Deathmarch

Cory Hamasaki writes, "Two companies in Arlington Virginia declared 'Deathmarch' a couple months ago. The usual terms, no weekends, no holidays, no time off to sit and smell the flowers. Deathmarch. Code well geek, code well or die."

-- Death 2 --

Two companies in Arlington Virginia declared "Deathmarch" a couple months ago. The usual terms, no weekends, no holidays, no time off to sit and smell the flowers. Deathmarch. Code well geek, code well or die.

Sure, they're being paid for every minute, paid good money. I know their billing rates. You do too, I've published DeeCee area consulting and contracting rates in recent WRPs. $80, $90, $100 an hour. Good money, well deserved money to save the pieces of the civilized world, to save the butts of clueless who pissed away the last 6 of our 7 fat years.

I've had a good time, teasing members of the geekvine. Telling them, "Haha, you're on a deathmarch." Taunting them.

And their management has been on the deathmarch too. But it's different when you're a clueless fluff-head loser idiot horn-hair. You roll in a 9:00 AM and sit around until lunch. Listen to the radio, surf the web, get a snack or two. At 3:00 PM, you leave for a "client meeting" but somehow, the meeting is magically cancelled and you end up at home, taking a nice afternoon nap. Wake at 8:00 PM in time for dinner, and oh, SURPRISE. That's a horn-hair's 11 hour day.

Meanwhile, the geeks have been cranking code for 9 hours, some got in at noon and by 8:00 PM they've been busting a major sweat deciphering obscure problems, pounding the keys, insane anxiety, stress levels through the roof, the fight or flight mechanism tearing up their insides, Maalox, enzyme imbalances, brain work, on edge but no relief, driven by coffee and living on pizza.

One geekette spent the last week under an oxygen tent at the hospital. Her body is giving out. Not the deathmarch, or is it

But this is about another geek, Timothy Wruk, 37 years old. I've known him since SHMUEL and I worked on the system with no name. The billion dollar application system that runs two different multi-national corporations. Tim was a boy-coder, green as grass, eager to do the job, good sense of humor, well liked.

Well liked; like, well, Jeff Kessler (who is listed on my tribute to fallen Geeks webpage) and B.T. Smith (who is also listed), and D. Odel Hamilton and Herb Roepe, and others, they all knew each other and worked together.

Tim and Jeff never complained, always pitched in to lend a hand; Look that LCLC doesn't match the AIF usage. Try char (*f25()); that should work.

Never complained, held it in. They weren't like me (or Mikie), we're the bad boys, we're willing to say outright, "you're wrong, I don't like this, what the hell are you talking about."

We're not mean, we just don't hold it in. Some people misunderstand this. They think we're malcontents, nah, we're just willing to say what we feel.

Timothy Wruk, management liked him because he tried hard and held it in. When we took him aside, Mikie and me, to talk geek to geek, Timothy Wruk would allow that yes, they were idiots, they were butt-heads and horn-hairs but then he would shrug. Like Jeff, like B.T., he would shrug, he needed a job and wanted to make things work.

On March 12, 1999, at the age of 37, with a wife and two children, ages 5 and 7, Timothy Wruk died of a heart attack.

At his funeral, his brother begged the assembly, please, please take some time off from work. On the first nice sunny day, go golfing, if you don't have someone to go with you, call me, he said. Deathmarch.

Then, through the geekvine, the omninous message, from the senior management, from the client, from someplace, "What are we going to do now, we have to Y2K the system by July 1999." Deathmarch.

What idiots, how long have I been running my keyboard about Y2K Three years ago, I sent them a message through the Geekvine, fix the damn code.

The reply came back, what's cory talking about, everything's fixed. I knew it wasn't.

It's all lies. Ko-Skin-em, Jane Gravy-train, they're out there, spinning their tales. And now, their lies and cluelessness killed Timothy Wruk, 37 years old, wife, two children. Deathmarch.

He just wanted to fix the software.

___ http://www.kiyoinc.com/WRP115.HTM

WRP 115 Draft, I'll update this when I have a chance. cory hamasaki's

DC Y2K Weather Report

April 6, 1999 - 269 days to go. WRP115

http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html Final $5.00 Cover Price.

(c) 1998, 1999 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and reproduce this newsletter as long as this entire document is reproduced in its entirety. You may optionally quote an individual article but you should include this header down to the tearline or provide a link to the header. I do not grant permission to a commercial publisher to reprint this in print media. The entire document is a Year 2000 information disclosure as defined in the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, S 2392.

Posted by glenn at April 16, 1999 01:02 PM | TrackBack