My work at this 4-man (me being the fourth man) operation began in earnest...
Working from home
Projects were in Joomla!, and I spent many nights tinkering till I made sense of them. It's caused me to hate Joomla! to this day.Each new project would be passed to me in the form of a Photoshop file, which I would then convert to HTML and CSS, and then incorporate into Joomla!. In addition, I attended client meetings, sometimes with the boss, sometimes by myself.
Working from home, in theory, gives the web developer a great deal of freedom. In practice, it was exhausting. There was no firm line drawn between home and office. My home was my office. I let my enthusiasm get the better of me instead of exercising self-discipline. I worked late into the night, up to 4am, sometimes up till daylight. But since clients were operating from 9am to 5pm, I still had to be awake by 8am. This left me, over time, in a state of perpetual fatigue.
 |
| Tired. So tired. |
A demanding boss
I soon found out that where client communications were concerned, I was a novice. I made elementary mistakes, talked too much, gave an overall poor impression. My new boss was very displeased, and reprimanded me on more than one occasion. It got so severe that at one point, I was fully expecting to be fired after screwing up a government project. Instead, he extended my probationary period by another three months. |
| Constant terror. |
On one hand, I was grateful for the opportunity. On the other hand, I was starting to sense that nothing I did would ever make this dude happy. Screwing me for messing up client communications was one thing. Screwing me for negligence and sloppy work was all right, too. But it got to the point where he would pick on me for poorly-chosen words, the occasional missing email attachment, and so on. He would send me an SMS, and when I didn't reply within 30 seconds, send me another one pressuring me to answer. Seriously, what the fuck?
But I was determined to make it. This bullshit actually made me work even harder. He thought I wanted to pass my probationary period so as to get that promised substantial pay increment. But in truth, this had stopped being about money. I needed to prove I could do it. The more he piled the pressure on, the more I gritted my teeth and hung on. Yes, I got that he didn't think much of me and perhaps he had cause to think that way. Well, guess what? Challenge accepted, motherfucker.
I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify that I'm not attempting to paint this guy as the Boss From Hell. As bosses go, he was pretty decent about paying me on time. And he did make the attempt to engage in a little guy-talk, make things a bit friendlier. Points for effort, yo.
Getting increasingly tired
However, this couldn't last. My confidence was dwindling. Every time I got an email or SMS from my boss, I would agonize over how to properly answer. Add to the fact that I was pulling 18-hour days now, and something was bound to snap. Not getting out of the house other than for the occasional client meeting, didn't help. I was developing a serious case of cabin fever. My buddies, concerned for my mental health, made a point to get me out for movies and supper. I was so exhausted that I'd fall asleep within ten minutes of the movie starting, and wake up only when the credits were rolling.I wasn't sure if I would make it another three months, but I sure as hell was determined to try.
Let go
The sixth month came and went. I waited for an indication from my boss as to whether or not I was confirmed, or if he was still not satisfied with my performance and wanted to re-extend my probationary period. None came. Finally, after a week or so, I sent him an SMS inquiring about my status. His reply was a request to meet me at a cafe near my place. |
| Sent packing. |
There, he apologetically informed me that he had to let me go because the company was downsizing, and that I would leave at the end of the month. Apparently, he himself was unsure if he could continue to run the company. I asked him why he'd waited till now to tell me, and he said my probationary period had completely slipped his mind till now.
How coincidental. How convenient.
Maybe his company wasn't actually downsizing. It was already a 4-man operation - how much smaller was he going for? Maybe he simply decided that I wasn't worth keeping on after a substantial pay raise as promised. (And he couldn't just keep me on without the pay rise because my motivation would be gone. For the past 6 months, the sheer amount of effort I was putting in had been my only saving grace. Without even that, I would be useless to him.) Maybe the whole "downsizing" thing was just an excuse to spare my feelings, or just make it easier for me to land that next job. Nice of him, eh?
Aftermath
Whether he knew it or not, this fella did me a huge favor by letting me go. I no longer had anything to prove. I had never given up - it was he who was telling me to go, right? And since there was no longer anything in it for me, I stopped trying so hard and simply concentrated on going for job interviews, and informing all the clients that I would be leaving at the end of the month. Interestingly, many of the clients, upon hearing the news, asked if I was interested in maintaining those projects for them, but on a freelance basis. Which basically meant I would be taking jobs away from my soon-to-be ex-boss. It was tempting. Money and sweet revenge! (Hey, he's downsizing, right? What does he need so many jobs for?)Anyway, where was I? Oh yes - the aftereffects. Since I wasn't trying so hard anymore, I was no longer running on adrenaline. It felt like I had finished a race. My body started to rebel after having been pushed to its limit for the past 6 months. By 11pm, no matter what I was doing, no matter how much caffeine I'd taken during the day, I would start nodding off and wake up only at 8am. It was like magic.
That was scary. It showed me just how far I had pushed myself. If the guy hadn't let me go, how long could I have kept this punishing pace up? It just doesn't bear thinking about.
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