Down and out in the magic kingdom – A tale of software consulting in the midwest | Hacker News Reader

Down and out in the magic kingdom – A tale of software consulting in the midwest

102 points_y7i0126 comments

I spent 10+ years doing contract software work, and several of my friends work for contracting firms, and I have seen this pathology a lot.

Don't stay up until 2AM working on your contracting firm's projects. Don't personalize contract assignments. Don't act for your firm's clients like you're their full-time employee: you aren't. Don't assume clients are OK with you coming in super late because that's what programmers do: many aren't OK with that.

There are some really great things about working for contracting firms: you get a W2 and benefits and mostly all the downside risk protection of an employee while getting exposed to all the random projects a consultancy gets. You get to dip your toes into lots of different projects. And when you get sick of a certain kind of project, often, you can easily no-harm no-foul switch to other projects. Contracting firms can be great.

But if you try to treat a contracting firm the way you would a startup or tech product company, things are going to suck for you. In particular: you must force yourself to deliver a day's worth of work and then put things down. If you're compulsive and need to work late into the night, stop doing client work, and switch to personal projects.

Contracting firms usually can't bill for your 2AM binge coding session. Clients generally want to pay for work done during business hours on a well-defined schedule. It does not matter that you believe that's not how software is delivered; it's how software is bought. If you run yourself ragged refactoring things until late in the evening, your contracting firm isn't going to be impressed with you: they're going to see, from 1000 miles away, that you're burning yourself out pointlessly in a manner that isn't going to make them an extra penny, and they're going to get pissed.

Totally agree - I've contracted as an independent for about 8 years now, often with the same companies over and over, and I can honestly say I went into the office every day totally prepared for it to be my last and leave without a job. I have great, ongoing relationships with their employees and managers, I do well respected work and the projects have been generally very successful, but this is just the nature of the business. I see contractors in the same gig for years who let themselves become "employees who get paid more" and then are incredibly hurt when they don't get renewed. Again - this is the life of a contractor.

It's interesting that the attorney's letter specifically says "termination of your _employment_". Add that to the fact that he was "fired" initially because he didn't show up for work, and it looks like he has a good case of arguing that this was a de-facto employment situation, not a contracting gig. How and if he could benefit from that, I don't know.

You're missing a subtlety. He's a W2 employee of a contracting firm. Most of the work he does is for clients, not his employer directly, and to those clients he is a 1099, not an employee.

He was fired from the contracting firm, for which he was a W2. His status doesn't really factor into this.

Minor correction: I am a partner in the contracting firm. The contract was cancelled by Pillar as a 1099. I'm still a partner in the contracting firm but will be leaving in a couple of weeks when we shut it down for obvious reasons.

Ah, thank you for the correction. I admit I glossed over a few paragraphs, and missed this.

> Add that to the fact that he was "fired" initially because he didn't show up for work

That is his claim.

We don't know what else was going on and due to confidentiality rules, we're unlikely to hear anything from Pillar.

Based on his reaction on Facebook, Medium, and in these comments, I'd wager they had other concerns.

@tptacek Thanks for the helpful advice.

It seems like a lot of new consultants don't understand the differences between working as a 1099 contractor vs. W2 contractor vs. regular employee. I've met plenty of people who mistake a W2 contractor as the same as a regular employee except that the work is temporary.

I would like to point out that W2 contractors should expect their performance to be evaluated by the hour because that's the rate the client is being is charged for solutions. That's why it's important for W2 contractors to work only during normal business hours so that the client can't claim (later when payment is due) that the client didn't have opportunity to approve of said work and evaluate said work when the contractor delivered solutions to them.

Best post about contracting ever! You need to set limits! 8 hours per day and then done!

The article specifically points out that there were no business hours nor well-defined schedule. These musings may be relevant to some contracting firms, but are not applicable to the situation described in this article.

I do have some sympathy for the author, but it's a good idea to keep in mind that just because nobody ever told you there was a rule against getting sloppy and working outside normal business hours, doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so. Having a passionate argument for why your problem is someone else's fault, is nowhere near as good as not having the problem in the first place.

You can't miss random days for no real reason. "I worked until 2am" isn't really a good reason... you're paid to come into work. Not to fuck about at home.

If that's what my client wants then yes I'll be there on time and in my seat coding. But I set my own hours as a contractor. How? Communication. You have to communicate what you are doing to your client and that is the OP's greatest failure here. It's a weakness of a lot of programmers given our general solitude and my own miscommunication in the past has lead to way more problems than any coding problem could.

