Randy_The_Squirrel
Banned
Good day people
I am not making this post for sympathy, I am really just asking for advice. I am not asking for criticism either, because I will admit I farked up again. There, now that I have admitted it, let's proceed.
Background about me:
Diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome, and its under control, effectively. Other than the odd communication fail I am pretty normal. I don't have a degree, I didn't plan to work in the IT industry. Circumstances in SA forced me to go the IT route to survive. Hence my qualification is not IT related.
Current line of work: Software developer- main level of expertise in C and Delphi. Can code in Java/C# if required. Because I come from engineering background, we only ever had to do with C and Delphi, and for this reason, all these OOP concepts are lost on me. I know what an interface or polymorphism is, but apparently the way I describe it is not good enough. You get the picture?
I left a company in October, one that features regularly on Mybroadband in a boastful manner about how much money they have etc.. I won't bore you with the details or point out the obvious facts of the case (as I really don't want to be banned) but they really gave me the shaft. I was there for nearly two years, I fought them for over 12 months for a decent raise after helping them with their being hacked.. I eventually gave up and moved to a smaller, but somewhat related company. So since 26th of October I am working at the small company (40+ odd employees, writing C code and crypto algorithms for card payment stuff).
The interview
I am mentioning this because it is relevant- In the interview I was told that they are really chilled here, and they don't really watch clock. I was also told that they don't work overtime (remember that). I was a bit concerned when I queried them about what version control they used, and whether they used JIRA and whether the did any unit testing and formal QA processes. I was told no but I should implement these systems, except they don't use JIRA they use some other thing, called "redmine" or something. I was also told in the interview I would need to refactor/rewrite a lot of the code (remember that). I also did a written test in C and networking which I know I passed because it was p1ss easy. So I thought OK this could work... resigned from the other sh*thole and started here on the 26th.
The experience
Two days into this job, I found out what can of worms awaited me, here in no particular order
* No employment contract (none received to date)
* Many people occupied this seat. All of them were inexperienced coders aka idiots (will show you in another post)
* Most lasted 6-9 months
* The code is the biggest mess I have ever seen. This is one for the books people. I mean that sincerely.
* I had to remind them "Erm, you guys need to ensure I am on the payroll"
* I work with two other developers, they are 20 something, and one of them, I actually doubt, has any skill whatsoever.
A few weeks later I found out how they really are...
* To cut a long story short we only have one car. So I would drop my wife off early, and I would then motor to Sandton. Except there were a few days that traffic sucked ass and I got here maybe 20-30 minutes late.
They sent an email round in the form of a warning about coming late to work. In there they implied I got to work just before our manager did (9:45AM). I was told that this is the last warning and if it didn't improve I would be on timesheet. Now bear in mind, I have been in IT since 2011, and this kind of draconian bull was long forgotten by me.
So no problem, to prevent further crap, I get up at 4:45AM, and I get the bus to work, get to work at 6:30, and when I have worked the hours, I leave, I informed them of this via e-mail (to date, no response). No further complaints about my working hours.
* The manager here, has this expectation that I can whizz code out in a matter of hours. If, and I mean, if the codebase is reasonably complete and clean, then yes we can do that. He loves to micro-manage, which I have been ignoring, and he also thinks that December is the time to work hard... Our clients are closed, nobody is here, but we are being made to push non-existent deadlines.
Now the issue that made me nearly walk out of here yesterday
Last week Thursday I was working on something else, because, as per my current expectation, some of the software dev is being outsourced, so I had to write a document to explain to those Chinese people how to do key management. We had a meeting, etc, and I worked hard the whole of Thursday. My other task was pushed to the side (which was to rewrite Wi-Fi drivers).
So I left late on Thursday to get that document done. Friday was a public holiday as we all know, and Monday I was back. So I spent Monday dismantling the existing rubbish code, and started to see what I could do, created new files, etc.. and started working on it. When I left on Monday the menus on the POS device were already done so that I could call the functions I was working on and run unit tests.
