'Red flags start appearing from the very first minute I arrive': Startup hires employee for impossible project, then vows to cut their salary in half

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    Cut my salary in half? Kiss your business goodbye. XL OC The cast: (Names changed for anonymity) Me - your storyteller of the moment. Chad Hiring CTO. - Richard CEO, brother of Chad. Big Bro - Engineer coworker - Eddie IT and Desktop support guy. This takes place near the very beginning of my software engineering career, back in '05 or '06. I'd just been let go from my previous place of employment due to be being compliant with directives I'd been given (although not maliciously, so that story w
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    out of a job. I was a young college dropout from a technical college that hadn't been federally accredited yet, and thus all my student loans were from banks and loan companies instead of from Uncle Sam, and debts were due. I was also making payments on my very first car, even though it was a beater that the prior owners had already nearly driven into the ground (4 years old and nearly 200k miles on it when I bought it), and of course, rent and utilities. The job I'd just been let go from alread
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    After blasting my resume to all the job boards, I get a call from a startup who seems interested in my resume and wants me to come in for a face-to-face interview (skipping the call-screen entirely). In my desperation, I agree. I'm given an address, which is all the way up in Woodland Hills. I check the internet... 55 minute drive so long as there's no traffic. With traffic it looks like the commute will be more like an hour and forty- five minutes... each way. I'm desperate though, and literall
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    escorts me through the building to an office. Mind you, as far as I can see, we're the only two humans in the building. He gives me the pitch for the company, tells me he built the software being sold, but it's not scalable, and needs someone who can rewrite it. After we go through the whole interview song and dance, he offers me the job on the spot. The pay is marginally higher than the last gig, so I figure gas would be covered for the commute. I agree, and we shake hands, as I'm going to be s
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    you will be writing code on doesn't have internet access, for security purposes." (Note: this was pure paranoia. There was nothing about this software that required such tight security, we weren't doing any gov't contracts or anything of the sort.) Then, I'm escorted clear across the building, to meet with the CEO (Richard), the IT guy (Eddie), and the sales/support team. I'm told that half of the team is supporting the existing version of the application, 2 people are selling the existing versi
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    I've agreed to rewrite, test, and package an entire application I've never seen before in approximately four months. So, tour being done, I sit down and get to work. After jumping through a bunch of hoops of getting the software I prefer downloaded onto the actual work machine, as well as the code, I set about reviewing code so horrific I've not seen its like since, and there isn't a single comment in the entire thing. Before I can ask a single question of the CTO however, he tells me he's heade
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    Fast-forward a week, I've documented the bulk of the code (because there wasn't any), and the boss and I do not get along. He's mad because I've not written any substantial code, and I'm frustrated because I'm trying to understand a lot of what specific code is trying to do and he's routinely leaving around noon to go sell his tickets for Laker's games, or just not in the office because he's chatting with someone else. When he is in the office, I show him my documentation, and try to get him to
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    have to do anywhere near the same p I've got, which would make us a more efficient team. Monday arrives, and in comes Big Bro. I call him this because he was a much more experienced engineer than I was. We spend the first day with him getting set up, then us reviewing what I've documented. He manages to answer some questions the CTO never did, just because he is that much better, and I start to feel more confident. Over the next weeks, Big Bro took me under his wing as an engineer teaching me be
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    *friend* of theirs and basically worked with them because they paid him to do something he felt was super easy). April rolls around. I've got a special occasion I need the day off for, which happens to be a Wednesday that year. I'd advised him when I first started and he'd been cool with it. I remind him on April 2nd (since I had an irrational fear of policy decisions being made on April Fool's Day), and he loses it. He goes off on a rant, and straight up informs me that he regrets hiring me, cl
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    Big bro was the same, and Eddie would stay late with us just because we liked hanging out together. So, it should be understandable that I was very close to losing it right back at him. In a strained, yet diplomatic voice, I told him that if he put in the same amount of work to help us as we put in to rewrite *his* code, we'd probably be a lot closer to done than we were, especially given the twelve hour days. He was not a fan of that, and switched to straight up yelling, blaming us for the lost
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    When we were both back in the office, he apologized for yelling and told me that since he agreed when I was hired I could have my day off. Cool. I apologized too, although not for anything specific. I just didn't want to talk to him anymore and figured that was the fastest way to end the conversation. Fast forward to June, and the opportunity for Malicious Compliance. Over the last two months, Chad has been getting worse and worse. He's yelling nearly every day (and still leaving early too). Big
