I don't like this work thing

[drhowarddrfine]

I've been freelance web developing for 10 years now and am very successful at it but I fell into a niche area that required more chasing after clients than I wished to do. So I got my business to a point where it could float on its own while I pursued a full-time position to settle into until I retired. I'm not a big company kind of guy so smaller ones are what I'm interested in. Here are the results of my adventure.

The first company I hooked up with had a part-time out of town server guy and a full-time web developer. Their web site is just awful. 10-seconds to load a page awful and I won't get into how ugly it is.

They wanted another developer to offload work from the web dev and start up a second site. The web dev was possibly an autistic, highly arrogant guy who would correct your speech or terminology as you talked to him and had no web experience before being hired by this same place two years before. He often referred to me as "a very good junior developer". The owner of the company would show me what he wanted by drawing on my monitor but otherwise never gave input as to what he wanted.

The job only paid one-fourth of my freelance salary but I initially thought that I could easily replace their server guy and run rings around their web dev so I could convince the owner to let me do their jobs once I figured out what the heck they wanted done.

I was fired after three months for being "too slow". However, almost two years later, the only changes to their current site are the changes I made back then. The arrogant web dev no longer works there and he's placed three ads looking for a replacement. My email offer to return went unanswered.

My second attempt was a gift from heaven. Very professional organization of 28 people. The CEO liked me very much and thought bringing me on board was critical to their operation cause their site was last designed in 1998 and the sales force felt they were losing sales to competitors because of it. However, his 26-year old son with a MBA was getting ready to take over the business and felt no need to have an in-house developer. He would rather farm it out to his fraternity brothers who had started an Adobe Muse "get your own web site for $39" business in another city.

Two months later, despite being within two weeks of launching the new site, I was let go so he could farm it out.

I'm ready to give up. Just two weeks ago, another company with the worst web site I have seen in years offers me a great paying position to take over their site and bring it into the 21st century. But instead of working on the web site, the president of the company has me trying to fix his iOS and Android app which the Indian company he hired abandoned and left him holding partially working code. I told him my only experience with either was limited time using Phonegap, not the same thing, but I would take a look at it. Needless to say, after just one day I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything in the two weeks I was given to make it work. So I told him I would just start working on the web site.

Looking at the site, the first thing that caught my eye is he's sending credit card information in plain text over the internet. There is no encoding anywhere, and he knows it, and agrees it must be fixed. I told him he needs to give me access to the server plus the SSL certificates he claims to possess. It's been a week and he still hasn't given me anything, nor has he even spoken to me.

Pay day is Friday and I haven't been given a W-2 form to fill out yet.

What is with these places? How do they manage to be in business?! I also own some small chain restaurants for 30 years that don't do half the sales these places do but I'm infinitely more organized and thoughtful than any of them.

What's sad is, there are two other companies that didn't hire me, for whatever reason, and I don't see any changes to their web sites in the two years since I applied. It's just baffling.

So if I lose or quit this job, I guess I'll just go back to freelancing. I don't relish the idea but my frustration and anxiety was far lower.

Thanks for reading but I don't feel better.

 

[sossego]

A little knowledge is dangerous; and, in today's world, we have enough information to screw up everything. Take a break from your worry and enjoy life.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Since someone commented on this thread, I thought I'd give an update.

It usually takes me three or four weeks to understand and get a feel for what needs to be done within a company. It only took me two this time along with asking the right questions while the boss is away; and he's been away for three days.

Apparently he has his finger on everything and will tell you he will give you his thoughts and ideas on what needs to be done but that means little and you need to take the initiative to just plow ahead in the direction you need to make things go. Then you take what you've done to him to see if that's what he had in mind. If he says, "yes", then you're OK. If he says, "no", then it's OK if you have to rip it all up and start all over even though you wasted time and effort. The pressure is pretty low though I'm aware that one or two people have been fired for being "too slow".

Through my own efforts, I finally got my payroll forms filled out and I got paid yesterday. I presented two versions of a new web site home page, to see if their eyes didn't bleed from seeing things from the 21st century. I got my answer but it really didn't showcase the product we sell. So I created five more totally different variations of which the staff liked two the most and lean toward one in particular.

As far as the rest of the crew is concerned, I seem to have garnered a significant amount of respect. The boss claims to be a computer science graduate, and seems to know his stuff but admits he rarely touches it anymore, but he seems to respect me, too.

Unless something interesting happens, I really won't have anything to add to this thread.

UH-OH ALERT! I found out that I worked for the boss's Dad about 20 years ago at a small company his dad owned. It was the same sort of thing, I would show up for work not knowing what I was supposed to be doing and I hated it. Same atmosphere as today. His dad fired me after a couple of months cause he felt I wasn't competent.

The thing that makes me somewhat concerned is I heard his Dad, on rare occasions, visits the company and I didn't put his company on my resume. Here's to hoping our paths don't cross or he doesn't recognize or remember me.

 

[scottro]

If it was 20 years ago, unless you have other things from that time, I can't see that being taken as a negative. (People are odd, of course, and the boss might take it as you trying to hide something, but generally speaking, I think resumes are only supposed to cover the last 10 years or so.)