Another issue with working at a software start-up is the utter chaos (continuing a little bitch session here started in yesterdays post). Here’s how, in my experience, the whole process has played out…
It started with one guy who made a really cool and useful apps. Then made another really good app. Then another. He then began to put these all together into full blown websites. Orders piled in. He brought on a second guy (the aforementioned buddy mentioned yesterday). Production increases. Orders increase. A sales guy is brought in. Orders flood in. They bring in a third guy (yours truly) and so on.
It all sounds great and it is…really. I don’t think I’d trade it for anything. Everyday I learn something new…and not necessarily something web/app/programming related. Customer relations, cash flow, business modeling, conflict resolution (there is a lot of this), handling catastrophic server crashes, confused customers, sites that puke for really asinine reasons, and on and on. I think they call it “Trial by Fire” and for good reason.
There are no actual job descriptions…we’re really not there quite yet. We do have vague understandings of what main areas (seo, programming, customer service, training, burger getter, etc.) everyone handles…for the most part. There is a great deal of talk about cross training…some of which actually happens now and then.
We have a “server guy” who deals with a metric ton of shit from us most every day…and he handles it amazingly well. If I were in his shoes I do believe I would have gone completely nuts long ago. (If I were in his shoes: I could image taking that one last phone call that pushes me over the edge. After quietly hanging up the phone I grab the chainsaw under my desk and calmly start slicing everything in the racks to bits. Once that’s done, and everything is smoking and sparking, out would come the can of gas. Once the racks were totally engulfed in flame I’d pull out a very nice bottle of Bourbon and a big cigar and watch the whole thing turn in a big pool of slag. Like I mentioned, I’m glad I’m not our server guy.)
All this chaos, long hours and headaches has left very, very little time for anything else. You can ask my wife…she’s the one over there in the corner with a rolling pin in her hand and that crazy look in her eye. Thankfully, over the past couple of weeks we’ve been able to reach a bit of an even ground….a shaky, unstable, oil covered, jagged edged even ground….but even ground nonetheless. I’m actually getting home before 7 or 8pm. This is a nice thing.
I might even get a chance to get a few WoW sessions in this weekend. It’s been too long…way too long. My main WoW Druid partner has been dogging me pretty good for a few weeks. “I just popped 79…where the hell are you?” I thirst for a few good PvP runs. In fact….I think I need it. My two Druids have been sitting idle for far too long.
The amazing thing is this weekend there might actually be a (gasp) day off. I’m not sure what this is but, as I understand it, it’s a day where you don’t do any work. I googled it, just to be sure, and come up with Ferris Buellers Day Off which is, of course, one of the best movies of all time.
So, I’m done gripping. This Labor Day weekend should be great…a little time off, we’ve got a beach party to hit on Saturday (of which Pool Bar Jim’s is a major component). I hope to get back into running my Druid around the World of Warcraft with a buddy or two as well. Should be good. Week after week of 7 day weeks will, in fact, start to drain you down. Thanks for listening to me bitch!
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