Yesterday he is in a micro-management mood and wants to see what I am doing, so fine, let's show him. All I can show is the menus because I am working on the underlying code, it doesn't do anything I can show on a screen. He makes a comment "I hope that isn't all you have done?" which pissed me off, but anyway I proceed.
He then asks me that ****ing question I hate "When do you think you will be finished?" I said, well, I am trying to get the Wifi stuff to work, maybe something will work this afternoon". He then chimes in, "but we agreed you would rewrite the GPRS routines" I said, "Nope, you told me Wi-Fi, and I made a comment in the code to that effect". The comment sits there, as I type this. I added all the to-do's in the code
After me telling him this, he gets an attitude and laughs at me in my face. I haven't spoken to him since, I just left yesterday without saying a word.
So this is what I know
* This is not going to work. He is not happy with the rate at which I code. Which is odd because I never had this issue before, hell I even got employee of the month at previous jobs for getting solutions out ahead of schedule. I worked out that the other two developers, not having a life, and family, take lappies home and work at home. This despite him saying no overtime.
* I have told them, in a nice way, the code is shyte, and it needs serious work on two occasions. They agreed with me the last time and blamed the previous employee, but it appears offence has been taken.
* He wants me to refactor code, but, he is not happy with this... because he cannot get it into his head that it takes time. There is crap everywhere written by a chimp with a keyboard that I need to sort out... some of the handling of things such as the PINPAD were pulled into places where they should never be. These people have never heard of C header files, nor can they actually code properly (never heard of callbacks, pass-by-reference, instantiation, and generally have no clue about printf(), strstr(), strcmp() and several other standard C libraries, and cannot even work with makefiles). There are memory leaks everywhere... the POS terminals reset randomly in the field... stuff doesn't actually work. I am working hard on this, but, no matter what I do, its a lost cause.
* He has found out about my issues (Aspergers/ADHD) and treats it with disdain.
So my question to you, fellow members is, what do I do now? I could walk out, and then sit at home and lose everything because of no income, or do I try and find something else, in an already difficult job market, where my skin colour and age and lack of BSc Informatics is counting against me.
Any ideas?
I am not making this post for sympathy, I am really just asking for advice. I am not asking for criticism either, because I will admit I farked up again. There, now that I have admitted it, let's proceed.
Background about me:
Diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome, and its under control, effectively. Other than the odd communication fail I am pretty normal. I don't have a degree, I didn't plan to work in the IT industry. Circumstances in SA forced me to go the IT route to survive. Hence my qualification is not IT related.
Current line of work: Software developer- main level of expertise in C and Delphi. Can code in Java/C# if required. Because I come from engineering background, we only ever had to do with C and Delphi, and for this reason, all these OOP concepts are lost on me. I know what an interface or polymorphism is, but apparently the way I describe it is not good enough. You get the picture?
I left a company in October, one that features regularly on Mybroadband in a boastful manner about how much money they have etc.. I won't bore you with the details or point out the obvious facts of the case (as I really don't want to be banned) but they really gave me the shaft. I was there for nearly two years, I fought them for over 12 months for a decent raise after helping them with their being hacked.. I eventually gave up and moved to a smaller, but somewhat related company. So since 26th of October I am working at the small company (40+ odd employees, writing C code and crypto algorithms for card payment stuff).
The interview
I am mentioning this because it is relevant- In the interview I was told that they are really chilled here, and they don't really watch clock. I was also told that they don't work overtime (remember that). I was a bit concerned when I queried them about what version control they used, and whether they used JIRA and whether the did any unit testing and formal QA processes. I was told no but I should implement these systems, except they don't use JIRA they use some other thing, called "redmine" or something. I was also told in the interview I would need to refactor/rewrite a lot of the code (remember that). I also did a written test in C and networking which I know I passed because it was p1ss easy. So I thought OK this could work... resigned from the other sh*thole and started here on the 26th.
The experience
Two days into this job, I found out what can of worms awaited me, here in no particular order
* No employment contract (none received to date)
* Many people occupied this seat. All of them were inexperienced coders aka idiots (will show you in another post)
* Most lasted 6-9 months
* The code is the biggest mess I have ever seen. This is one for the books people. I mean that sincerely.
