27.08.10
Posted in Random Thoughts at 8:32 pm by liviu.tudor 
Ok so I’m on the tube just finished my previous blog post and sent it (ok had to wait till I had some signal bit that’s a minor detail) and as I look around I see these 3 chicks (call them “girls” for no better term :p) looking at me. In fact they’ve been kind of staring at me for a while – and while initially I thought it could only be my irresistible good looks 
unfortunately I came to realise its not that : they give me dirty looks I’m pretty sure because of my frantic typing on my BlackBerry! Look girls I’m not showing off ok, if you look closer you would see that I’m using a BlackBerry Storm – that’s no longer a trendy phone as its over a year old! And I’m not an idiot to just pretend I’m sending texts when there is no coverage since we’re underground. I’m not flirting with some “hot babe” nor am I showing off my (antique) phone – I’m simply an underground blogger 
And I’m just putting together my next blog post.
There are still people who use these smart phones for more than just taking pictures and sending them to mates or listening to music out loud on the tube or bus-and it happens I’m one of them. I am typing as you obviously noticed, not just playing Space Invaders hitting the same key to shoot the alien fuckers and I don’t care if I hot not signal, mobiles nowadays can save stuff in memory for later sending.
So please, next time you see someone typing frantically on the underground remember that he might be an underground blogger-like me!
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19.08.10
Posted in Random Thoughts, Tech at 6:54 pm by liviu.tudor
I had a couple of recent discussions on the phone recently with 2 head hunters who were trying to get me a “dream job” in some banks in the city. I say “dream job” because that’s exactly how they presented it to me – the fact that it was in a bank it meant for me straight away otherwise! Anyway, I turned them down (no surprise there, if you read some of my previous blog entries you would know that I turned down bigger names in the past). One of them though said to me with annoyance and disappointment in his voice when I politely declined: “I’ve got no idea what’s going on: I’ve got a list of top notch developers who I’m calling and every single one of them turns me down!I’ve got a big pile of cash (we are talking 6 figure by the way!) and a position dealing not with dead code but with some new innovative products and technologies and nobody wants it!”
I kind of felt for him (actually no, I didn’t but let me break it down to you my dear banks:
When the whole credit crunch started, which was not in any way something caused by your IT guys or infrastructure, you pointed the finger at thousands of developers and then at the door. However you decided to keep most of your traders and what-not, so we came to realise that really whatever we might do in a bank is actually not important at all to your business. You told us that a trader is more important than 100 developers. We now know that whatever genious optimized algorithms and solutions we might put into place, no matter how low we get our latency and how much we maximize our throughput (obviously while keeping the same bandwidth!) that won’t make your institution any money and as such its bloody useless as far as you care. However, that dude from 1st floor just made you 2 millions today so thank fuck there’s people like him in your organization, to pay for the useless ones in IT right?
We basically learned by now that banks haven’t changed at all since their early days: you got money, lend it to people and ask for more back! (Thinking about it pretty much the same can be said about investment banks too – even though it technically involves buying shares and then selling them later on.) Why would you change something that’s been working for hundreds of years now? Sure all these international committees and organisations went up in the arms a while back about modernisation, infrastructure and blah blah (evil people for sure, why would a bank need to modernise?) and as a result of that you had to hire all these “muppets” and set up an IT division. Before you know it you need a CTO and a CIO and the whole shebang. These guys started talking about securing information, standardizing platforms, platform migrations and development and before you know it they spend your money as if they were running the bloody show!I mean what do these IT guys do anyway? Oh set up my laptop – woo-fucking-hoo! – your secretary Polly can probably do that with her eyes closed! And for a friggen laptop and some wires running through the office you pay an arm and a leg?
I bet when the credit crunch started the banks went “phew, now is a good time to get rid of this lot: they started hundreds of projects, none of which are finished, even though they hired thousands, cost me a fortune and really don’t do anything”.
No one has ever seen past the manager’s mistake in evaluating the deadlines and budgets in the first place, in fact the manager stayed and got a bonus, but the clever developer who got your response time from 10ms to 0.1ms got a handshake and a finger showing him the door. No one has seen past the fact that finishing the project would save 5% of the running costs of the organisation or it would see an increase in the profit by 2%. Nope none of that!
