Over The Edge


When they took away our snacks, I said nothing, and used the vending machine

When they took away our Indian (H1B Visa) developers, I said nothing, and found my entertainment elsewhere

When they took away our floor of the building, I said nothing, and negotiated for my own office on the main floor

When they took away the receptionist, I said nothing, and pawned the work onto the admins

When they took away free parking ($160/month), I said nothing, and rode the Dirty Whore to work every day (she fits around the parking gate)

But today, I strolled into the office kitchen shortly after arriving and damn near keeled over. "Oh no you didn't," I thought to myself, "Oh no you fucking didn't!" But they did. Those motherfucking bastards just took away the espresso machine.

I know this economic downturn has been hard on everyone. I know many people are scraping by with pay cuts, part time work, and unemployment. I know many people can't afford to retire and can't find work. But this was the first time the economic downturn has hit me. I feel fist-fucked by Adam Smith.

Project Management Angst

From: Dr. James Katz
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:06 AM
To: Mezz0
Subject: FW: Group review of Exception Scenarios

Here’s the nifty title I came up w/ “Group review of CC Exception Scenarios”. I know, you’re thrilled, too.

------------
From: Mezz0
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:11 AM
Subject: FW: Group review of Exception Scenarios

That could be the best title for a task I have ever heard in my entire life, ever ever. It will stand as a beacon in the project plan of the artistry we can all aspire to when documenting our project-related activities. Thank you for this, Dr. Katz, you have made my day, and will be sure to inspire countless others as they review the minutia of our lives of meeting with people, creating documents, writing emails, talking on the telephone, and ultimately creating a product that will steer helpless addicts from the vice grip of addiction.

-Mezz0

Meeting Request


Meeting Request time: 3:30pm - 4:00pm
Location: My office
Attendees: Amir

Amir,

Please fill up, and empty four small coffee cups worth of water into the plant to the right of my desk. I will be in Chicago and unable to accomplish this myself. Please take the remainder of this meeting time to talk to the plant in soothing tones, and let the plant know that I will return after the weekend. Talking to plants has been proven to make them grow faster and healither, and if there are any dead leaves on my plant when I return, I will hold you responsible.

Thanks,

Duke

http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/talkingtoplants.html

Enter Sandman


My number one challenge at work is entertaining my boss, who struggles to occupy his time during his endless 7-hour work day. He drags me to long lunches, lingering coffee breaks*, and long bull sessions. I feel obliged to humor him because he has direct control over how much money I make. He loves discussing books, movies, cultural differences between India and the United States, how much money he made when he first got a job in 1995, how much money he makes now, his ten year old son's kick ass tennis game, his ten year old son's kick ass artistic talents, his ten year old son's popularity at school, and sex**.

I'm sure you, the astute reader, are thinking, "Yes, this is a delightful romp of a blog post, however, what does this have to do with the Sandman?"

Well, you see, I've come up with a technique to stay productive as we discuss why Indians wag their head back and forth when you talk to them. I have a grip strengthener that I pull out and squeeze until either my arm feels like it's about to fall off or he stops talking. Usually it is the former. I've been developing my grip because a strong grip is particularly useful in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for choking people.

On Saturday, I was grappling with someone who out weighed me by a good 20 pounds, and I caught him in a collar choke. It felt deep, but he didn't tap out, so I applied even more pressure. After a few seconds, his body went limp, his eyes closed, and he lost consciousness. I jumped up and called for help, because there's techniques to revive people. He was only out for ten seconds or so, and when he woke up, it was like nothing had ever happened. The head instructor mocked my response, and told a story about how one of the black belts, when he was just a white belt, choked someone unconscious, and then jumped up and screamed, "CALL 911! CALL 911!"

Four days later, it happened again. With the same collar choke, the dumb motherfucker I was grappling with decided that he wasn't in trouble, and didn't tap out when I had a deep choke locked in. He went limp and began having minor convulsions.


After class, my instructor was a little pissed off. I partially understand. He can't have people getting choked unconscious with that kind of regularity. I made my case, and explained how I'm usually careful, but WTF, these guys have to tap! He asked me if I've ever been put to sleep before. I said, "No," he said, "Well you will soon."

This is sort of troubling, as nine out of ten doctors recommend not blocking the blood supply to your brain blocked to the point of passing out.

This is what it looks like:

*Literal coffee breaks like I imagine people used to have in like the 60's. Here's how it works. You enter the break room with your coworkers, pour yourselves a cup of coffee, and sit around and bullshit. I was dumbfounded myself at first. Also, I'm really growing fond of Indians.