My impression was that this was a project contract. There would be no obligation to make paid appearances in this case.

I didn't see him say that, but that's really not my point. I'm not commenting to criticize him. I'm offering the consulting survival advice, which I'm pretty sure is generally applicable to all contracting gigs: don't work late for clients unless you absolutely have to.

I consider calling someone's behavior a pathology to be criticism.

That's fair, but that's not how I meant it.

They were obviously not impressed that he missed a day of work, one of many. I'm not surprised they let him go.

Consultants are not employees. Consultants are allowed to take off days anytime. They're allowed to start work at anytime and end work at anytime.

If they got this pissed about it, my guess would be that the client called Pillar and complained. Pillar must have felt that the author not going into the office made them look bad.

If you're working for the company, then yes, working until 2am is very much a good reason. Any company that doesn't see this as such is a shit company, plain and simple.

> Any company that doesn't see this as such is a shit company, plain and simple.

Nothing is ever that simple. There are perfectly valid reasons for some companies to be unhappy with a contractor unilaterally deciding to work until 2am, and then not turning up for work the next day.

Falling asleep after your manager texts you to see why you haven't turned up for work today is unprofessional, whether you were staying up late night to code or to binge watch Netflix.

Please note that I am talking about this specific situation here. If you are working on your own products or in a team where people view this as expected behaviour, staying up late to take advantage of as many 'in the zone hours' as possible seems like an effective use of a programmer's time.

No. Really, really no. Don't work until 2AM for contracting clients. They won't appreciate it; they may the-opposite-of appreciate it.

This is bad. It's a car-wreck at best and all it will do is have everyone hit the breaks as they pass that particular stretch. Developers are not going to rise up as brothers and sisters in arms based upon what you have written here. Instead, they will distance themselves from you further because you are Drama.

Also, you named a whole bunch of people who are probably very unhappy to be associated with this mess. I would hate to have someone search for my name and have this turn up.

All in all, you come across as being reckless and it makes you a liability. You can't acknowledge that your Facebook post was a lapse in judgement and then double down with a novella on Medium.

Give some serious thought to re-establishing that separation between your personal life and your work life. Stop with the social media. Focus on your health and your sanity. Get a hobby outside of your job. Learn how to cook healthy dishes. Exercise. These are things all of us probably need to do since we love what we do and want to be the best we can be and give way too much to do so.

Yes. Poor form to drag others into this, especially naming people who have asked not to be named. Also, it's a bit asymmetric as the company isn't in a position to defend itself.

If a company lets you go, you shouldn't ever expect to go back unless you're invited.

I do appreciate and respect the author's honesty about the personal issues he encountered along the way. I hope that he gets his health in order, and finds happiness in his next role.

> So, I was in! A 3 month contract was drafted that would run through Blueshift, so if anything went south, either of us could walk away, no harm, no foul.

You are a contractor. You can walk away. And so can they. Why create trouble?

> About a week into the project I began having bladder problems.

> So for the next 4 weeks I missed a ton of work for doctors appointments, and coaching, and fitness, and whatnot to get my life on track.

Right after the project starts, you become unreliable for them for 4 weeks out of a 3 month project.

> This time I gave them 6 weeks of notice.

You have a solid week. Then you are in and out for 4 weeks. Then you put in your notice after a week of solid work.

Then you don't show up.

With that timeline, you would have to expect to get fired. It happens. Move on. Don't look back.

All the public posts makes for a nightmare to deal with. They hired you and then they had to deal with you trashing the company on social media. And now you are trashing them on another platform.

Another huge mistake is that you weren't taking care of yourself. Why show up early and leave late while working as a contractor? Why take work home with you? Just put the time in between start and finish and call it a day. If you are going to put in extra hours, put that time into creating more leads and building your image. Certainly you aren't going to do all that by trashing your previous clients.

I don't think contract work is for you.

I see a developer who's in and out of a company depending on his mood and opinion of the company several times, then complaining when he gets fired for not showing up at work.

He blames the all night coding session, but from the sound of it told no one he was doing this, and operated in a bubble. Then he seems surprised when at 11:04 the next day (which is almost 9 hours after he's gone to bed) he's woken up by a message asking if he's alive. The author, by his own admission, is unreliable.

To the author - it sounds like there's a huge disconnect between your opinion of your usefullness to the company and theirs. Perhaps instead of giant middle fingers on blog posts, consider thinking about it from their perspective.

I have to concur. I have a few rules for successful corporate life that, if followed, would have avoided this situation entirely:

1) Be reliable. Don't be unreliable. Corporations value consistency above all else.

