [throwaway_burn]! Focus! Get some fucking work done!".
Now, my boss is a very visual person. If he can't instantly see results, he assumed I'm not doing any work. I've just spend four or five weeks creating a completely bespoke front end for building car quotes based on a completely experimental Web Service API built by a car valuation service. They usually make you host an MSSQL server, and they push or replicate their data to your server so you always have an up to date set of data to build cars with. My boss decided that this wasn't the way to go, because it's quite expensive so usually a single dealer group couldn't afford it, hence why you have aggregation systems, and people have it built into their customer management systems. [The web service company] probably lets us use this system for cheap as it is so undocumented when I first started using it, and it very slow, which means I have to pull down the data and store it on a MySQL database anyway, which basically means I had to code a script to automatically get the data from their web services and store it in our database every night. There is a huge amount of data in their systems and I only pull the data for four manufacturers.
So I built the scripts. I built the front end, even though certain things weren't documented, I managed to get them to finally send me some documentation on how to use their data effectively, and as of yesterday, the site is finally complete and finished.
Needless to say, it doesn't really look like it should have taken four or five weeks of work to produce the site, considering some other sites I've done, excluding the bespoke car price quoting system have taken two days at most. ...
107 comments
[ 65.9 ms ] story [ 1831 ms ] threadMy guess is that you not so unemployable as you seem to think. I'd look for another job in a company/industry where you're not just a 'cost'.
The graphic designer does all print and web graphic design,
The Marketing manager does all copy, liaises with the print firms and manages marketing targets and plans with all the dealerships group wide,
I do all the web stuff.
If there's a car dealership that doesn't need to market or advertise to people to sell cars, I haven't seen it.
Ok, but you're never really going to be the "star of the show" like the sales guys are. That's why I suggested finding an alternative industry where they're happier to have a developer on board.
Okay, so I don't want to go off at the deep end here, but I think the general consensus is correct: this isn't healthy and you're best bet is to leave.
It seems to me that his dad bullies him and he in turn bullies you. Also, if they really thought you don't add value to the company, they would fire you. Clearly you do, so they are just jerking your chain and making you feel dependant on them. They are lying. They have you in what has been called a sick system [1].
[1] http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html
> "I love my job...I even love my boss"
then go on to describe a nightmare. Read it! It sounds like Stockholm Syndrome!
Well done for getting it off your chest, now you need to go find something else. The situation probably can't be fixed. Sounds like you've made a lot of decent things as evidence of your skills. You could probably come back as a contractor/consultant for twice your current wage.
Oh, and if/when you do quit - no recriminations. You were offered an amazing opportunity that was too good to turn down. You really want to work in this new field. It's not you it's me, etc. Start documenting things for the next guy. Best of luck.
Edit: Also make sure to read Patrick's advice here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829577
Edit2: Sorry, was wrong about Statury Sick Pay, thanks for the correction. 20 days holiday is definitely not right though.
And thanks for the link!
I chose not to work in Edinburgh because of the terrible pay, I'm a PHP contractor and i work in London for £300-£350 a day for 3 months and then come back to Edinburgh after the contract is over. I go back when i start to run out of money again. You should look into doing this if its an option for you. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk more about it.
It's proof positive again of why I love HN. I read and felt for you with your post then in no time, you may have found a light at the end of the tunnel.
Great news :D I can't wait to hear that it's worked out for you!
If he's on £17k/pa and you're billing out £350 a day, then he only has to work 50 days per year to come out in the exact same place he's in now.
As long as he gets from you a list of those "first steps" on how to find the contracts. Even if he starts out billing only £50 per day (for fear of not finding work, in order to build a client list) he'd literally be no worse off than he is now (of course rent in London is much higher so ... I think he should at least bill £100/pd).
It sounds like he is a skilled developer with some niche knowledge in the auto market. Suffering perhaps from a lack of confidence (are my skills really worth that much?) and a bit of Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt (If I quit this hell-job will I have to go on public assistance? will I be homeless?)
He's got to make the leap and get out. No question of that in my mind ... but he also needs help and encouragement to do it.
That's what I saw you offering (not the job) ... it's just the seed of that mighty Oak that I've seen planted - but - I've already assumed that there's a happy ending to all this.