**He once told me that women hit their peak sexual attractiveness at 14 years old. If I learned anything in college, it's that in a multicultural environment, one cannot make value judgments against another culture, particular if that culture is a member of the "other" group, that is, an ethnic or racial minority and the judgment is being made by the dominant culture. So for me to call my Boss a sick motherfucker is to be branded a racist, so let's just say I believe women hit their peak physical beauty when they are, *ahem*, women.***

***Oh who am I kidding?

Ass Pennies

I interviewed with a health care company today that specializes in disease management/addiction recovery. I consider myself a “gonzo” business analyst, and to better understand the client population I might be developing software to support, I enjoyed a few snifters prior to my interview. After years of battling anxiety, the alcohol flowing through my bloodstream would effectively serve as my “ass pennies.”

Would my interviewers recognize that I was half in the bag? Or would they respond well to this “spirited” fellow with ruddy cheeks? If I sensed they were oblivious to my inebriation, they would be handling my ass pennies, and I would have the upper hand.

I interviewed with five people. First, the tech lead, who was a diminutive Indian man not really in the mood to chit chat, or interview, or be around other people, so our meeting was nice and short. I have a feeling he will be making his recommendation based entirely on the resumes. Fair enough, V1veek. You won the game by not playing it.




Health Care Company: 1 Mezz0: 0

I handed the second man, a VP of something-or-other, my resume as he was way too important to click File --> Print. He dropped it on the table like it was packet of Penny Saver coupons, and asked with a funny accent, “Why don’t you tell me what is on this?” I immediately relaxed. The poor man couldn’t read, or couldn’t read English anyway. Advantage: Mezz0.

He let me ramble on without showing any signs of comprehension. Then he asked me specific examples of documentation, which I gave him, using hand gestures to animate deriving business requirements from business process flows. Then he asked me to explain to him what I understood my position to be responsible for, misheard my response, and proceeded to correct me.

Throughout the interview, I was trying to place his accent . Then I realized it was the voice of the man from the cab in the Kid’s in the Hall movie “Brain Candy.” Whenever he spoke, it sounded like he was saying, “It’s made from monkey-cum. The drug. It’s made from monkey-cum,” which was even funnier because Brain Candy is about the pharmaceutical industry, and I was interviewing in a disease mana….Forget it, you had to have been there.

Sah1d very well may have taken my ass pennies, invested them in an exotic financial derivative, and used the proceeds to like, have me tortured and killed in a Turkish prison.


Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 0

I was then escorted to the neighboring building where I met with two members of the medical team, a doctor of psychology (dude) and Rn (chick) both with clinical backgrounds in addiction treatment. If anyone would be able to suspect that they were handling my ass pennies, it would be them.

They clearly had no background in software development, and were just looking for some soft skills or a pulse or something. I sensed they were a little embarrassed to be interviewing me in the first place, so I gave them a brief background of my career, explained my methodology for business analysis, and chatted about Ireland (the semester abroad, noted on my resume, finally paid off) and the tragic inability for technical people to communicate effectively with clinicians. We had a nice little conversation. The Rn was wearing a skirt, and repeatedly crossed and uncrossed her legs, then made a Freudian slip when I left saying “herpes” instead of, well I’ll be damned if I knew what she was trying to say. Regardless, her hands were filthy with my ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 2

I was escorted back to the original building and interviewed with a very high energy HR guy who had a background in corporate recruiting. My buzz was starting to wear off, and I was losing my edge. Using the exact same language I used for most of the day, I explained to him three qualities that a good business analyst should have, and then I told him how happy I was to be interviewing at a company that took Human Resources seriously, without a trace of irony in my voice. He was from Cincinnati, and I told him how much I loved those mid-sized cities like Minneapolis, St. Louis, but couldn’t stand the Midwest weather.

Just before leaving, he said, “I can spot good Midwestern people from a mile away. There’s one guy left to interview, but just so you know, unless this last guy can walk on water, I’m recommending you as number one.” We shook hands, his encrusted with ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 3

My last interview was with a very tired project manager. He looked exhausted, and somewhat disinterested, and had browser windows open to Yahoo! and ESPN. He would be the perfect pm. I get the impression that he is looking to leave the company. He went through the motions of explaining to me the software, and told me that the people I interviewed with would most likely contribute most to the hiring decision. His apathy was no match for my ass pennies.



Health Care Company: 2 Mezz0: 4

Jeff Probst would tell me I have a one in four chance of winning employment at a small and growing health care company with amazing benefits. The place sounded like a chaotic madhouse, and the position I interviewed for was described several times as "highly visible," but if this interview proved anything, my anxiety has finally cleared up as long as I stay away from caffeine, and keep circulating ass pennies in the local economy.

