I once worked for a company as a database administrator (that was my title, but it was pretty much everything from system administration to application development) that sold magazines through direct mail marketing. This company, still in existence although under ever changing names, sends out offers for magazine subscriptions that look like bills, many times actually using the logos of the magazines they sell until the magazine companies find out about it, bring forth a lawsuit to force them to stop. Since the ?offers? look like bills and are sent out every month, we had many customers, usually elderly, who had paid for literally 50 years worth of subscriptions.
At the time I went to work for this company it was post dot.com bust and needed a job, really any job. I had a bachelor?s degree and almost 10 years experience in IT. Someone else started the same day I did, a young woman, in her mid twenties, still lived with her parents, who had just completed her associates degree at the local community college and who had never worked in IT period, in fact her previous job was working as a type-setter for a small town newspaper.
While I was busy addressing serious issues within the network, ensuring database and data backups that previously were not happening (seriously, they weren?t being backed up), and setting up transactional replication, installing anti-virus, creating financial reports, etc, my co-worker was busy cruising the internet and literally spending hours IMing her friends and occasionally creating a ?button?, that performed simple select statements for the in-house Customer Service application that we inherited.
The major share holder of this company (really the owner, but due to lawsuits he kept his name out of almost all references to the company) was attracted to her, and soon made her responsible for handling the mailers. He would send her a list monthly for offers to be sent out, and her only responsibility was to de-duplicate names and addresses and tack on reference numbers. This is an easily automated process, and yet she saw fit not to automate it, always complaining about how ?difficult? it was and how much time it took her to perform this task. All the while still spending hour upon hour chatting with her friends, and at the same time reporting Customer Service personnel for doing the same thing. It was OK for her to chat all day long, but was completely wrong for others. God, the hypocrisy was amazing.
We had constant lawsuits against us and had to be depositioned, under oath, a couple of times. After the first one, she asked me ?What is perjury, I had to take an oath and they said it was under the threat of perjury, but I don?t know what that means?. I am serious, she did not know what perjury was.
From time to time, I would be asked to create fictitious invoices when the BBB or magazine publishers were performing an audit. I refused because I knew this was illegal. I was also asked to fib financial reports that were to be submitted to the SEC as they were attempting to go public, illegal as well, so of course I refused.
Guess who did not refuse these requests!
She soon became the IT manager, my boss which was laughable, and then became president of the company, all within a year and a half of employment.! Imagine, going from a type-setter to a president of a company making 120k within a year and a half!
This company is still being sued left and right, not only by magazine publisher?s but by various states regarding their deceptive business practices.
I could go on and on about all the things that happened with this company but I think I got my point across. I am free of this company now and could not be happier (bigger company, bigger budget, Blades, ESX servers?.ahhhh. I have learned that no amount of money is worth my own self respect.
Tracy, I know you come to this site and read the posts, and you can rationalize this all you want, but the truth is that you are not just the ?pond? you think you are. (yep, she thinks it?s ?pond? not ?pawn?). Guh!
How sad, really.
