The stories of..... SWEG!!!

Unspeakably Stupid

Story #18:

Mental Dental

For two and a half months, I worked for a small internet-related company in my hometown. I won't tell you the name of the business, but it was an online company specializing in dentistry. It was owned by a dentist, and about 55 people worked there.

I was hired as a ColdFusion developer, which they were desperate for. I explained to my potential employers that although I had spent nearly a year as a web designer using ColdFusion almost daily, my breadth of experience in this area hardly qualified me as an expert. No problem, they said. There were two other ColdFusion developers on staff, so, in the words of Bob, the CEO, I'd have "plenty of help." "Teamwork" was one of the company's mantras, with the usual declaration of a "team environment" ("Together Everyone Achieves More", clever, eh?) right there in the company manual.

After a couple of interviews, Bob called to tell me I was hired. I was overjoyed. The drive was only 25 minutes each way, with no traffic jams to contend with. Working in my home state instead of a nearby neighboring state meant no income tax, which alone was like a 12% raise. I would have my own cubicle with a phone, and both a Mac and a PC to work on. Stock options, I was assured, were just around the corner. Full medical and dental after three months, too.

My boss would be a seemingly affable fat guy named Scott. His boss was a vice president named Ed with a disco haircut straight from the 70's. Thus would begin one of the strangest experiences of my life.

The nightmare began on the very first day. I'm not sure what the deal was, but all I can assume is that I was hired by the CEO against Ed's wishes. Ed began heaping misery on me from the first day, in order to frustrate me into quitting right away. It didn't work.

They put me in a corner cubicle, well away from the other ColdFusion developers. Scott, a tubby and self-important Republican asswipe, gave me nothing to do at all at first. I sat and surfed their site all day, and read a book or two on ColdFusion. Once Scott finally got around to giving me something to do, he wouldn't answer questions. Not by e-mail, and not by walking over to his cubicle to ask. He would stare at his screen, headphones on, hoping I would just go away. When I wouldn't, he would tell me he'd come over to my cubicle in a minute. He never would, and would slip out the door every day at 3:30 or so.

I had a shitty little PC and a nice newer Mac G3. But after about two weeks, a different Scott, this one from the multimedia department, noticed I had a Mac that wasn't being used that much. After a loud speech about how his department needed the Mac more than I did (you know Loud Howard on the Dilbert TV show and cartoon strip, the one who can't talk without yelling? That was Scott #2), Ed came to take away my Mac, probably with glee, a few days later, but I had already given it up.

Ed dropped by my cubicle about twice a week, happy just to ignore me at first. I had an ancient PC that crashed every 5 to 15 minutes or so, without me even having to touch it. Ed's contribution to helping me was to grab my mouse, say "Let me show you something," and proceed to open my mouse control panel and crank the speed all the way up, making the cursor go flying off the screen if I so much as breathed on my mouse. I said, "Thanks, but I set it that speed on purpose," and put it back to where it was. That was when I realized that Ed knew nothing about computers or programming. He was a phony, to be sure. But it didn't stop there. Ed turned out to be the biggest phony I ever had the displeasure of working for.

After "working" there a couple of weeks and realizing Ed knew absolutely nothing about ColdFusion or much of anything else, and getting no cooperation from my fellow ColdFusion developers, I dared to complain to Ed that I wasn't getting any help. Ed then informed me that I was not to talk to the other ColdFusion developers, period. So much for getting "lots of help." There was a "team" here all right, but I clearly wasn't on it. I began looking for another job.