Developers were simply dead weight and as such had to be thrown overboard. With not much consideration to their skills.
And now dear banks when you are struggling with your bloody years-long projects, where no one has a clue what they’re doing or when are they supposed to finish and you might think that throwing more man-days at the problem should solve it, now, when I know that you have no consideration and respect for my development skills, now you ring me: “I’ve got lots of cash – huge amounts! – and I think you are such a perfect fit for what we’re looking for” (bollocks!) all I can say is take that big pile of £50 notes and shove it up the arse of that guy from first floor who makes you millions and see if he can shit you a couple of “very talented and dedicated” developers on the spot – after all he’s been the solution to your problems throughout the hard times of the credit crunch! I, the developer though, am going to a company that actually knows the role of the developer in their team!
Oh and in case I blinded you so far with complicated terms like “budget”, “planning” and other things you get confronted with in IT and as such didn’t get my message, let me put it in simple terms to you, my dear banks: PISS OFF INNIT!
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Posted in Blogroll, Random Thoughts at 9:39 am by liviu.tudor
I’ve been prompted recently by a few with regards to my recent blog entries as it became apparent that I’m blogging a lot and very often recently. It’s not because all of a sudden I find myself with so much more time on my hands – if anything my schedule has become busier nowadays! – but rather the fact that as I signalled previously in my blog, I have finally installed a wordpress app on my BlackBerry which allows me to blog “offline” now on my way to and from work. I used to reserve this time for twittering (yup, I got a twitter app on my BlackBerry as well!) – however that only works if you got a signal (call to mobile developers out there – myself included: how about writing a twitter app which saves your tweets locally then sends them in a batch when you get a network signal?) Which meant every time I was underground my twittering had to stop.
The wordpress app however allows me to save my posts as drafts on my mobile and post them later on – so I can write them on the underground and when I come out the other end I can simply post them to my blog! All of a sudden a boring journey becomes productive in terms of my blogging!
Hence my recent “flood” of blog posts. It is not the case that all of a sudden I have more time therefore (like I said my spare time is just as non-existent as before), nor is it the case that all of a sudden I have realised I’ve got so much more to say (these are things that have always been on my mind, only I just finally got around to saying them). It’s simply the case that I know finally have the tools to make use of what previously was “dead time”. One can argue that really that means I have more time on my hands but I’m not going to enter this battle of semantics.
Another thing that has become apparent as well is the fact that I swear more in my blog – and that “is not nice”. Really? Don’t read it then! To quote from De Niro in “Analyse This”: “people who know me know that I mean no disrespect”. I swear because I get sometimes passionate about things I say and strong language is only meant as an enforcement for the statements I make. Some think it’s vulgar, other get the message. I am not writing a PhD thesis and therefore my blog is not addressed to everyone – like all blogs its addressed to that minority that feels or thinks similarly. As such I’m not trying to wrap everything up nicely – I’m not blogging about fashion or some other “pretty” subject where every other word has to be “lovely” – I’m just saying it as it is and as I feel that moment. And since most of my blogging is done nowadays during my daily commute sometimes it’s true that my ranting is probably augmented by the crowded carriage I’m in or the delays incurred. It’s a fact of life which we apply it to our daily interactions in real life (how many times did you arrive in the office late, sweaty and pissed off with everyone else and that had a knock on effect on your talking to your colleagues?). And my blog only mimics my behaviour in real life – it is after all just a “log” right?
I’m not going to change my tone – I find it liberating that I can swear at subjects I’m annoyed with and since its my blog no one can tell me not to! In fact I will probably do more of that from now on – if you’ve never read “Fleurs du mal” by Baudelaire and you haven’t learnt that “garbage” can generate still solid content then don’t read anymore. I’ve got a new toy which “unleashes” my blogging on my daily commute and I’m gonna fucking use it from now on!
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18.08.10
Posted in Random Thoughts at 8:27 pm by liviu.tudor
“We are one of the greatest companies to work for!” I’m sure you’ve heard this a few times through your interviews. And only very rarely it proves to be the case. (leaving aside the fact that “great” is a subjective term and as such it’s difficult to compare the “greatness” of 2 companies , which in itself makes the above statement false, assuming that you can compare greatness, the statement still proves false in most cases.)