* I had to remind them "Erm, you guys need to ensure I am on the payroll"
* I work with two other developers, they are 20 something, and one of them, I actually doubt, has any skill whatsoever.
A few weeks later I found out how they really are...
* To cut a long story short we only have one car. So I would drop my wife off early, and I would then motor to Sandton. Except there were a few days that traffic sucked ass and I got here maybe 20-30 minutes late.
They sent an email round in the form of a warning about coming late to work. In there they implied I got to work just before our manager did (9:45AM). I was told that this is the last warning and if it didn't improve I would be on timesheet. Now bear in mind, I have been in IT since 2011, and this kind of draconian bull was long forgotten by me.
So no problem, to prevent further crap, I get up at 4:45AM, and I get the bus to work, get to work at 6:30, and when I have worked the hours, I leave, I informed them of this via e-mail (to date, no response). No further complaints about my working hours.
* The manager here, has this expectation that I can whizz code out in a matter of hours. If, and I mean, if the codebase is reasonably complete and clean, then yes we can do that. He loves to micro-manage, which I have been ignoring, and he also thinks that December is the time to work hard... Our clients are closed, nobody is here, but we are being made to push non-existent deadlines.
Now the issue that made me nearly walk out of here yesterday
Last week Thursday I was working on something else, because, as per my current expectation, some of the software dev is being outsourced, so I had to write a document to explain to those Chinese people how to do key management. We had a meeting, etc, and I worked hard the whole of Thursday. My other task was pushed to the side (which was to rewrite Wi-Fi drivers).
So I left late on Thursday to get that document done. Friday was a public holiday as we all know, and Monday I was back. So I spent Monday dismantling the existing rubbish code, and started to see what I could do, created new files, etc.. and started working on it. When I left on Monday the menus on the POS device were already done so that I could call the functions I was working on and run unit tests.
Yesterday he is in a micro-management mood and wants to see what I am doing, so fine, let's show him. All I can show is the menus because I am working on the underlying code, it doesn't do anything I can show on a screen. He makes a comment "I hope that isn't all you have done?" which pissed me off, but anyway I proceed.
He then asks me that ****ing question I hate "When do you think you will be finished?" I said, well, I am trying to get the Wifi stuff to work, maybe something will work this afternoon". He then chimes in, "but we agreed you would rewrite the GPRS routines" I said, "Nope, you told me Wi-Fi, and I made a comment in the code to that effect". The comment sits there, as I type this. I added all the to-do's in the code
Code:
// TODO: rewrite wifi code, only use 1 access pointAfter me telling him this, he gets an attitude and laughs at me in my face. I haven't spoken to him since, I just left yesterday without saying a word.
So this is what I know
* This is not going to work. He is not happy with the rate at which I code. Which is odd because I never had this issue before, hell I even got employee of the month at previous jobs for getting solutions out ahead of schedule. I worked out that the other two developers, not having a life, and family, take lappies home and work at home. This despite him saying no overtime.
* I have told them, in a nice way, the code is shyte, and it needs serious work on two occasions. They agreed with me the last time and blamed the previous employee, but it appears offence has been taken.
* He wants me to refactor code, but, he is not happy with this... because he cannot get it into his head that it takes time. There is crap everywhere written by a chimp with a keyboard that I need to sort out... some of the handling of things such as the PINPAD were pulled into places where they should never be. These people have never heard of C header files, nor can they actually code properly (never heard of callbacks, pass-by-reference, instantiation, and generally have no clue about printf(), strstr(), strcmp() and several other standard C libraries, and cannot even work with makefiles). There are memory leaks everywhere... the POS terminals reset randomly in the field... stuff doesn't actually work. I am working hard on this, but, no matter what I do, its a lost cause.
* He has found out about my issues (Aspergers/ADHD) and treats it with disdain.
So my question to you, fellow members is, what do I do now? I could walk out, and then sit at home and lose everything because of no income, or do I try and find something else, in an already difficult job market, where my skin colour and age and lack of BSc Informatics is counting against me.
Any ideas?
