Off with the dust

[disheah]

Wow, has it been almost 2 months since I've last updated? Commence dumpage:

For the last 2 months or so, I've been under major stress from my job. The company had been floating in the red since last year, and there was progressive rumblings about possible cuts. And sure enough, about 2 weeks ago, I was called into an office with the CEO and the HR guy and given the pink slip. Let me just reassure you right now that I've got a new job now, and one that (2 days into it) has been pretty great. It's a bit longer commute, but to be honest, I enjoy the drive and listening to NPR.

I've been kicking around an idea of doing a "post-mortem" of my job, kind of like how certain articles from Gamasutra will cover a particular game project, covering what went right and what went wrong. The idea being, to learn from past mistakes and successes. Think of it like a debriefing if you will.

What went right for me:

• Working Overtime: In the first year I was there, over-time was falling out of the sky. When we filed 2008 taxes our combined income was in the 6-figures. It was great while it lasted!
• Learning New Tricks: I have to say that I got exposed to a lot of new technologies while I was there. I got to be somewhat fluent with javascript, really developed my php skills, and even got to work on a bit of java.
• Getting Along with Coworkers: I'm generally an easy-going kind of guy, and to seal the deal, I installed an ever-filled jar of candy on my desk. When I left, I got a lot of recommendations, which was heartening. Lessons Learned: Being nice to your coworkers will get you remembered, in a good way.

What went wrong for me:

• Cruise Control: After the first year, I sort of sat back: took some low-visibility projects, starting coming in late some times, and generally just kept my head down. I think this worked to my detriment, as I didn't really screw up, but I was the last salmon swimming upstream. Lesson learned: don't rest on your haunches, at least not until you go on regular hunting trips with the CEO.
• Communication: I remember it was early last year when the CEO pulled out an excel spreadsheet from his pocket and declared that I was one of the "low-performers". This came as a surprise for me, as I thought I was doing a pretty bang-up job. To this date, I still have no idea how or by what he measured each of us. Lesson learned: Always touch bases with whoever controls your career, and find out how you're doing. Throw shyness to the wind, event when said person is a hard person to approach. It's in the interest of your career
• Distractions: At one point, I had too many distractions at work, including facebooking, emailing, text messaging, the web, running errand. It just ended up being too much, and I think maybe it ruined my perception with the CEO. I'm making a new personal rule to keep non-work related stuff to no more than 5 minutes ever few hours.

What went right for the company:

• Agile Process: It's one of the few real-world places where I've seen software methodology actually work well. It wasn't perfect by any means, but the software team was able to get a lot of things done by following this process.
• Eating Our Own Dogfood: This is a software term, coined by Joel Spolsky, where a software team uses the very product that it was building. This, of course, wasn't perfect either, but we were able to discover a lot of issues by actually using the software ourselves, and without a full-time QA team.
• Great Benefits: When I first came on to the company, the benefits were awesome. The Blue Cross PPO was one of the best I've had, and family coverage was all paid for by the company. Last year, they switched over to a slightly crappier health plan, but over all it was still very good. It's probably one of the reasons why I stayed until the bitter end, instead of jumping boat earlier.

What went wrong for the company:

• Lack of Focus: Simply put the company was trying to do too many things at once, and lack any cohesive direction. The motto "Do Stuff that Matters", sounds intriguing, but told you absolutely nothing about what the company does. They had a few government contracts, but they never (to my knowledge) have any solid plan for going after the private sector. As they say in Marketing, everything was so vague that they couldn't differentiate themselves. And without a multi-million dollar marketing campaign like Nike, you just don't have the momentum to force-feed a brand like that. Lessons Learned: Figure out what your good at, and do it.
• Over-reliance on Technology: Web 2.0 and AJAX may make geeky web developers salivate, but I guarantee you, no private business ever bought software because it looked cool. Technology is a tool, and it's people using it that gets things done. Selling Technology (especially computer technology, or anything having to do with the internet) doesn't work because normal non-savvy people just don't care if you're running Ruby On Rails with jQuery. All they care about, is whether they can do something with your stuff that they can't do without your stuff. Not to go into it too much, but if people say your software is hard to use, then find out why (hint: the answer isn't because they're too dumb to "get" your design). Lessons Learned: Your users are always right, even when they aren't.
• Lack of Delegation: There were probably several dozen instances that I'm personally aware of, where there was a question of how something worked or should work, and there was *literally* one guy in the whole company that knew the answer. Of course, this is a bit of an unavoidable side-effect when you have a small company, but to compound this: there was very much an Oligarchy when it came to ownership of the work. Any major changes to the core components would invoke an email from the CEO, asking you to justify these changes. New features would also require personal direction from the only designer in the company. Disagreements would often trigger long design meetings, the sum effect of which was that most of the new people (with rare exception) did not openly express opinions that differed or contradicted that of the senior folks. Lessons Learned: Ownership is good, but you have to be willing to let someone else own it at some point. Also, reasonable dissent can be a good thing, and must be actively encouraged, else you'll only hear what you want to hear.