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Feb 08Out of Balance
by in Feature Articles on 2008-03-27
Excitement was in the air. It was the turn of the century and the dot-com boom was in full effect. The bubble just kept growing and growing, and it was probably invincible! The consulting company that Chris G. worked for had gotten their largest contract yet — the first they'd ever had in the seven figure range. Their goal? Build a sister site for a major investment bank that would serve news and analysis on the latest in the investment world.
Going in, the client made it clear that they wanted to do things right and that money was not an object. This was the height of the bubble, after all. In addition to Chris's company, top consultants from IBM and Sun were hired and involved in virtually every aspect of the project. After the majority of the analysis was done, it was time to discuss the bank's hardware needs.
Jared D.'s time at the hardware store's paint department was mostly uneventful. At 16 years old, he worked over the summer to make some extra money before starting his sophomore year of high school. Day in, day out he'd guide customers to rollers, brushes, primers, tapes, and sponges. It wasn't as boring, though, when he got to use the paint machine.
Life was good for Jeremy. He'd just landed a good job with interesting coworkers in a nice, newly-remodeled office. His cubicle was at the perfect distance between the elevators, bathroom, and snack machines. His boss respected him, his coworkers wouldn't hesitate to help him, and it was work that he genuinely enjoyed.
When the H.R. director calls to rhetorically ask “can you come to my office for a chat… right now,” the conversation that follows rarely goes well. When one gets that call, goes to the office, and then finds two uniformed officers waiting, that conversation almost certainly never goes well. It sure didn’t for Steve.
In Leon's country, most government institutions are legally obligated to disclose certain data on the internet — their structure, responsibility, public competitions, general announcements, and so on. Leon worked for a company that did government work exclusively, and during a lull in their normal projects, they noticed an unfilled niche — software designed specifically to make sharing of this information easy.
'Maximum Number of Emails Per Hour Has Been Exceeded?' What the hell? The head of Golficionados was not pleased. He called James to get it fixed.
When Russ started at InsuraCorp (as I'll call it), one thing was immediately apparent: There were two classes of programmers. The "rock stars," who were recruited from top universities and given first-class accommodations, like windowed offices with brand new computers and dual 21-inch LCD monitors; and the "dinosaurs," who were cramped in dimly lit cubicles each about the size of a refrigerator box. The dinosaurs were lucky if they had a fully working keyboard for their Windows 98 workstations.