Well, things were nifty. I wasn't as giddy as everyone else... even good ideas lose out in the marketplace. And I was less than enthusiastic at first. But as things kept going on, the founder kept getting more meetings with the big record companies, we were bringing in real revenue (though maybe only 1/20th of expenses), and I started to lighten up.

Hell, I was in the process of getting another real life friend hired there (real life friend? That's never happened before either).

And in September of this year, I actually had enough money and accrued time to take an actual, honest to god vacation. That's never happened before.

So, midway through my vacation, I get a call from the boss. I figure it's him needing me to fix something, no big deal.

Instead, I'm told that when I return to work on Monday, I wouldn't be returning to work on Monday. Funding was getting low, the new round of investment hadn't happened as expected, and I'd see my last paycheck as severance.

Now, I'm a loser. Despite anything else that might be said about me, I at least have this going for me... I understand. No delusions. And while there are plenty of other losers here, indulge me for a moment while I explain just what that means.

If I had applied and interviewed for this job, I'd never have come close to getting it. Same for any other real job. And I like my job. I like the people there, I like being creative in my own way which fit well with this, and I like my 10,000 shares worth of stock options. So losing this job is not really an option for me.

It's sort of the employment version of that ugly guy that was dating the hot chick only to be dumped... he won't give up on the idea.

So, I call my boss back. I say "if development stalls, there's nothing to show any other investors, and things tank. I've got savings, let me continue to work for nothing or for stock grants or something, but let's see this through".

I walk in on Monday, there's some paperwork. For legal reasons, they're paying minimum wage (savings will last a bit longer).

Well, the few of us left, we continue working. No graphic artists left, so most of the changes we make are backend type things.

My coworker, the other guy who has the same job title as me, bugs out 3 weeks ago. Says he wants to return if things work out. (Heh, and the lucky bastard lands a 6 month contract at $45 an hour with overtime.) I hope he does, I really like him. The other worthless coworker wasn't returning, not that he'd want to, but Bert said that it wasn't on offer. (For an example of how worthless, read footnotes!)

So now, it's just me, the friend who hired me, and the founder, basically. Ack.

But there was one new investor that had been flirting with us. We're at the point that it's now just a wait for the terms sheet.

Anyway, he's making time for a call on Monday, supposedly. He had called last Friday with a question presumably. No idea if the fucker is going to write a check or not.

So if he does, I get my salary back, maybe even backpay. My friend might even get a job there, which is doubly cool... not only do I like the guy, but he owes me $300 from when I still had money.

Now, all of the sudden I'm hopeful. Bert though, who hired me, tonight he had me help him carry his personal effects out of his own office in boxes. And he's been pestering me to look for another job, says he doesn't want to see me destitute.

I don't know what to think.

[Example of my coworker's utter worthlessness follows.]

We need something positioned on a webpage in a way that margins and maybe a float will do. So we get this.


 <div class="floatLeft">
  <div class="absolutePositionedStuff">
   <div style="something random here" class="floatRight absolutePositionedStuff">
    <div class="clearLeft">
     <div class="frontPageImage">
      <img src="..">
     </div>
    </div>
   </div>
  </div>
 </div>


Never mind that you can have multiple classes per element, which he demonstrates semi-awareness of. Never mind that you can stack all of those classes up on one element, instead of nesting 5 deep, you might as well use inline styles if your tags have fucking names that aren't semantically different from the css properties themselves!

And why not on the image directly? WTF?

But it gets better. When asked to turn one of them into a link, he proceeds to put an onclick onto one of the divs, and has it alter window.location!

Oh, and his idea of a good default for a filename that's just been uploaded (I'm not making this up) was "now checking for mimetype of audio/mp3". That's not even the correct mimetype, or even one of those most common incorrect ones for mp3.

Perhaps I'm not thinking clearly. These sorts of things kinda make us deserve to go under.