I've worked in a few places that are typically sweat shops or basically run by complete morons who have that mentality "you're replaceable". I mean, in this industry especially if your company RELYS on programming talent, its in your best interest to look after it.
Its like buying a ferrai, taking it out for a spin, ramming into walls and over-driving the engine.. you're getting your moneys worth out of it guess, but it will eventually give way and you're back to finding another one (more money down the drain).
I've expected this at times from Brisbane, it being so competitive and litterally a small "pond" to play in - web commercially speaking. Having said that at "enterprise" level, the places (majority) have been faultless (except jumping over one or two political hot-spots).
But heres the thing...
It bites them in the ass every time. On a couple exits, i've tried to re-educate them that talent leaving the door will be your doom in the end. They of course have the attitude "what do you know, you're just a programmer" - yet it majority of the time has come true.
Typically programmers aren't dumb, they can see HR patterns and these days if you don't do your R&D before walking into a company (and i mean, street level R&D) you deserve it.
Take for example when i left ABN AMRO MORGANS couple of weeks ago, it was for no real reason other then i was contract and the job being offered at Inco was more money (not a real swapover reason) but full time now (son to look after, and i ride dirtbikes - ie could break my wrist or something..sometimes sick pay is gold). I mean working with the guys there was fun and really good code was cut! - yet the moment i announced i had quite a few emails going "So what was the real reason for leaving" - because gary was a slave driver! hehehe nah... i'll endorse ABN AMRO actually (if any of you are thinking of applying).
They (Programmers) aren't dumb they know the score and once a few good developers get churned through a company and bad reports flutter out, the company is usually the first to complain about "Can't find decent developers anymore blah blah.." - the reason.. YOU HAD THEM, BUT YOU GOT GREEDY and you Lost them *pant* - thus serious, good programmers won't go near them - they'd rather sit on a 20k yer job working 3 days a week.
Thus the ol Junior gets hired and is expected to fill the role of that talented Senior Developer, simply because he/she has not clued up yet about the industry.
Thats why i refrain from web commercial and stick with enterprise as they treat you better, wage is pretty good (but money isn't my reason for jobs as much as it used to be) and the workload is realistic (in most cases). They also frown on Pirated software.. that is a good feeling not having to hit astalavista.box.sk to find a crack for software because your boss is to cheap (i mean its a tax break ffs!). Plus they have some cool toys (today @ work i saw my boss use a smartboard.. which is a whiteboard + touchscreen in one - which emails you the meetings doodles!!!)
I've got tonnes of war stories about webshops and such, and i think that sux that i should have them - 9 years in and finally i'm starting to re-like the industry again and thats due to places like Tourism Queensland, ABN AMRO, Inco and few other places others have told me.
So grab them and piss those rippoff artists off as they do not deserve the ferrai or bmw they drive around in as they got it from your creativity, inspirational effort and pure talent.
Scott Out.
grant wrote:
"They pulled stunts like making everyone work long hours in crunch times, even if they didn't personally have lots of work to do, to 'raise morale'", said one former employee.
i've experienced this in code shops - the redundant concept of 'many hands'. It's such a drain and actually lowers morale - as you (with the light workload) end up browsing and giggling at the latest fark.com entries, while the snowed-under worker is deciding to whether to use IIF and can't work out why <cfif something == 10> keeps throwing.
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