2) Never work without a manager present. If there's nobody there to witness what you're doing, it never happened, no matter how many commits you make or emails you send.

3) Watch what they do, not what they say. Just because a manager says they're fine with your weird quirk of (for example) coming in early and leaving early doesn't mean it won't be held against you come layoff time.

I have to agree, this guy sounds slightly deluded. As another example, he blames his sleep apnea on his smoking, not his clear issue with being overweight. Eats ridiculously, and only worries about it when he is diagnosed with Diabetes?

When something like this occurs (health issue and work issue), you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

No doubt he made some amazing contributions, but also not being available to the client during normal hours is not good.

Careful; I got my tail ripped off last week here on HN for suggesting that people "be adults", show up for work on-time.

It was a month ago, not a week, and here's your post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11397427

Your posts were not as civil as "be adults".

there you go again, trying to dictate my schedule...

Who decided, and when, that being an "adult" meant strict conformance to an unnatural schedule? Cui bono?

Pretty much anyone who decided to work for a company where the agreed upon hours are from X to Y. You can complain about it being unnatural all you want, but if those are the hours that you agreed to, then you're obligated to conform to the schedule. If you don't like it, work remotely for a company whose normal business hours fit your schedule.

Being an adult is not necessarily about conforming. It's more about sticking to your obligations. Even if your word means nothing to you on a personal level, others are probably depending on you to come through.

I totally agree with honoring commitments. I strongly disagree with the idea that committing to 9-6 or 8-5 in a rush hour commute is the definition of being an "adult".

Presumably you agreed to that schedule when you took the job. Thus, being adult is adhering to the schedule you agreed to.

One of the core pillars of adulthood is 'voluntarily doing things you would rather not do in the presence of obligations.'

Disclaimer: These are my views. Not my employer's.

I currently work for Pillar. I met Ray for the first time fairly recently. He seemed like a smart, passionate developer and it breaks my heart to see him having such a meltdown. I've had my own sleep issues and the last company I worked for seemed to be talking out of both sides of their mouth. I understand what that can feel like. It's a really hard thing to go through. I would also say that when you're barely sleeping at night, you make poor decisions and start to look at the world through a warped lens.

Yes, the company is goofy. The CEO can be a bit of a blowhard, the titles seem kitschy and uninspired, and there's a lot of self-congratulatory aggrandizing that goes on. It's a consulting firm. It's not surprising.

But the people are excellent. Imagine an oasis of nerds (okay, maybe don't) that really care about software quality in the center of a market that needs a lot of help. They're committed to education, community involvement, and each other. It's really pretty great to work here.

That is, as long as you don't get it twisted. On time and under budget still matters. Perceptions still matter. Politics, expectations, and realities are all things that you're going to have to deal with no matter what. Your ability to balance all of these things is part of what makes you effective at your job.

I don't know the particulars of the circumstances that led to his termination. I don't really want to know them. It would be irresponsible to postulate. However, I can say that I'm disappointed with the way that he's chosen to move on. It's good for no one. I see a thoughtful developer burning bridges in public.

That can be cathartic, but at what cost?

I understand why, but it's too bad this is a throw away account; this is a very well thought out and compassionate response.

Compassion comes from people in the same position as you, not from the people above.

Compassion comes from the person, not the station. I've seen it come from all sorts of surprising places - but it's rare enough to be worth treasuring, no matter where it comes from.

Against my better judgement, I feel it necessary to reply to this.

I tried very hard to end things on a positive note with Pillar. I called Don repeatedly trying to connect with him, I called Jim repeatedly trying to connect with him, and I tried having a civil and adult conversation with Brandt.

What I got was silence, insults, and a legal demand letter for venting to friends and family on Facebook, and a permanent ban from attending user groups hosted at Pillar. User groups that I brought into Pillar.

Do I fault Pillar for firing me? No, of course not. I was a little upset, but I get it. But what they did wasn't an appropriate response and after I learned that they did this to other people as well, I had to act.

Talk to the other developers on my team, they will tell you that I was in good spirits and wished them both well in the future when I got in touch with them.

I did my part to handle things professionally, I really did. Pillar escalated this well out of proportion than it needed to be. Someone needs to speak up and say something about the way Pillar treats people after they are done with them and how they handle critics (these other people who, in some cases are legally gagged against speaking up).

Just stop talking.

Like any bad breakup, it's in everyone's best interest to just stay quiet, not take sides, and hope this blows over.

You are digging the hole deeper and have been with every Facebook post, the Medium post, and HN comment.

Stop talking. Take a long weekend. Take a week and go do something else. You're only making it worse.