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    missing a critical chunk of functionality, and we're still only 60% done. August release is looking less and less sure). Chad informs me that he's hired a 3rd engineer, but in order to stay in the budget to pay him, he's cutting my salary in half. I stop on the spot and just give him a blank look. "Are you serious?" I ask. "I'm barely able to pay for my bills and the gas required to commute here as it is. If you cut my salary at all, I won't be able to afford to live." At this point the idea of
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    Chad brushes me off. "That's not my problem. The fact that you missed one deadline and look like you're gonna miss another is. If you've got a problem with that, you're more than welcome to go find another job. The new guy starts in two weeks." And with that he walks inside. I'd just been told that I had two weeks left of job at my current salary. Cool. So that day I do something I hadn't done since I first started. I left while the sun was still up. (Specifically, I left at 5pm). I drive my ove
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    small a world we live in. Me: "Hey, Big Bro, just fyi I've started looking for a new job. I've already got an interview lined up." Big Bro: "Really? Where?" Me: "Over at <company>" Big Bro: "Wow! That's where I worked before I came here! That place is pretty awesome, and I left there on pretty good terms. I know the CTO there, go ahead and use me as a reference!" Me, skeptical: "Really? Okay...." Turns out Big Bro was true to his word, and the CTO and I even talked about Big Bro during the inter
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    so there was nobody to look over my shoulder as I used the work computer that *had* internet access to get this done). At the new Job, the commute is cut by more than half, and comes with a pretty significant raise. I tell Big Bro and Eddie on the last smoke break (I still don't smoke) that I'm done, and I've found something new. Oddly enough, they both smile and just wish me luck. "No hard feelings, hope we stay in touch!" Odd, but I'd stopped really caring about anything related to that job, s
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    Me: "You guys decided it was cool to cut my salary to a point where I couldn't afford to live. Chad said if I didn't like it, I should look for something new, so I did." Richard, looking defeated: "Well, when's your last day?" Me: "Today." Richard, now ped: "We need you here to train the new guy who starts soon!" Me: "Hey, I had to train myself and to an extent, Big Bro when he first started. The new guy should be able to as well." And with that, I left for greener pastures. The unexpectedly *hu
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    Part 1) Apparently Chad came in on Monday almost violently angry, and demands Eddie re-image my work machine first thing in the morning, which erases everything I'd left on there.Big Bro comes in an hour later, and he and Chad discuss the new timeline for the project. Somewhere in there apparently Big Bro asks Chad to log into the admin account on my old work machine so he can pull the documents I'd accumulated about the planned architecture, the existing code, meeting notes, etc. Chad answers b
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    documentation. Apparently he and Eddie had become really good friends in the months we worked there, to the point where they'd become roommates about a month before I left. More than that though, they'd decided to start a freelance/consulting business together and only had to decide on when to make that their full time jobs. Neither of them liked Chad much, and wanted to make their departure hurt as much as possible. So, they decide to make Big Bro's last day the day before the new guy starts, a
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    boss, and he'd emailed it to everyone in the company. I asked if he still had it so I could read it, and he sent it to me after the call. Thankfully, like the big helper he was, Eddie had ensured that the new guy's email was set up and in the proper groups before the email was sent, so the guys first email in the company was a novella about the kind of person he' agreed to work for. Apparently Chad thought it was appropriate to take his frustration out on the new guy, who'd already read a signif
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    from trying to find that miracle rock star engineer who can save them from their own situation (which, given what they were offering as pay, didn't exist). So time advances in its unstoppable way, August arrives, and customers find that they've paid for something that hasn't been delivered yet, and pretty much unanimously demand refunds, with a few customers bringing legal action against them. With the amount they have to refund, and the money they now need for legal fees (because of they way th
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    Crisic Muzr Oh man, what a fun read. Good to see the good players finding greener pastures.
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    MarigoldBird I have no idea what any of that software talk means, but good story OP. Glad you got a better job and hope you're doing well now.
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    Theresajhall How did they keep in business when they can't answer the basic questions from their employees about the work? 173 Reply Share technicalviking OP. It's not that he I couldn't, it's that he routinely wouldn't, either because he just wouldn't stick around, or felt like he'd already done everything he should have to by getting version 1 off the ground.
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    brefke I'm still studying informatics but i think i'd start looking for another job as soon as i see that the program is 1 40k line php-file. What did it do? 259 Reply Share technicalviking OP. Unfortunately I'm gonna be "that guy" and leave it vague. While the software wasn't classified, the industry is niche enough that someone could potentially use it as a major clue to identify everyone involved.
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