My IT Career History | PART TWO
Last Friday, I released a post that was essentially the introductory post about my IT career. I talked about getting my start and the first couple of jobs that I had in this field, beginning with my first data center job all the way to leaving my third IT job, which was another data center in Kansas City. Today, I’ll be continuing the walkthrough of my history in IT with the next two jobs that I had. Interestingly, one of these is the job I'm most ashamed of, and the other features the worst manager I've ever had. Hopefully, I at least got some entertaining stories out of these tragedies.
Beginning the Ladder Climb
As I said in the post last week, I left my job at the data center in Kansas City because they refused to pay me what they were paying newcomers, which was roughly a fifty percent increase on what I was making. Not only did they refuse, they actually laughed, and they even told me that the higher-ups laughed when they were told about my request. It was so insane, but there had always been problems with management at that location, bottom to the top. A few weeks after that, I got a job doing roughly the same thing I was doing at that place and for an amount of money greater than the fifty percent increase I had requested. Now, that company I’d worked for before had to pay all of the fees associated with getting a new hire, as well as train someone totally new on everything… and they had to pay the newcomer exactly what I was getting paid. Additionally, I worked overnight there, and if you have ever tried to hire for an overnight position, you know it can be tough to get people who are willing to come in for that.
They got bought out a few weeks later, so I dodged several bullets by leaving that place in the dust. I made the wise call of giving everybody my common farewell message when I left the company: “so long, and thanks for all the fish”, an excellent quote from Douglas Adams.
So, with that company and all its ridiculousness behind me, I moved on to something that was offering me money I was actually worth, and it was…
A severely mixed bag.
Let’s get into it.
The Mixed Bag
At first, everything was wonderful. I loved my new position. I was tasked with some more intellectually challenging things, but also a lot of work that was pretty basic and simple to tackle. Overall, the work was easier but more skill-demanding, than what I’d been doing at my previous job for considerably less money. On top of that, the team was excellent. I had a great time with them. I’m even still friends with one of my coworkers from that job and we get lunch every now and then, though it has been a while. I should text him.
This was the best team I had worked with since leaving the job I had in Dallas. It was a great group, I felt heard, and I enjoyed having lunch with them pretty much daily. I was having a good time. The main downside was that I was technically contracted to the company rather than being a direct employee, but that really didn’t affect me too much, at first, and there were chances that I could end up getting hired directly by the company when my contract was up. For a couple of months, prospects were good.
And then… things started to take a turn. I started to see the darker side of the company, particularly my direct supervisor. The man had no business being in a management position or being in a workplace at all. He was sporadic, unpredictable, and violent. You never knew when you were going to be on his bad side and, if you were, you were really on his bad side. He would be nasty and ridiculously cruel. He would throw things, level knives at you, make threats about you to other people, talk crap behind your back, and generally make your life a living hell.
Not knowing what kind of workplace you were going into each morning was emotionally and mentally devastating. A job that I had liked at first slowly became something that was utterly impossible to handle. Every single day was a battle. Someone was always on his bad side and you just had to hope that it wasn’t you. It got to the point toward the end of my contract that I would spend all day essentially hiding in the data center nodes just to avoid him.
Now, you’re probably wondering why didn’t you report him or why did you put up with that. The thing is, I used every single tool at my disposal to try to remedy the situation. I talked to him, I talked to his boss, I talked to my coworkers, I talked to the contracting agency, I talked to HR. I did everything that I could. However, it turns out that when you’re contracted, no one cares about you and no one wants to hear what you have to say. The only people who could have possibly improved things for me were my coworkers who were directly employed by the company, and they were too concerned about retaliation to do anything about it, especially because they weren’t the ones mistreated by him, it was just the contracted employees suffering his behavior.
Eventually, I had enough. The last straw was when he came around, yelled at me, and then started talking crap about me to everyone else about the way that I had done a job. I corrected him, to his face. I told him I had done it the right way months ago, then he’d come around and yelled at me about it because he wanted it done a different way. Now, weeks after that, he’d seen the work and was rampaging about it to everybody, claiming he wanted it to be done the way I’d originally done it. So I told him off, told him I was sick of his behavior and mistreatment, and I left.