Agreed. This is absolutely the advice to follow at this time. As others have said, we all make mistakes, and should learn from them. The lesson on this one is take the time necessary to cool down before responding in these situations. If you are still feeling a sense of urgency and a need to set things right, that should be a sign you haven't cooled down yet, so wait some more.

Naming names (and there were a _lot_ of names in that post, wow) is way over the line of acceptable in this case. Showing up at a client's site to confront your coworker(s) is borderline dangerous behavior. All of the actions mentioned in the post (including the post itself) will only escalate the situation and increase the sense of urgency of all parties. No good will come of that. Cut your losses and move forward. The firing was completely justifiable, and (OP) you know this, let it go.

Again, not trying to shame or judge, a lot of us have made similar mistakes when we were young, but you do need to learn the lessons in mistakes or you will never mature.

This is actually surprisingly good live advice that is counter to /most/ conditioning you receive.

It's sort of like the obvious but so hard to follow rule... "this is going to sound X... you know what, I probably just shouldn't say it at all."

After reading your blog post, you did come across as a bit immature. Sorry. But the decisions you made, the things you did and the fact you vented in public all scream 'first job surprises'

Hope you get what you're looking for. I think your best bet at this point is to walk away and leave it a couple of years.

Things like "insults, and a legal demand letter" are very concerning because they're threatening you. Those things aren't normal responses. You should consider hammering that nail in civil court because they're damaging your reputation.

So from your post history, how does this relate to the present situation?

> kitanata 905 days ago | parent | on: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

> There are kits you can buy to test the purity of drugs you buy: http://dancesafe.org/products/testing-kits

Wow. Haha. No. That's not at all related. If people buy drugs online, I thought it was best to advise them to test them first. Harm reduction and all that.

A lot of people die from bad mixed up shit, and if they knew there was a way to be sure what they were taking, is in fact what they think they're taking, then I think it's wise to let them know about that.

Definitely continue discussing harm reduction, even if it means putting yourself out there publicly and that some close-minded people will judge you for that.

As for your blog post and the response here, I only have one comment -- continue to focus on your health with the same drive and passion that you have toward coding! I realize you took a few weeks to get healthy and change your diet, but for me at least, learning how to consistently lead a balanced, healthy lifestyle took many years. I'm not suggesting that you read thousands of nutrition studies or anything, but instead everything from learning where the best farmer's markets in your city are, what sports you enjoy and building relationships with people who play them, figuring out what triggers you to make unhealthy decisions, etc. I encourage you to approach your health in a 'holistic' way. It's a long journey and a highly personal one, but it's worth the effort.

Lol! Sounds a bit like a sociopathic response to me. "I just wanted to warn the community, I don't buy drugs online just my friends do."

>I will never sleep without it again. The difference is day and night. I honestly feel like I just snorted two lines of cocaine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10016259

Your attempt at character assassination is an out of context joke about my CPAP machine? Seriously? Wow.

This is kind of going back to the root problem.

You previously post advice on buying drugs safely. Then you compare a sleep device to snorting coke. Even if they have NO relation and you are a 100% clean and sober individual, what are people going to think about you?

It is just showing a pattern of poor judgement. Which is fine, we all make mistakes. But use them as a learning experience to better yourself. Maybe posting a blog after getting fired from a job is not a good thing to do next time it happens?

I have never done any sort of illegal drugs in my life - but the day after I got my CPAP machine in 2001, I said "this must be what being on crystal meth is like".

So his comparison is not out of line. You feel THAT much better/energetic/etc.

I had no proper REM sleep for 4 years (the sleep study said I never slept for more than 30 seconds at a time), and then with the CPAP machine, I slept a solid 12 hours. Just imagine how much better you would feel after that - and give the guy a break for comparing it to coke.

Thinking less of someone after reading those two comments should be in the dictionary next to "poor judgement."

"Poor judgement" and "cocaine use" are famously connected.

I am going to preface this with the a small piece of information, I work in corporate America.

From my perspective, I don't quite get a lot of the points. No unit-tests? Most code bases don't have them. Cucumber tests? You're already ten giant leaps ahead of most products out there.

Code in disarray? Used to it for every single project I have to come into. Factories/viewers at least there is some semblance of structure!

False corporate goals? It's a company, I expect nothing else from them.

Weird North Korea chants? That's just weird as hell.

Again, I don't work in SF or NY so it's hard to know what exists within startup culture, but to me all of this just sounds like the norm. There is much less importance placed on decent code then there is on just getting something out.

Fellow enterprise developer here.

