I used to be a programmer way back in the day. My first real job was doing some 3D engine programming 60 hours a week for 30k/year. That didn’t last long. Within a couple months, I got an offer to move to Colorado and take a job as a “Network Service Architect”, whatever that is, at HSAcorp. It was a hell-hole. Have you ever seen Office Space? At the time, I figured it was a raise to 43k/year and an opportunity to learn a lot more about web programming (as opposed to doing mostly math), so I took it. I had no idea what was coming.

Just Like Office Space

Well, let’s see… I had 5 bosses. One was a sleazy guy who met the CEO at a conference and wormed his way into a VP position without any qualifications what so ever. One was a genuinely nice guy up to his ears trying to keep the company afloat. Another was a “tough guy” with a moustache, an M.A. in C.S. that he mentioned thrice weekly, and his bitch “head developer”. 20 year old punks like me really got on his nerves.

(Typical Meeting)
Tough Guy Manager: I know just what we need to do for our billing system. I dealt with this while I was getting my M.A. at the University of Elite-ford.
Head Developer Bitch: Yeah.
Tough Guy Manager: We’re going to replace this Perl/Solaris/Apache set-up with Java.
Head Developer Bitch: Yeah, Java’s the “dominant mover”.
Somebody Else: The billing system already works, and it will be too slow if we do it in Java.
Russian DBA Guy: You’re going to replace the Solaris machines? Didn’t we just spend $400,000 on them?
Tough Guy Manager: We’re not replacing the Solaris machines. I said we’re going to use Java! And CORBA too.
Head Developer Bitch: Yeah, CORBA is the “new paradigm”.
….

Another of my many managers was a woman who, as a DIRECTOR in the company’s ENGINEERING division, didn’t even know what Telnet was.

(Damn near EVERY DAY)
Idiot Director Lady: How do I update the tables in the database? You have to give me STEP-BY-STEP directions.
Me: You mean the testing database?
Idiot Director Lady: The production database, of course.
Me: Uh (gulp)… well, you telnet into corpsun3 and then you run SQL…
Idiot Director Lady: What do you mean “telnet in”? I said STEP-BY-STEP!
Me: Well, you type “telnet hsasun3.net” and hit return.
Idiot Director Lady: I type it into Word?
Me: (sob)

After that Terrible Job

Somehow I kept my sanity, sort of, and lasted at that company for a whole year. Thankfully, I eventually got a much better offer from a contracting company for over $35/hour + benefits. Later that gave me a chance to work for Nexstar home loans, IBM, EoTek, and a variety of other companies, doing interesting work and learning new things. I really was in a good situation financially and in terms of career at that point. I have a couple of old co-workers who stuck with that industry and are pretty much financially independent now. In the end, the reason why I left it and went back to college was to learn foreign languages and travel. With as much as I was learning in tech jobs, I still wanted to see more. Still… it would be nice if I’d continued for maybe five more years and had $150k saved before I did leave to travel. If I’d done that, I’d have able to study Chinese full time at a really good school after coming to Taiwan instead of being poor and working the whole time. I’m sure if I’d done that, I’d not only still have a lot of money saved, but my Chinese would be better too. Hind-sight’s 20/20, I guess.

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