Stop- and Start-ups

Work has been an absolute joy of late. Why, this week I put in a good six or eight productive hours!!! Valuable life lesson: when considering employment with a software or web startup, part of your due diligence should include asking the principal her familiarity and comfort with software or the web. It's one thing to work for someone green, someone who's never run a company before. It's entirely another to build a website for someone with a singular vision who has no use for the site when completed.

"It must look exactly the way I see it in my head, but you're the experts, so just go do it!"

I'm reminded of John Larroquette in Stripes. Striding proudly and confidently about the mortar range he orders a recruit to launch a shell. The soldier, beholden to the old ways of the reality-based community, asks for coordinates. Capt. Stillman will have none of it. He tells the soldier the Army has paid a lot of money to teach him how to shoot that mortar, so shoot it.

Poor Sgt. Hulka. "Blown up, SIR!"

I work for Capt. Stillman. Only she looks better in heels.

When I came on board, I expected to work long, hard hours until right around now getting the site built and launched. That's because I was led to believe the requirements had been gathered and analysis performed. Hoohah! They tricked me!

Tomorrow is the last day my buffer - the bastard who sucked me into this job - will be around, 'cause he's pulled up stakes and moved to California, following his wife to school. He gets to drive an hour each way to Oxnard for his new gig while she gets the cushy commute putting her Juris Doctorate to good use at USC film school. And I'm stuck with the crazy boss, her vapid sidekick, the project manager who doesn't manage the project, and my buddy. Thank Ba'al for him; I'd go completely insane if we couldn't work on our pilot spec for Bob Newhart's next huge hit while we wait impatiently for a requirement, any requirement to make it over the transom.

Then again, if Stephen Fry would post a little more often (but at the same length,) I'd just while my time away reading his glorious blog.