Startup culture freaks me the fuck out. I just want to write clean code, then go home and do something other than writing code. I'm not at all interested in giving my life to a project.

Totally agreed. When I left college I was convinced I'd never work for a startup because of the terrible stereotypes about startup culture. I love programming, but there is nothing I love so much that I want to do it all day every day and never do anything else. Even if you're a founder and would actually make a life-changing amount of money if the company was acquired, I really believe it's counterproductive never to take breaks. That's how you end up with code you take one look at and rewrite the next morning.

Ironically I work for a startup now, but one with a shockingly sane approach to working hours. I specifically asked about that in the interview and it turns out they were telling the truth, they really do care about work life balance.

At one time, I thought Medium carried articles of importance and repute. I no longer think that about most of them.

Medium is just a place where anyone can throw anything up there and have a potential of get linked to.

Every popular website will go through Eternal September at some point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

The challenge is how to enforce quality despite the surge in users.

I had never heard of that but did notice the effect.

A required lurking period, maybe?

Unlikely to work. Required lurking means lack of participation and thus lack of learning.

My counter suggestion is to encode the culture you desire in to the function of the site.

Medium was originally invite only, so the earliest articles on the site did indeed have a certain amount of importance and quality to them.

Unfortunately, since it opened up to the public, it's turned into something akin to a cross between an inspiring cliches platform, a marketing tool and a place for people to complain about things on social media sites.

Yes, but this is a company that claims to care about software quality.

I'm not a professional Python coder, so maybe I'm missing things, but I can't tell if this is really subtle sarcasm or not:

> What they did have was a frightening-looking hodge-podge of cucumber-esque feature tests. I say cucumber-esque because A) It wasn’t cucumber, and B) The feature files weren’t even Gherkin compliant. It was Lettuce. The scourge of Python software testers everywhere!

So they had tests, but they weren't the tests you like?

> What followed was probably the most stressful week of attacks and counter-defense I’ve ever encountered in my career for a few hundred line code change.

A "few hundred line code change"? Could this refactor been split-up over more, smaller changes perhaps? The last time I was forced to make a change of hundreds of lines, it took days to work-out the justification with all involved. You'll find the effort much more efficient if you are able to split up the code reviews.

I stopped there. I just can't tell if he's actually serious or not.

As a professional Python coder I had to look up Cucumber and Gherkin. I wasn't sure whether it was sarcasm either. And then I learned that Lettuce actually exists as a free alternative to Cucumber.

Who named these things, Javascript devs? (I jest, but Python has pretty clear naming usually)

EDIT: For those of you downvoting - consider the impression this gives to someone who doesn't know what Cucumber is (particularly in a ranty blog): you tell them "Oh no sorry, I was expecting to see Cucumber, but they were using Lettuce which isn't Gherkin compatible". I think it's entirely reasonable to think that those aren't real packages...

Cucumber and Gherkin originated in Ruby.

There is a better Gherkin compliant testing framework in Python known as BehaveBDD.

Don't do this. It conflates so many personal/professional things it fails to give any idea whether this company is objectively good or bad and just ends up making the author look massively unprofessional.

By all means call out a company, but don't write angry, keep it professional, and most importantly don't be a dick.

I agree. I struggled with something recently and just decided there is no way to write about it without sounding like a whiner. Best just to move on and let it go. So that is what I'm doing. It sucks. Sometimes things just don't work out. But that is life.

In the end, I often think these kinds of things, if channeled correctly, have have a positive impact. But one has to be open to stepping back and being honestly and thoughtfully critical of everyones actions including your own.

Although I'd really like to read some examples of companies being called out without anger and with a professional tone (not doubting, just open to links if you have them).

While I'm always in favor of not posting things about your professional life on social media, from the story he told it doesn't sound like he did anything wrong here. There are two sides to every story, but it seems like they kind of screwed him over by firing him after taking a sick day.

I think this is a perfect example of why one needs to learn to not get emotionally involved with "the job". I've made that mistake, once, and it cost me 5 years of my life (long, now boring story), but to blow up so publicly... Not cool at all.

I can appreciate the OP's enthusiasm and idealism, but in the real world, one needs to learn the limitations of that. And to be dealing with so many health problems at the same time... Psychological stress is typically a factor in "acting-out"; I've been there myself so I'm not entirely unsympathetic... Being diabetic sucks, let me tell you. The stereotypical stuff associated with IT (long hours, stress, free garbage food, diet soda galore, pizza..) are counter-productive when you're diabetic.

I hope the OP takes a vacation and gets some perspective.