He did eventually get fired. There was a whole investigation into him and it resulted in him getting canned. I’m glad that it happened, but I wish it had happened while I was still on staff there because I liked the rest of the team and I enjoyed the work. But for my own wellbeing, I had to walk out, and that’s what I did. I broke the contract and left just for my own health and sanity.
Sometimes, you’ve got to do that.
The Startup
Ugh, this next one is… I’m not proud of it. It’s not even on my resume, it’s so bad. But I’m going to talk about it, anyway. It took me about a month to finally accept a position. I had a couple of offers, but I was being choosy. The one I did end up choosing was absolutely a mistake. This is a pretty quick one because I was employed for two weeks. I accepted a contracted job at a startup in Kansas, working as a support representative. It’s a little embarrassing that I fell for their whole spiel and toxic startup culture. I hate that I did it, but I learned my lesson and I’m hoping that talking about it will help you avoid this same mistake.
The promises they made were just too good for me to pass up at that stage in my career. They were brand new and the software (and hardware) they were building was really cool. I was genuinely impressed. They had big dreams about opening a huge office and someday making me the head of support. They boasted about their superb, relaxed culture. Everyone seemed pretty nice.
But there was no training.
There was next to no documentation on anything regarding their product and practices.
And the guy who was supposed to be walking me through the support processes was on vacation for a while.
So I did my best. I took as many notes as I could, I asked questions, I went on support runs with them to local businesses that used their product. I did everything I could to figure out how to support the customers of this company. I stayed hopeful, but some of those days were really challenging and I was just glad to be done by the time the clock struck five, especially because I was salaried and I do not work unpaid overtime, ever. I always make it very clear in interviews that I’m always willing to go above and beyond while I’m paid, but that work-life balance is immensely valuable to me. When my shift ends, your company no longer exists unless you’re paying me overtime. Period. I don’t work for free, even if I think your vision is cool. I work for a paycheck and you are not entitled to my life.
Well, this is part of what led to me being “fired”.
While I was driving home at around five-thirty or so, I got a phone call on my cell from a customer of the company. I didn’t answer it for many reasons. For one, I was driving. For another, even if I had answered it, I was totally incapable of solving whatever issue they had because I had no access to whatever notes I’d taken. Third, I was not getting paid for that time. They didn’t pay me overtime. There weren’t bonuses for risking my life to take a call while flying down the highway. So I didn’t answer it.
About two days later, they told me that I’d failed to meet their expectation (which, to be perfectly honest, had never included taking calls 24/7 on my personal device that they did not pay for) and they were letting me go. Interestingly, the other support representative who had left for vacation the day I’d been hired on was also back that same day, at the end of his two-week break. I did protest, insisting that what they were asking of me was unreasonable and had never been expressed (if it had been, I wouldn’t have accepted the job), but I knew at that moment that this wasn’t really about my performance. No, they’d just needed someone to cover the basics for their support rep who was on vacation. That’s also why I was on a contract with a few stipulations about a trial period of two weeks instead of being a direct-hire, like everyone else.
Everything clicked into place and I realized I’d been duped.
This would have been just an embarrassing part of my IT career if I had not also turned down several other job offers when I accepted the one at the startup. So not only had I missed out on opportunities with real, established companies, I had also just wasted nearly three weeks of my life at this company for very little money and with nothing to show for it but the first job I’d been fired from. It was just terrible and is the reason why I will never, ever get in on the “ground floor” of a startup as an employee. As an investor? Sure! Why not? But as an employee? After that experience? No thanks. Call me when you’ve really got something to show.
Conclusion
That's the second half of my IT career history! I think that these are the two most entertaining jobs I've had to discuss, even though I really don't like talking about the startup because I'm pretty embarrassed that I fell for their trap. It doesn't show up on my resume or my LinkedIn, so the only place to learn about those two weeks of my life is right here on my website. Truthfully, I'm not fully convinced it was a good idea to include that here, anyway... maybe I should take it down.
I have one more post planned for my IT career history, which will be coming out next Friday. I'll be talking about my next two jobs, including the one that I currently have with Zoom Video Communications! Talking about my current gig? Sounds risky. If you want to make sure you see that post when it comes out, the best way to do that is to follow me on social media and subscribe to my YouTube channel! I’m @TLBainter on most social media platforms and will have links for all my profiles at the bottom of this post!
Until next time… bye!