When code changes lead to unemployment

I was working for a small software company when we got the assignment to build an online customer system for an international shipping corporation. It was a major sale for us. I had done a fair amount of the initial coding, and naturally I was excited. There were all kinds financial incentives riding on it — including a trip to Hawaii for yours truly.

A good scope of work had been drafted before we began design and coding, and both the customer and our upper management approved it. Nonetheless, maybe because so much money was riding on the project, my company brought in an expensive project manager to make sure the project was completed successfully and on time.

As the project moved into high gear, two interesting things happened. First, I noticed that whenever the expensive project manager was not actually in a meeting, he was on the phone. One Friday evening, after several beers at the programmers’ bar half a mile up the interstate, he mentioned that he was starting his own PC sales company.

Second, the shipping company started requesting feature and functionality changes. Mostly they seemed reasonable enough, and our project manager approved every one. But they required major code rewrites in the affected modules, and our project manager never asked for additional time or money to pay for them.

Concerned about our bonuses — not to mention the continuing existence of the company — a colleague and I approached the owners and explained the situation. Both of them had been programmers themselves, and we expected them to share our concern. But it was like talking to a brick wall. Apparently, they knew the project manager personally, and they had utter confidence in their pal. He knew what he was doing, and they were going to back him up. And all during this painful conversation, they were giving us the hairy eyeball. It was very weird.

Shortly after this depressing meeting, my colleague left the company for a better opportunity. I considered following his lead. But by then, I had already put so much time and thought into the project that I felt personally invested. I stuck it out.

The deadline came and went, but I hardly noticed. I was working around-the-clock shifts, trying to bring my modules in as quickly as possible, and I took on extra modules when I could. Finally, we turned in an application that had every feature the customer ever wanted. It was also six months late and so far over budget that it had eaten up all the profits from the original sale, along with far too much of our company’s working capital. The customer wasn’t very happy about the missed deadline either.

The owners must have remembered that conversation we had, because they even made good on my trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it much, wondering if I’d have a job to come back to. Sure enough, several weeks after I returned, the company went under. The shipping company hired several of our now-unemployed engineers to maintain the online system — including me.

I’m not sure if it was feature creep that killed the company or that $%#@! project manager! If only he had applied some basic negotiating techniques to adjust the time line and price when the client asked for a change. I guess he had bigger fish to fry.