At the end of the day, it's only all about business. The people who control the money do not care in the slightest about doing things 'the perfect way' if it seems it would cost more money or impact profits. This is something engineers have to learn (or they have to run their own company, which will teach them some hard lessons in how business actually works). As others say, a contractor who is obviously costing more overall than being productive is a liability, so to expect a business to care about you as a "human being" is a little naive. HR is never your friend.

I sympathise with how you're feeling super wronged. I think it takes a special level of "pissed" to post something like this out there with your name on it.

But my 2 cents if you're interested.

No one is going to care. The company that you're angry with, least of all. They will just try to screw you with legal action. They will likely succeed considering you are an individual and they likely have a big legal warchest to punch you with. Developers will continue working for them, customers will continue giving them money - but the same can't be said about you or your small consulting firm until this blows over - if ever. Take the perspective of the company and their clients, bitter as it may be. You just look like someone who didn't deliver and are now making lots of excuses and raising a hullabaloo on the internet. Try to make a settlement with them and get this thing buried forever.

You have a very strong emotional connection to your work - you love writing code! This is great. Just applied in the wrong place. Contracting isn't for you my friend, it doesn't always engender itself to this kind of emotion and you have to be able to live with that. Your options are:

1. Become less attached to your work code. Do what you are being asked to do, no more and not less - and never set the criteria yourself. Work on other stuff.

2. Go work for a startup (or start one) where your emotional connection to doing high quality work (per your perception of quality - unit tests are no guarantee) - is highly valued.

Most important of all, like everyone else is saying - please take a break.

Actually ... there is someone who will care. They would have been his next employer but found these posts during the background checks and decided to forgo the drama and business interruption he would be likely to cause.

I know he's planning to work in his own startup, but can he get along with his new partners in the long term? My guess is no but I'll wish him the best all the same.

Anyone else disappointed that this had nothing to do with The Doctorow book? http://craphound.com/category/down/

I read the whole thing expecting something a reference to Disney's hall of presidents or some use of reputation as a currency.

Well, he feels he was unjustly pushed out of something, and he did use up all of his social currency.

I actually felt bad that he was misusing the title for such a trainwreck event.

I have some advice for the author.

Go back and edit this; remove the big middle finger image and tidy this up to be more professional. It's ok to write it (kind of), but seriously you made a "fuck you" logo?

Would not hire, or interview, or want to be associated with professionally.

I agree. It muddles the message. I've updated the article and removed that image. It was intended as a sort of defiance against their Cease and Desist however, it was indeed, in bad taste.

If I were you I would just delete this post. If I looked up your name as part of an interview process and found this article I would not touch you with a 10ft pole.

My spidy sense is tingling, but I can't place my finger on it.

I had not heard of Pillar before, and really still have no opinion of them now.

I think the author needs to take a few months off and get his life in check before getting a new job, and perhaps remove himself from social media.

I'd stay far away from hiring anyone who explodes like this as a consultant.

He really shouldn't have included the FB rant. Up to that point, all you had to go on was his side of things. After it, you have to reevaluate all of his seemingly reasonable comments about his behavior and theirs.

> I try driving up to the client site to remedy the situation, and I am rejected from entering the property. Brandt enters the hallway, puffs up his chest and proceeds to lay into me so hard I thought I was in the Marine Corps.

Yes because at that point, you're trespassing.

You have NO legitimate reason to be on the customer's site. Further, you probably signed something saying that you wouldn't contact (or maybe just solicit) Pillar's customers for N months.

If you ever get fired by one of these groups, cut off all contact with the customer immediately. You might still try to smooth things over with the contracting company but even that is a bad idea the day it happened.

Btw, this is why I never host regular meetups at my employer's office. If something bad happens in either context, it will spill into the other and make life more difficult than it needs to be.

Of course you're going to meet resistance as the new guy telling everyone else how messed up a project is.

When starting at a company never try to change anything about it within the first several months of working there. Learn what they do. Emulate what they do.

After you've reached a trusted status then you can start suggesting improvements.

Don't be that guy.

I tend to be "that guy", and I don't really see any major problem if things are actually bad.

Last time I tried to "fix" something, it was four months into a job where the scheduling server was put onto my shoulders to fix, among the other things I was asked to fix, simultaneously somehow. I spent two weeks on it and digging through terrible java logs filled with red herrings galore and a badly designed Oracle schema. My boss helped out at the end, but at no point were developers willing to spend a fraction of that time to fix their own code. I mean, they said they would, but never did. What do you do when upper/mid managers and developers aren't willing to fix a major issue that effects prod's upstream and you're wasting 20 hours a week on something they can easily fix? Continue flailing while affecting my reputation in the meantime since I can't figure it out?

