Wired
The Liar, the Wire, and Feeding the Fire
This is a little story, to tell anyone who’s interested about a company that recently decided to screw me over.
Back in october of 2004, i was approached by a friend of a friend to set up an online business directory. Basically, he wanted a system that he could hire a bunch of telemarketers to use, to gather data from prospective clients. sometime in 2005, hopefully, he’d have enough clients that he could mail out a yellow pages version… a real dead tree, not just something online. I had a lot of interest, because this guy had a business plan, had things planned out, already had telemarketers ready to go. What could i say? So i started building a system. $20/hr. not superb, but not shabby either, considering i was still in university at the time, and i could use the money. Plans changed. No longer an msaccess on a local server for the telemarketers, but something web-based instead.
Unfortunately, his web experience was really weak. Years apon years ago, he had done some work in pascal and foxpro, he had a little bit of an idea about how databases worked, but didn’t have a clue regarding things like PHP, mysql, and more specifically, web security. When you’re dealing with money online, you want your security in place. I’ve been doing security in web scripts for years already, so this was my own backyard. I got the telemarketing system up and to his ever-changing spec, and it worked. It worked well. Too bad he decided not to train the telemarketers.
Around this time, this guy had finally decided on a name for the company. It started with Christian (sic), and ended with Wire. No names named. I’m no going to do him any favors by linking the site, if you’re interested in looking it up, it’s pretty damn easy to guess. What really cracks me is that this guy claims to be a Christian, yet his business practices show him to be something else altogether. I guess you can’t help screwing over poor university students when you’re a big CGA with enough money to blow thousands of dollars on a pet project like this. I won’t be so presumptuous as to even attempt to comment on his faith… but actions shriek louder than words.
So, October came and went. Meetings on a pseudo-weekly basis. Every week he pulled the same crap. “Wow! nice progress! wait, here’s a couple minor things that i want changed. this sucks. Bad Xore.” It was like a roller coaster working for this guy. He gives me a vision every meeting, but he never gave me hard specs, despite my requests for some, so i could only go on word of mouth what he wanted, and if it wasn’t what he wanted, i had to go back and program it again. I didn’t mind though. If he was going to be stupid like that, let him be stupid, it’s not my fault, and as long as he pays me the hourly rate, i’ll still work my ass off for him. And i did.
Then timelines started changing. March and April deadlines got moved forward to january and february, then to december. I scrambled, dropped my university courses (really stupid in hindsight, but when someone’s prodding you to work and offering enough cash to compensate the dropped courses, you take it it and work). And i worked. Not just a telemarketer system, but also a user login system for online signup. A slick custom system, online credit card processing, user preferences. An admin system where he could change settings etc. A template system so the graphic artists could put in time without messing up my code. Then the business backend. Invoices, reports, batch bank processing, the works. I was in heaven, i had always wanted to work on a project like this, this was something i was proud to put my name behind. Then came mid-december. I gave him my timesheet.
Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with programming, this might not mean a lot. But there’s a big difference between programming a standalone application on a single user computer, and building a web system. Those differences include things like security, authentication, validation, data cleansing, etc. On a standalone system, you’ve got a user. He or she might make mistakes, but for the most part, not. On an online system, you’ve got to deal with users who are out for your blood. Not only will they make mistakes, but they’ll make the worst kinds of mistakes, everything possible to rip and tear your system down. You need to check everything they give you to make sure it’s not going to damage your system. Take a look at security focus’s bugtraq if you don’t believe me.
Now, this guy has a little experience in foxpro and pascal. Security isn’t something he can see, it isn’t something he can relate to, he’s never had to deal with it. It comes (or doesn’t) with packages he’s bought, but he’s clueless as to what kind of experience, testing, and work it entails. So, he looks at my timesheet, sees a bunch of hours for building a system that, if standalone, he things might take 15 hours. Screw testing. Screw security, authentication, templates, validation, input cleansing. “These hours are unreasonable”. “Can you have this, this and this ready for next meeting, and re-submit your timesheet with the rest of it”.
Well… things couldn’t have been that bad. If he asked me to continue working, he was going to pay me. Right? Right? Apparantly not. My friend, who was his assistant manager, got paid. I didn’t. December 23, i creamed my ass for the past week meeting his final code requests that previously had been aimed at february. What could i say? No christmas shopping, to say the least. No money for it either… i had been looking forward to that paycheque.
December 23. Once again. The hours were unreasonable. 137 hours of work, 20/hr, $2760. Not a penny in my pocket, and no christmas shopping either. He offered me 500 for what i had done. That’s not even minimum wage. a hellofalot less, in fact… that’s not even 4/hr. What was i going to do? I had told him weeks ago that i was booked with company and out of town for the period from december 24th till the end of the year. he had been cool with it, and now he wanted me to work my ass off over christmas holidays.
Pardon me, did someone say Christian? I thought i heard the word Christian over here somewhere. Could i get a soundcheck please? Testing, testing, Christian?
The cheque would have been given at the meeting on the next day. I couldn’t make it, i had previous plans that i wasn’t about to break. Besides which, 500 was a measly sum. It was a slap in the face. Yes, the hours were a bit high for the work that was done. When you take a program and keep switching around the requirements, it adds time. When you refuse to give clear requirements, it adds time. Am i supposed to read his mind?
This past couple of weeks, i’ve been through the employment standards branch of B.C. … apparantly, getting a $1000 settlement is a sweet deal. I hardly think so. It’s still below minimum wage. For someone who told me, “I can afford to pay you, but i’m not going to”, this is just another slap in the face. Having my position in the company defined as an EMPLOYEE on the CONTRACT with a fixed wage of 20/hr apparantly means nothing when the guy you’re going up against has a salary range in 6 digits and you can barely scrape 5. When you have a salary range in 6 digits, you can afford to pay for your mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you will. Not even if you call yourself a Christian.
If you’re a Christian business thinking about buying into this… keep in mind that many people slap the name “Jesus” on what they do, call themselves Christian, and drink in the profits.