And I ask occasionally companies what do they think makes them great. Think of yourself and try to remember how many times you heard some of the following:
“we have a great product” – no shit, Sherlock! Have you ever heard a company saying “we have a rubbish product but we still want you to buy it”? Everyone has great products – even the little man and his dog who wrote a “better” twitter and is just waiting for it to take off has a great product – its just that no one uses it Rather than these bold statements try to show them your product and demo it and let them draw their own conclusions. Remember you are not in a sales meeting but instead you’re showing it to a techie – so talk about technologies involved in each feature and component. Don’t be surprised if what you think is a killer feature or component or technology bores the shit out of your candidate- we don’t all think and feel the same!
“we use the latest technologies” hmmm really? So you are trying to appeal to the geeky type then – the ones that only send their CV to Google, and Microsoft and Amazon.. And what makes you think you got the upper hand on these guys? What makes you think that someone would believe that there’s more technology in your company than in Microsoft for instance? You are just offering the opportunity to be caught with your pants down , if your candidate turns around and asks:
“oh cool! Are you using ajax?”
“err no, we don’t do that much client side programming to need it.”
“oh so no flex, no jquery?”
“nope”
“what about things like grails, groovy, linux, amqp?”
“err no”
Right, so because you’re using probably one fucking library that was in fashion back in the friggen 80’s you think you got the latest technology?
You could of course suggest that you are open to embracing new technologies, that you quite often rely on your employees to suggest them etc You still have the problem of competing in this area against the big guns so you might be scoring points but it won’t be the killer blow telling your candidate this.
“We have a very dedicated team” a-ha! So you mean once I take the job I’m expected not to have lunch and spend my whole working day in the office? Either that or I’ll be just surrounded by geeks who only look in their monitor screens? And you think this sells?
“We have a team of very intelligent people” — right! And how did you attract them in the first place? Because if it’s the same “sale pitch” like the one I’m hearing now then you didn’t really get the very intelligent segment of the market!
“It’s a very lively atmosphere in the office”. This might actually be a good one, as its a well known fact that a healthy atmosphere in the work place does improve productivity. But make sure you’re not delivering that while its dead quiet in the office and the only noise is the one of the photocopier – like in some bizarre episode of “The Office”! How about give some examples of this “lively” atmosphere?
“we pay above market rates” This might actually work assuming that you pay more than 0.5% above those rates. Ultimately we all want to get pay and while a company might not have all the technologies and servers and tools I’m interested in, or the right combination of skills and personalities in their team, a salary significantly higher than I could get somewhere else might mean that they are interested in me, that they are aware of hot scoring as many points as other companies but are trying to compensate somehow for this. Though like I said, if you go down that route bear in mind that it takes a solid amount to compensate for the other “features” your package is missing. Pay less than 10% extra and you won’t get much interest.
“we offer a great package including pension, 20 days hols etc” woo-fucking-hoo! So does eveybody else!
“we care about our employees” Really? How? What do you do to show them that? Offer free spa days? That’s been done in the likes of Google and others for years!what makes you different (and better!) than others when it comes to caring about your employees? Do you throw free parties for them? Buy them lunch? Talk to them a lot informally to find out how they are and whether they need help with anything? No? Then piss off and stop waving slogans in front of them!
The list could go on and on — the point being that even though you think you have a great “sale pitch” for your candidates you are simply proving that you are just an average standard company. As such don’t expect to hire exceptional people – you will hire average, standard people too. If you don’t have a “killer blow”, something that would make the candidate want the job right there and then, your hiring process will be a standard one and you’ll get standard people. Some people will turn you down even – you haven’t got anything special to attract them. And as such is very easy for any company to attract your candidates just by offering a tiny bit extra.