Every company I've ever worked at has told me, "You have a fresh eye, so if you see anything wrong, we trust your expertise, so you should bring it up." When trying to exercise that, though, it consistently ends with push back from all sides. Every time, then, I bring up the initial mention of a fresh eye, where they agree, apologize, and nothing comes from it.

My experience is my own, my learning methods are my own, and I was hired for that reason. If someone's hired on trust and experience that they can do a good job, then forcing "emulation" is a slap in the face. I'm not saying that they shouldn't try to fit the workplace's work patterns, but trying to force someone to do something that's orthogonal to their natural flow or experience without listening, then of course there'll be resistance!

There's a point where resistance is good. There's a point where it's bad. There's also a point where not listening to that resistance is worse than the resistance itself.

Great advice. So many developers screw this up.

You are in no position to understand the culture, context and constraints previous developers were under when they made certain decisions. Have some humility and withhold judgement.

The notice of termination is dated April 28 (yesterday). The Medium post is just 8 hours old and is long enough to take nearly 20 minutes to read.

It's rare to see a burn-the-bridges rant in which the author looks good...and even then, you basically have to be Steve-Yegge-level to come out looking like the better dev (not that Yegge's essays can be considered "rants"), But I can say with certainty that I've never seen a ranting essay delivered within a 24-hour period that was well-thought out or flattering to its author. That is simply too short of a time after a long emotional battle to have the right perspective on things, never mind the emotional health and energy to think things clearly.

My advice is to kill the essay, take a week to simmer down, and reread it after you've calmed down and got back to normal life. Repost it if you feel you need to but hopefully you'll see that many of your complaints are rather minor in the big scheme of things, certainly not worth raising such a wall of bad blood for.

> Pillar’s on-boarding processes includes watching a long series of training videos on their “Step-It-Up” program talking about who Pillar is, and why they do the things they do. They talk about things like Craftsmanship, Test-Driven-Development and consulting skills.

(...)

>Now, for a company that prides itself on Craftsmanship and TDD, surely there should be unit-tests somewhere, right? To my surprise, the project they landed me on had absolutely ZERO unit tests!

(...)

>So I did what any “Craftsman” at Pillar would do and I argued for us to start writing better tests. Unfortunately to my complete surprise, not only did I meet resistance with the client, I met resistance within Pillar itself!

That is a good example of the dissonance between the idealism and jingoism of the (internal) marketing and the reality in the field.

When the choice opposes

- doing things right, at the first attempt and building to last

- doing things fast and on the budget (undercut to catch up to the race to the bottom)

it always ends up like this. People (and companies) that know the right way but chooses the alternative.

> In January 2015, I accepted a position as a Software Craftsman at Pillar Technology in Columbus, Ohio

Software Craftsman?

We all knew where the story was going after that!

when I was a kid I would tell people I was a 'Senior IT Consultant', now if anyone asks I tell them I'm a computer guy

For years my wife was a stay at home mom - if people asked what I did, I said I was a "go to work dad". When pressed further, I often said techie, or nerd or worked on computers and electronics.

I've been a CTO twice (at relatively small companies) but if I ever said that, people might get the impression I'm one of those MBA guys (can't have that).

Now already a "correction" that casts light on everything else OP wrote:

"I mistakenly asserted that Sara was “driven out of the company”. After talking with Sara she informed me that she left on her own accord and in-fact has maintained a very good relationship with Pillar."

I don't see anything really wrong with the company here. Okay, they are possibly a bit wrapped up in their own founding story and have a higher opinion of their code writing skills in the abstract than in the concrete. That's pretty...normal. Maybe they even suck as a company, who knows? But this isn't some clearcut story about a company doing something terrible. No one is going to read this and think, "I need to contact this terrible company." It reads like a rant. OP, seriously delete this. I get that you are angry right now over what you perceive as being terminated without cause but this will hurt you more than it will hurt them. It comes off as more than a bit immature, even now that you deleted the FU picture. It sounds like you are a good coder with some health issues. Get your life back together, take some freelance work, and figure out your next steps. That will all be a lot easier without this coming up in google searches. I don't say that to be a jerk, just from someone that has also been wrapped up in my own personal story a bit too much at times.

In short, the message is at the end of the article.

The person gives 6 weeks notice of leaving the company. Before then he works overnight on a bug, oversleeps and takes a duvet day to recover. Company fires him.