I Just Read The Business Requirements

We have received your resume. Your background and experience will be reviewed for the Business Systems & Application Support Analyst opening. Please understand that due to the volume of resumes we receive, it may take several weeks before we are able to complete our review.

Should your background meet our needs, we will be in contact with you. If you are not contacted, please accept our sincerest best wishes in your search for new career opportunities.

Again, we appreciate your interest in Playboy Enterprises, Inc..

The Recruiting Department

Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

Suit to Suit Combat


"Do I want to be feared or loved? Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me."

- Michael Gary Scott

Last week, I finished my one-year contract with the Underpants Project. I am now a minority owner of a small software company with excellent potential and a horrible balance sheet. They can’t afford to pay me a reasonable salary, so I’ll be working there part time, and am now free to pursue full time employment elsewhere.

So I spent some time updating my resume, drafting some cover letters, taking advantage of Prima’s top notch editing skills and insatiable red pen, and looked for jobs on Craigslist. I decided that when I was really, truly serious, I would venture over to Monster, but Craigslist jobs seemed more my style. This one caught my eye:

The job basically consists of weighing vehicles for the DMV. You will not be working directly for the DMV though [sic]. You [sic] are at a booth, you wait for customers to come wanting to get a weight certificate for their vehicle registration, then you place some portable scales in front of their tires, you take the weight, and give them their certificate. That simple [sic]. On average there are maybe 3 to 5 customers a day so the rest of the time you are free to read, write, or study whatever you'd like. As of right now, you would only be needed the following dates to cover somebody else's shift:

I responded, and noted that I had worked a similar job in the past, and thrived in virtual isolation. I was hired. Unfortunately, this was not a full time gig, so I was forced to accept the job and continue looking. Three other jobs caught my eye, such as building a quality assurance team at a small software startup three miles down the street in Santa Monica, a business writing oriented job with (what sounded like) an interesting corporate culture, and then there was a job as “product manager” which was a “gateway to executive management.” I submitted my resume, but didn’t hear back from anyone for a week until Ham1d responded regarding the product manager job. We set up an interview for last Friday.

I studied, and reviewed all the common interview questions I could find on the Internets, got together some good work anecdotes, thought up some weaknesses that could be spun into positives “My lats are really underdeveloped, but that’s only in comparison to my massive triceps”, and some good strengths “I invented the Hello Kitty sweep in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Yeah, that was me.” I dry-cleaned my one and only suit. I dumped some adrenaline off on the step treadmill at Bally’s early on Friday before the interview. I had a couple of pops of gin and grapefruit juice, and washed it down with scope. I drove, sans air conditioning, into the valley on the hottest day of the year picking up some unavoidable pit stains along the way. TNT happened to call with the windows down, sweat pooling all over my corporate blue shirt:

“You are very personable, and shouldn’t have any problems but don’t get nervous. When you get nervous your voice starts to shake, and that will NOT look good, particularly for this position.”

“Thanks,” I responded, “this is exactly the sort of advice I need walking into an interview, sweating balls due to the heat, and coming off a few years of battling anxiety.”

Ham1d had me waiting ten minutes while I drank some water served up by an effeminate African American fellow who thankfully told me that my jacket collar was turned up, and popping the collar might play on an Ivy League campus three years ago, but this is Los Angeles where you probably don’t want to call attention to your cheap Men’s Where house suit, and scuffed shoes. And your hair looks like you haven’t touched it since drying it off after your shower and good God man, why are you sweating so much?


When Ham1d finally sat down opposite me, I felt a sense of calm. A sense that was immediately broken by his rapid-fire questions, to which he gave me virtually no feedback. He asked me a question, I responded, and he sometimes interrupted me to ask me another question, or to argue my response. I fell back on some software truisms, the kind of things that people in the industry say to each other to communicate our depth of knowledge in the field. He stared at my resume steely-eyed and continued to fire away. At one point, things got a little contentious. He questioned my prior company’s use of dedicated user interface designers. I explained our process to him twice. I felt my voice quiver with uncertainty, so I knuckled down and backed our process before he finally agreed that as a B(usiness) to C(onsumer) software company, maybe it made sense for us to work like that.