What can I say? I'm a dreamer and an optimist. Probably why I spend so much time reading HackerNews :)
Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for life.
A second piece of advice is that if you are going to be a freelancer you should join the Professional Contractors Group (www.pcg.org.uk). They have an enormous amount of info on their pages, even more for members, and just by becoming a paid up member you get £70,000 of tax audit insurance.
How do you make the living arrangements work on that?
For a while I was going to London and doing training gigs for £400 a day but gave it up because it was either too expensive (staying in London itself) or too much of a headache (staying outside London and getting the train in).
You are also not valued by your boss. Probably because he doesn't really understand what you do.
Get a job with a company that has some conception of what developers do and rewards them accordingly.
If you like your boss as a person, but not a boss, then try to keep him as a friend. But working for him does not sound like it is doing you any good.
It's pretty much useless if you're actually living on anything approaching a normal salary. (It's doubtful that £320/month would pay most people's rent.)
On the one hand I totally understand your reaction. On the other hand, I'm inclined to think it is probably counterproductive. Remaining cool and collected seems like a better idea.
"Therein lies the problem. Where I live, there are no jobs. Some statistics recently suggested that a snowball had a better chance of opening an ice cream shop in the deepest layer of hell than I have of getting another job."
If it is, in fact, true that there are no jobs available in your current location, can you move? I'm originally from a rural state that has very few technical positions available. Living in a major metropolitan area has definitely opened up my options.
Even if you can't, it is entirely possible that you can make a living by doing contract work. This may take time to build up to, but if you are capable of demonstrating quality work you will eventually be able to sustain yourself. Working a part-time non-programming job might fill the gap if you feel the need to quit right now.
"Does anyone else browse the net in work when they are having a hard time focusing, but not blatantly trying to hide it and yet get rebuked even when the only other option is to sit, knuckles dragging drooling on the keyboard whilst staring at the screen because your brain no longer works?"
I don't have the boss problem since I work from my home office. But when I am unable to focus I try getting up and walking outside for five minutes. The sunshine and fresh air helps give me some perspective.
I hope this helps!
It's never going to be easy to work in a non tech place and have them understand what you do. You seem to have been there for a while and are getting tired of the place, it might be time even if you don't think so to look around.
The last thing I can think off is that you are building interesting stuff. Stuff that seems to have real value, have you though of building products and selling them yourself? You could even try to get your current employer as a first customer (by keeping the relationship good ;p)
EDIT: One thing I forgot, do you think he might be on your case because he also gets crap from his boss? Sometimes it could be that simple.
Do everything you can distinguish yourself from the competition, i.e. other jobseekers. Build a stunning personal/portfolio site if you don't have one already, work on side-projects in your spare time and share the source on github, write a blog, consider relocating if that is an option for you.
But definitely don't simply settle for what you have now. You are right that it is an abusive environment and you owe it to yourself to move on.
based on the things you've done, I'd imagine there'd be plenty of companies that would have you...hell you can probably contact every dealer in your area and offer your services that should pretty much be exactly what they are looking for.
Typically though I'll think of an excellent shortcut/solution after an hour of staring into space, and that shortcut saves about a days work. Problem is, how do I quantify that saving?
In the past I've spec'ed work to my boss on how long it would take to do a project the 'typical way' and got approval, and then it's just a matter of delivering it in less time than that. But if your boss can't estimate time to do tasks anyway, that's not going to help.
As a short term fix, you might want to take up smoking , or start drinking a lot of water, or something else that will let you get out of your chair for 5 minutes every hour.
"Between the fag breaks, shit breaks, you aren't getting ANY work done!"
He laughed when I told him to go and fuck himself, like I was joking.
You'll probably have an 'exit interview', during which you can suggest that you'd continue to do the current major projects for 75% of what they're paying you now - but you'd be working off-site, against a set of milestones (just like a real contractor).
Benefits to them : They'd save on paying you to slack off... and on the various National Insurance stuff too. It would be a win-win.
Benefits to you : You'd get the opportunity to say NO, which seems like it would be a novelty. Moreover, you'd have time to pitch your services to others to fill up the other 50% of your time. Don't sign a non-compete, unless you're getting paid to do so.