You forgot the part of the message where Company sees an opportunity to get rid of Mr. CrankyPants, and seizes it. The way I read between the lines, he didn't get fired for coming in late one day; he got fired for being an insufferable ass [0] for a period prior.

[0] I mean, we all know the type that would make such a Facebook post. And none of us want to work with that type.

That's great! Now he gets unemployment compensation until his next job.

Not as a contractor he doesn't.

Is there a time limit on how long one gets unemployment comp?

Not about Disney, but about "Pillar Technology in Columbus, Ohio".

Yeah - I don't grasp where the magic kingdom came from in the title. That's a phrase I straightaway associate with Disney, and it isn't even used in the article.

As someone who's been to Columbus, I can assure you there is no magic there.

Have to admit, I originally thought it was going to be about Disney too, and was actually somewhat looking forward to the depressing tale of an ex theme park employee.

There are a lot of possible lessons here, but after reading the whole thing the only point I can come up with is "Problem exists between chair and keyboard."

Another developer with rose tinted glasses that expected too much from an employer and got burned for it.

This is seen all the time, starting with expecting to have the interview process tailored to their whims to expecting their feedback to be immediately implemented and taken as near gospel.

This is a more tragic case of a person not versed in the specifics of contract employment thinking he is owed more for providing more than was originally asked.

Some advice. Don't air your dirty laundry about former employers in public. It may help you feel better but nothing good will come of it. Simply move on.

Regardless of what went down, there's a certain pragmatism to consider before writing an article like this. Next time you apply for a job, they will Google you, they will find this post, and they will weigh the value you offer against the risk of a similar outburst should things go south (and there's a risk with every new-hire that things will go south).

PSA: This isn't about Cory Doctorow's sci-fi novel of the same name

The author burned himself out and then tried to shift the blame onto the person he's contracting for. Taking care of your physical and mental health is part of being a professional programmer too.

The main thing I get from reading this is that the author thinks very highly of themselves.. Perhaps a bit too much, which is why they seemed surprised when they got fired for not showing up.

I sympathize with the sleep apnea bit, though - that can turn your life into living hell unless it's properly treated. Mine almost killed me - I did a writeup that's archived at http://weblog.mrbill.net/archives/2014/01/13/falling-in-love...

If every employee at Pillar pulled out a bullet list of accomplishments from their annual performance review- it would seem everyone from the admin to the CEO saved the company from death multiple times. If everyone of these guys flashed those every time they screwed something up- it would be very hard to operate a company. There is give and take at work and its good to be aware of that line is.

"I nearly killed myself for Pillar, and this is the result of that hard work and dedication."

And hopefully now, he'll learn his lesson and never do it again as pretty much everyone in the industry learns if they don't burn out before they do. Employers don't give a shit about you. If you don't/can't understand that, you're not a professional yet.

I'm playing a bit the devil's advocate here but there's two side to every stories. I've known employees exploding like this, convinced in their mind that they are right when in fact it is not so. Everyone is the hero of their own stories and some people are very good at rationalizing their action after the facts to convince themselves they are in the right.

It seems weird that he was fired just after putting an all nighter and resting the next day but there must have been some reason for that. It'd be surprising if there were no reason at all...

This is a perfect example on how not to handle professional conflict. I would point out all the mistakes you've made and that is just from your point of view as described in the article but everyone else here have pointed those out.

For your own sake I suggest you take this down, otherwise you may find it difficult to find work later on. If you are ever in a similar position like this again you need to learn to not take things personal and walk away while you still have some dignity.

I think this was a very bad way to react.

But also I don't agree with anyone else here that firing an employee on the spot because they miss a day of work is to be expected. To other devs reading this, you don't have to put up with that. Life happens. He should have sent an email at 2:30am, but his company should have understood as long as he was getting things done. You are truly better off not working for them.

Consultants are not employees. Consultants are allowed to take off days anytime. They're allowed to start work at anytime and end work at anytime.

Legally speaking a consultant only must be paid 1 hour per pay period to bound to their contractual agreements.

> firing an employee

He was a contractor.

The article has little to do with the Midwest and a lot to do with poor software development practices that are actively encouraged in the community that is his language of choice. Granted, it can happen anywhere, but I got bored after the first Java rant

Rule #1 about being a contractor: You can't care about the problem more than the customer. If you do, it will not end well.

Clients pay consultants to make use of what the client has to deliver the solutions the client wants.

Give them what they're paying you for or get the f* out.

I like his medium description:

>Board Game Designer, Programmer, Musician, Mathematician, Designer, Poet, Lost Romantic, Tech Renaissance Man

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