I was just called into a secret meeting by my CFO in regards to our financial situation. We’re bleeding cash and our reserves are down to around half a million dollars when just two years ago they were 4 times that. The source of our problems, according to the CFO is our line of business app which is an in-house app created by our developer. The CFO wants to chuck it in favor of an off-the-shelf solution. I agreed with him. The software is a huge single point of failure. On top of that we’re not able to bill our customers appropriately and bring in the cash.
If we eliminate the software, we basically eliminate the job of the developer who I have a pretty friendly relationship with. But the company comes first. If we keep losing money hand over fist the company goes under and so do I.
The funny thing is that the CFO was asking my advice. I’ve gained a lot of clout over the years with him. By agreeing with him I fear that I may have influenced his decision. I hate politics. I just want to solve problems using technology, not be responsible for folks getting fired.
Even worse, he mentioned that he might have to eliminate my supervisor’s and the developer’s jobs if he were to go with the OTS solution. That made me feel even worse.
Should I be feeling bad? Should I have taken a neutral stance or really have told him how I felt? He assured me that our conversation was confidential.