I felt like I was answering the questions with an appropriate combination of experience, knowledge, and passion. I described my philosophy for firing people. I described my love for Los Angeles, and my intention to stay here forever and ever, Amen. He asked me where I saw myself in five years and I responded, “the CTO of a small to medium size software company, with growth potential.” “How could you be respected as a CTO with no in depth technical knowledge?” I described my old boss, who had little technical knowledge, but was a very effective leader. “Why not the CEO,” he asked, and for the second time in the interview I was caught off guard, and actually thought about my response. “I would love to be the CEO,” I said, “but I lack sales experience, and I believe that to be an effective CEO, it requires the ability to sell an idea to others. I do think I could be successful in a sales position, I just have never put in such a position.”

After about an hour of back and forth, in what felt more like a sparring session than an interview, he gave me some positive feedback.

“Well, obviously, you are a smart guy, you have good experience, you’re young, and you communicate well. This company is my baby. I started it eight years ago, and didn’t take a salary for the first two and a half years. I had a house that I was forced to rent out, and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment to keep the business afloat. I’m looking for someone that will not only do the job well, but will take care of this company, and take ownership of this business. I would love to be kicked out of here someday by someone like you.”

He told me more about his company – they only have seven full time employees, they have been growing 25% year over year, and he is not interested in rapid expansion. He mentioned several times that his company is “solid.” They have government clients, and are not subject to the whims of the NASDAQ.

Then, he told me that we will both sleep on it, spend the weekend thinking about the interview, and he’d give me a call next week. I think it went well. My responsibilities would be well within my area of expertise, for the most part, but Ham1d’s poker face was difficult to read. Oh well, if not, there’s always this.(If you get offended by things on the Internet, do not follow this link)

Startup.com Part I - Challenges



I’ve completed the first month at my new job, which I will henceforth refer to as The Underpants* Project (TUP). On my first day, I was introduced to the company’s financial accounts, which were a mess.

“You majored in economics (Nero pronounced this “ekon-oh-mix”), you should be good at figuring this out.”

I didn’t tell him that I have absolutely no experience with business finance, I hated my high school accounting class, and am still struggling to figure out what financial documents I should be creating and/or monitoring.

But we’re getting there. I have all but separated the CEOs personal from business finances. I have everything on electronic bill pay, and a new system for accounting that allows us to actually see what income is coming in, what expenses are sending money out, and what future expenses are coming up. Now I am starting to bore myself. Vamp! Vamp!


Underpants Challenges

• We are in debt. I tried getting a line of credit in order to transfer our ultra-high interest credit card debt, and was given a fiduciary bitch slap. Our rejection stated that we lacked credit history, had three delinquent payments in the last year, and suffered from revolving debt. Luckily, a lot of major financial institutions have customer support via online chat, so I was able to reply O RLY? UR teh l@mer knowing that if there is one think banks respect, it's teh leet hax0rs.
  
  
• One of the company’s three trademark applications was declined a year ago, the two others are in limbo due to insufficient specimens in their applications, and nobody was aware of this until I stumbled upon a few stray documents while cleaning out my file cabinet. Luckily, I can bring my concerns to the Department of Patent Offices any time of day, any day of the week, via fax.
  
  
• TUP was paying Google Adwords for a region we haven’t serviced in more than six months! For several hundred dollars/month! Take your efficient market theories and shove them up your ass, Adam Smith!
  
  
  
• Two of the seven full time employees suffer from severe illnesses, one of which is degenerative in nature. A couple of Thursdays ago, I went into the office manager’s office to ask her a question and she was supine on the floor under her desk. Yes, I know. We were paying her to convalesce on the clock.
  
  
• We have software due in one month that we were supposed to be working on for the past six. I’m not going to get into details, but remember in college when it was 2:00am, you had a 15-page research paper due in seven hours, you were wall-eyed with caffine, and in the middle of page three, you realize that you were writing yourself into a corner, your sources were not lining up with your thesis, there was no way out, and you had to give yourself a little pep talk to continue? Remember anything like that?
  
  
• So on Friday we brought in someone to potentially help us with our software dilemma. He listened to our situation with patience, and then tactfully, but firmly explained.
  
  “You are screwed. Nobody can help you. I refuse to make it even worse by getting involved.”
  
  You might be thinking, “you have already described this challenge in the previous bullet, get to the point!” but you would be wrong. The challenge came when we agreed that Nero and I would be shifting virtually all of our energies into project managing the software deliverable, and letting the rest of the company work on auto-pilot. This past weekend I have been reviewing our contract, and attempting to break it out into separate pieces of development to, as the saying goes, wrap my arms around it. Nero, meanwhile, sent me the results of his efforts - screen shot designs for how our software would look if we ported it to an iphone.
  

*Time to go to work. Work all night.
Search for underpants, hey.
We won't stop until we have underpants.
Yum tum yummy tum tay!