(There's an additional provision that's a bit strange: the employee has to be able to use at least 24 of those vacation days in May-September. I think this law is a remnant from the agricultural society of the mid-20th century, when people in the cities actually needed those vacation days specifically in the Summer so that they could return to the countryside to help their families in farm work.)
This is a bad job.
If you're boss doesn't understand this, chances are he never will, so like others, I would suggest you begin the search for a new job. Another option would be to return to freelancing... chance are you could still contract back to the current company while you're looking for new clients if you had to.
Alternatively, you could print out every single line of code you've written at the company and dump it on your bosses desk so he can see how much work it really is (since you mention he's extremely visual).
It sounds like you work as a support group for the company. In my experience is usually underpaid, over-worked and the resources are not that high compared to the ones that are in the "frontline". And you rarely get notices for the great things you have done.
My advice is to contact a recruiter immediately and get used to the idea of moving around a bit. Look into telecommuting gigs as well. As long as you feel that you're lucky to have this job where you're undervalued you won't be happy with your life.
Find out what you're really worth. Find out what you're capable of.
Anytime I had an issue like this I'd just call him on it and explain, and he'd turn around. For the record, he was a complete asshole in every possible way, not a nice guy who sadly didn't understand - but he still wasn't able to keep whining once I'd laid out why something had taken me so long.
You say you've tried to make him understand, but I suspect you just haven't gone about it the right way (partly due to your description of your reaction to his complaints).
Imagine yourself in his shoes, managing someone who's job you didn't understand, plan out what that someone would have to say to you to get you to understand. Then take that speech, work out which bits will and won't work on your boss, tailor it exactly to him. When trying to pursuade him you shouldn't be thinking on your feet straight after he's made you angry, you should already know exactly what to say.
If that fails, the thing to do before resigning is to write a letter (or email) explaining that you love your job, you love working with him, but that you are finding it so stressful you feel you will need to leave if it doesn't change. Explain exactly why you feel stressful, make it clear you understand where he's coming from, empathise with his situation, then give examples of why you work the way you work.
Draft the letter, leave it a couple of days, then write it again from scratch, then compare the two drafts for differences, and pick the best bits from each. Show it to a friend or a colleague you trust, get feedback. Think of the letter as an importent piece of art that needs to be worked on until it's perfect. Most of all, make sure you avoid giving him the impression that you blame him, dislike him, think he's stupid for not understanding your job, or anything along those lines.
On a side note, consider whether you can use any arguments along the lines of "I need to read HN to stay current with technology, to enable me to keep programming to modern standards." Maybe look around for a scientific study showing that short breaks of the kind you take actually produce a net gain In productivity, etc.
Completely disagree. This is not marriage counselling, this is the job market.
The OP is being exploited. I've seen this kind of thing happen loads of times. It's too late to adjust the power balance between him and his boss. The OP needs to find better employment - he could team up with a designer and build sites for businesses and earn twice as much sitting at home. It's also very important that he leaves the door open to well paid contracting offers from his current employer.
My suggestions aren't exactly along the lines of "just put up with it" or "give it a few years". He can easily try these steps while job hunting - won't delay him at all.
I went down this road, and it kept me happy enough to stay at an awesome company.
You could not be more wrong. I organise the London Hacker News meetup and speak weekly to people who are DESPERATE to get a good developer. Unemployment may well be high, but there is huge demand for good developers. Unless you have very strong ties to the area I would recommend moving closer to a big city and you'll be able to make considerably more than £17k.
At £17k, you could be doing better driving a bus in London.
None the less: yes, there are more and better jobs in cities. There's also more competition for those jobs, though. I'll hazard a guess that although there's a lot of unemployment where the OP lives now, the unemployed people there are probably mostly not software developers.
I'd love to work/live in London, but I am a bit nervous about getting down there because I don't have a degree. I'm completely self taught.
But, most of my coworkers (who don't have degree) are fantastic hackers, wielding /usr/bin like magician, appending to fifo as hack-around, compiling xen kernel from source, etc.
So, don't get discouraged. If your situation is agile (being single or without children), move to big city, embrace its big-cityness, and enjoy its salary.
It sounds like you are reasonably experienced and that MAY make up for the lack of a degree. Also, in web dev a degree is really not necessary and there are plenty of people in the industry who are self taught.
