The myopic disgruntled employee

Every SME at some time or the other has this species on its payroll – His pet peeve is “Company sux my blood!”

Typical profile of this type of employee is that he is young, just out of college, intelligent, this probably is his first or second job and his parents in most of the cases were/are working in some (semi)government office. I don’t know how the last point co-relates but thats an observation.

Notably it does not matter what his salary is… his view of economics in a SME is frustratingly simple – the percentage of total project fee that I am getting as a salary is very small.

He coolly ignores that fact that whatever he is doing was largely learnt by him at the company’s expense and that skill is going to last with him for a life time. The realization of related costs involved running an outfit are non-existent for him and the fact that when there is no commercial work he still gets his salary does not matter.

Now that I have programmers who have been working with me for years, dealing with such types is thankfully mostly automatic they either become wise fast and correct their perspective or leave in a huff. This usually takes about 6 to 8 weeks – I don’t even want to start calculating the cost to company for the hours spent by several people on that idiot… It is just not worth my time. But, yes if you are just starting up and have very very small team these types are something to be wary of… they can be vicious enough to try and destroy their work before they leave. I learn’t to start using CVS precisely because of this.

  • You will also find that they have peers getting higher salary then them, that ads to the furstration.
    similar species exist in big organizations, and to an extent I have been there done that, but many big organizations do suck blood, and you will find maximum number of whiners in 4-7 years work ex with the new hires still groggy eyed with the idea of free internet(this was true when I passed out – 2001) and free coffee, and the old timers fat and rich thanks to the stock options and bonuses the good years gave them. We missed the stock and bonus boat and hence the crib, to have make do with just a salary!

    • Patience is a virtue, young padawan ;)

      You missed the boat is your fate you have to live with it – Just as I was born too late – the 60’s was the time to be teenagers/born to wrong parents – one of the super rich would have been better /given a wrong name – ok this last part can be corrected

  • Get Rick Quick syndrome ?

    Some people join the software industry to Get Rick Quick.

    And your only relationship with your company is your paycheck, that attitude sort of flows down into this. Can’t blame anyone for that attitude – companies seem to be treating freshers like shit these days.

    Loyalty and gratitude towards a company is natural in an idealistic kid out of college. That might still have a place in an SME, but the big companies don’t care and don’t care whether you know it or not. I was booted out of training in Wipro because my 8th sem results weren’t out – lesson #1, there is no such thing as company loyalty.

    SME have most of their success depending on the commitment of the average employee in there – you have to feel a certain ownership of the code and the project to maintain that. But SMEs don’t go out to college and hire the brightest, those fall into the campus recruitments of wipro, infy or tcs.

    Almost everywhere else, you just do your daily duty and wait for a paycheck.

    • Re: Get Rick Quick syndrome ?

      >But SMEs don’t go out to college and hire the brightest, those fall into the campus recruitments of wipro, infy or tcs.

      Given a choice the brightest of the lot want big names to appear on their CVs so that they can jump jobs in a couple of years and get more moolah!

      This is true to any industry -not just coding.

      However, I have seen, in almost all industries (I have worked in 3 different industries) the best learning experiences to a person comes from working at an SME.

    • Re: Get Rick Quick syndrome ?

      Almost everywhere else, you just do your daily duty and wait for a paycheck.

      Hey! this is perfectly acceptable to me as an employer – you do your part and I as an employer will ensure that you get your promised paycheck on the 1st of every month.

      Anything more than this towards the company from an employee I will consider as being a huge favour!

      • Re: Get Rick Quick syndrome ?

        > Anything more than this towards the company from an employee I will consider as being a huge favour!

        Such favours are how the system functions – ever since the death of job security, threats really work to keep the employee’s nose to the grindstone.

        Then there are managers who aren’t unwilling to go through all that after screwing up the plans and schedules.

  • Well hopefully he’s atleast enjoying the work, else no amount of money I guess will make him happy. Or probably that also might be the reason. Not liking work/work culture

    • I am agains’t the employee attitude of all you get from work is a pay-check… This not only leads to sub-optimal performance, in a small team it affects everyone