I know of a company who takes their employees each year for a massive xmas party abroad – I’m talking Bermuda for instance. That was one of their key selling points and lots of candidates pretty much signed the contract there and then when told this. Another company I know of organizes parties for their employees regularly-not on such a big scale as the previously mentioned one but about once a month they all get taken out by the company – from a proper evening dinner in gaucho’s to hiring a pub and have a whole evening of dancing and drinking on the company. (not surprisingly the staff looks forward to these little treats and the mixture of spirits and enjoying a night out means that there are no office tensions.) Yet there are a couple I know who know that really they don’t have much to offer in terms of social life or quality of office life and they compensate this with big bucks. (And to all of you out there who think you’re doing the same trust me, 1k bonus doesn’t qualify as “big bucks”! I’m talking about 15-25% above standard rate plus bonus on performance. So your average 30k job becomes around 38k plus a bonus normally around xmas of another 2-3k.)
Of course your offer should adapt to the company growth rate – if you have upgraded from a Ford to a Porsche you’ll have to ensure your employees have been upgraded from office instant coffee to at least a starbucks-otherwise frustration settles in and from being “a really cool company to work for” (what the fuck does that mean anyway? Are chicks gonna queue up at my door once I start working for you asking for my “cool” autograph, or does my change in clothes change overnight so I become really stylish?) you’ll find you end up in the “they’re alright” sector. And if you’re an “alright” company then you’re average, which actually means you’re mediocre – so you can forget your plans of hiring the top end and taking over the world: you’re gonna get just the average segment who want to turn off their screens at 5pm on the fly and leave work regardless.
I’ve been through this logic with a few people I know and it seems a lot of people find it hard to sit themselves on the other side of the fence- it’s hard to understand when you’re settled in a company that it might actually not be “a great company to work for”. I always ask them the same: “what do you offer?” and maybe because of the credit crunch,when it was acceptable to offer just a job, or maybe it is because most people find it difficult to look at themselves from the other side of the barricades, but most people don’t realise that just offering them a job with your company which you think is great is not good enough to attract motivated employees who also want to stay with the company and help developing it. (As a side note that’s why I think the HR interviews are a waste of time: asking me standard questions from “The Perfect Interview” book will get you a standard answer that doesn’t say anything about me apart from the fact that I can lie comfortably in an interview! What gets me out of bed in the morning? A blowjob, a coffee and a cigarette – but to my employee it will always be “a challenge”! So what the fuck have you learned about my from that question and answer?bugger all!but I have learned that you are a “standard” – read “crap”- company that does everything by the book. In other words to work around the lack of brains in your company you got strongly ironed out procedures in place.) Do you pay significantly more above market? (Even that alone won’t get you the top end as there are people out there not motivated by money!) No! Have you got a great career track for him/her? No, cause you’re a small company and the structure is really flat? Can your company be used as a great career propulsor? No, cause you’re to small and no one knows of you so having worked for you in my CV is equivalent to “I’ve done stuff”. Have you got such mind-blowing technologies in house? Probably not – you’re still in your initial years and as such not missing deadlines and getting paid is bloody important so you are likely to sacrifice the technology in favour of the paycheck. Are you developing such an awesome atmosphere in the office that people start hearing of it (and as such want to come and work for you)? Probably not if you’re in your early years as you’re hardly ever in the office, meeting up with those prospective clients to have time for this. (Hint: thought of delegating this?) Are you taking your staff out on regular basis on in some exorbitant places? (Hint: did you know this is more tax efficient for both sides than a bonus?) Apart from tasks do you give your staff anything that would make them feel you care about them more than any other “great” company? No. Your “great” product which you entice them with, does it span over more than 1 server? No? In a world where your average dot-com starts with about 10? Think again then: is it really that great? And another aspect: assuming you are small and just starting up, and you do have a great product but with a great future ahead, but are just lacking funds for instance, have you thought of enticing your employees with shares?after all it might be only 10k worth of shares today but if your company will be worth millions in 2 years those shares might become 100 k! Oh hang on, you don’t want to “lose control” of your company by giving shares away – right!
So let me sum it up: you don’t pay a lot of money, don’t offer that much extra, don’t give shares away and aren’t in fact different to hundreds of other companies but still think you can attract the top end? Dude, call the fucking jobcentre people and get some jobless in, as these are the only ones you appeal to and attract!
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