If you would like to improve your CV, contribute to some open source projects on github on a few weekends. I guarantee that will put your CV on top of the pile if are a decent coder.
Many places will be able to do a first round interview over the phone, which should cut down on travel hassle. Also, if London is too far away there are plenty of good employers in Bristol which should be a bit easier for you.
Anyway, if you need any more help / advice drop me an email on d.grabov@gmail.com
100% of the gigs I've ever had working for a child of the founder were absolute hell. Looks like you're there, too. Run, don't walk, in the other direction!
Now I'm not saying that all children of founders are like this, just that it's my overwhelming experience. I don't know why this is, but I have many guesses. Perhaps they feel entitled, as if they actually built the business. Perhaps they have stunted social skills because they never needed them. Perhaps they feel superior to everyone else because they landed in a pot of gold having earned it only by being born.
You are not the problem. Your situation is. If your work is good, it's because he thought of it. If it's not, it's because you suck. You can't win. Get out.
Once you're in a more normal environment, two things will happen: you'll feel much better and you'll wonder why you took so long to do it.
If you tell your boss what you're doing at a high enough level ("I'm working through this set of problems to do with the way the car valuation service talks to us - they don't have any documentation so I'm having to work it out by hand", or "I've been looking through the code I've written to deal with car valuations, I think I can speed it up a lot and reduce the load on the computers so we don't have to buy new ones later") and put it in terms he'll understand he'll know you're working hard.
Some people are shit managers. I should know, I are one :) Sometimes it's easier to manage your manager than the other way around.
Also your 20 days holiday is below the legal minimum.
No, as pointed out above, 20 days holiday, on top of 8 public holidays, is the legal minimum.
I'd go further then what iuguy proposed. Every morning, check in with your boss by email or face to face and let him know what you will be working on for the day. At the end of the day, do the same, but with what you accomplished. Ask that all tasks to you be in written form and you will prepare a timeline for their completion. When you complete them, make sure he knows it was on time. Do a weekly/monthly report where you lay out all the projects you did for that time period and how long they took. If he is still an ass.. quit.
1) You won't be looking at all those stupid picture threads 2) Monospaced white on black font works like a scarecrow on most people
Next, find yourself a better boss
It's possible to have a great time working in a language you hate, on hardware that sucks, but only if you have a great team and great boss that appreciate what you contribute.
Such a boss would treat you better, by not openly questioning your worthiness, better pay or even payed sick days.
You should move. Into an environment of bosses competing for the best talent.
Apart from the outsourcing you've done, your work is viewed by your employer as an expense rather than adding to the bottom line. When it comes time to cut the budget, you'll likely be lumped in with the 'fat' which can be removed without much pain.
Conversely, if you find a job where you are part of the engine bringing in revenue (whether as a consultant or a product developer), you will generally be treated much better and have more opportunities for advancement.
1) Apply for other jobs, even if you must move. Only with a job offer do you have leverage to get more pay.
2) Would ODesk or eLance provide enough income to live where you are?
3) When burned out, get out of your desk and walk around find out who knows who.
4) The only way you can get another job is through your contacts. #1 is a terrible way to get a job. Expand your list of contacts.
And it didn't occur to them that this meant you were worth more than they thought? They're hopeless. Run away. Take some of your vacation days and go interview someplace where you can be a profit center instead of a cost center.
Maybe after January.
You're a poster child for Stockholm Syndrome. You are completely and utterly playing by their rules. Just start looking for a new job, that is something you can do when not at work, and if things progress as far as you getting an interview, take the day off from your job and deal with that problem then. Call in "sick". Say you've got a funeral. Take a vacation day anyway. When you get there, you'll realize you don't actually care about your current workplace that much after all.
But by leaping to the problem first and then declaring that you can't solve it right now, you're setting yourself up for failure. You're just manufacturing excuses for staying in the position you're currently in. STOP. IT.
I suspect it's different for someone working in an office with a lot of business people but I think it's important to find an employer that recognizes doing work on complicated problems isn't a linear process... It will often times now be something you can sit down and just DO. I can't even count the number of times I've spent 3 hours of over time in the office trying to solve a problem only to have the solution come to me in the shower the next morning. The mind must rest and be allowed to shift focus to something unrelated to the immediate activity at hand if someone wants creative solutions to tough problems.