Anything Goes

What is your dream job? My dream job is having a big salary, good benefits like health, travel and cash and one that is long term. Though not all of us can have dream jobs, some just are lucky and some are not. Most of the time, we do not love our jobs because our superiors suck. This is a fact. And most of the time, underlings get blamed and kicked out of the company because your manager is … well your manager (no matter how lame the superior is, the underling most always gets the boot). Whenever I apply for a job, I always ask firsthand about company policies. It sucks if you work in an I.T. company that even prohibits you to use messengers or surf other sites not related to your work. What do they want us to do? Work like zombies? I am not a robot. A dream developer job would be in a workplace where you can do anything unless you have a deadline coming.

So this is where my story comes in. Before that, I’ll refer to my boss as TB (the boss). I remember one of my jobs before. It used to be alright when it first started. We only were a few in our group because TB did not want to manage a large group. Say, micro management? Naaah… that’s what she wanted to point out, but in reality, TB does not know how to manage even 1 personnel. I don’t think anyone wants someone looking at their monitor while working right? Tell me if one of you doesn’t mind, then I’ll go have myself circumsized again hahaha. You can’t work peacefully nor can you focus on what you’re doing because someone else is watching at your monitor. Isn’t that just irritating? And this did not happen once a day. It happened a lot in a day! Say, TB checks you out, asking you stuffs about the project, then she goes back to her seat. A few minutes after, she goes back to your seat and looks at your monitor again while you’re working. This was pure irony from the fact that she wanted us to uninstall our messengers because chatting (for her) makes us lose our focus in our work and makes us waste time. Did she even realize that what she does is more than irritating and made us lose focus? Whenever she sits behind me looking at my screen, I always move my body so that it will overlap the monitor so she won’t be able to see my screen. That, and I also do nothing but scroll my source code from window to window or from page to page while she does that to try and discourage her from stalking at my screen.

Whenever she arrives first thing in the morning, her first word(s) would be “And????????” or “how’s it going?”. The first one is stupid. What the … First thing in the morning and you’re being asked “and????”. What else does that mean but you’re being asked if it’s done, right? The second one is confusing. Naturally, when I heard it the first time, I just said “I’m good”. What else right? Turned out, she was asking how it was going on with my project. This happens quite a lot whenever she disappears from the office and comes back asking those i-don’t-know-how-to-describe-them questions. The worst question of them all was when I get asked “are you happy?”. Tell me, from a developer’s point of view, this is one stupid question, right? What she actually means is if I am happy with my code. Funny out of all the possible questions that can be used to ask me, this had to be the one.

As I mentioned before, everything was ok. Then later on, we were not allowed to use messengers. Let alone installing them. Martial Law was declared. First, we were allowed to watch movies or do whatever for a few minutes every hour. Later on, everything was banished. If she sits behind you the whole afternoon, then you’re out of luck. Plus, TB is not the patient type. If you can’t understand what she’s saying to you, she raises a sarcastic laugh. Even an idiot would know she ran out of patience because you could not understand her. If you explain something to her, if she thinks she knows about it, she interrupts you right away telling you “yeah, yeah, yeah”.

I think there are 2 worst things that a developer doesn’t want to happen to him or her. First, your job description tells you you are a developer. But the minute you start working, you become a magical developer. Why magical? You are now a magician. They want you to finish something when you were not even asked how much time you think you may need to finish it. That only takes magic right? And it’s annoying when people say, it’s easy, it’s easy. Yes, they may be easy but I get irritated when I hear people say that. Why don’t they do it instead if they think it’s easy. Second thing is, you, as a developer never want anyone to mess how you implement your code. Why would you get hired in the first place if they don’t believe you can do the job. If your company adheres to certain conventions, fine. But if you’re left alone to do what you want as long as the output remains the same, wouldn’t you get pissed if your boss would tell you, “no, this is how it should be done”. That would just make me an idiot. And that was exactly what happened. TB wanted to project herself as knowing programming and an able developer but all I saw was one trying hard noob.

I could go on and on … during those times, I was like a prisoner. Even our attendance was monitored. There was no escaping. Everything was monitored. Previously … on prison break …