5/23/10 It Takes One to Know One/ Turn The Page

I'm reproducing in full one of Bob's comments:

cheapybob said...

I know only too well and too often what its like to kill yourself helping someone only to find out or see it was unappreciated. Very demoralizing when it did occur. I have to credit myself with walking away after every single time, no matter what the cost. If you really put your blood and soul into something, you won't be able to ever hold your head high again if you let them walk over you.

I had a desperate client once, had a business problem that was costing $15k a week in customer affecting problems, and so I sat there and figured it out, and figured out a solution on paper, and submitted it to their corporate as per the rules, and the CEO said he wanted it as quickly as I could possibly do it, so I sat there till late that night, and wrote it, debugged it, fixed the stuff that wasn't ready for the real world, retested, got it all working, and then submitted it to corporate for move to production. I got a rejection email back saying I wasn't allowed to work on it and that the programming had been outsourced to India. I was livid. I had told the CEO I would make it happen for him and had lived up to my promise, no lunch, no breaks, no supper, and got it done, and it went to waste.

Each week after that when I came in I would ask if the Indians got it finished, and each week they would tell me that they had submitted another program that failed end user testing for one reason or another. This went on for 4 weeks, until the 4th week they told me the Indians had finally got it working ($60k in mistakes later). I went and looked at the program the Indians had submitted, and there was my code, which they had finally found and copied. I went in and told the CEO I couldn't work there anymore, after lasting as a consultant/contractor from 1986 till 2005, lasting through probable 10 IT managers, 4 CEOs, and 3 systems/conversions. It was what I had to do. I couldn't have lived with myself if I had allowed their corporate ivory tower people, who knew nothing about the business itself, and proved it, to walk over me like that.

Sad to say, but sometimes you have to stand up and be counted, no matter what the cost.

(a) Good bosses, like good quarterbacks, know where their paychecks come from- results. It's one thing to be able to 'see' what needs to be done. Getting it done is an entirely different matter. Knowing who to turn to is an art in and of itself.
(b) They are generally also smart enough to 'protect' valuable employees from the vagaries of corporate decision-makers. They find ways to retain talent. Heck, their jobs depend on it.
(c) They listen. 'Nuff said on that.

Well, too bad.

Can't say I agree with shark's response. If we were to compare Bob's bottom line to that of the CEO who replaced him with a new draft pick, I think talent wins out over time. In addition, you can't put a price on what you see when you look in the mirror.