When Greed and Deception Destroy a Company

 

Have you ever worked for a company where you thought it was too true to be true? Did they give you free snacks, great coffee, lunch every now and then, send employees on trips? All under the disguise of caring. Then you see the signs that it is actually more about making money. They are unhappy when you would rather take a day off then charge the client for a day when you do no work. They complain if you work in the evening because the code you needed to test wasn't available until then. They get you to secretly test the client's site just because their developers didn't like having to use the client's components. They add more people to the project because they have hours left to use up. All while pushing the harder work down the road. 

My question is when did companies become so unethical? They promise the world to their clients then deliver things that are just good enough. I am a very ethical person. I always have been. I believe in doing the work necessary to get a job done, if this means breaking up my day to get the most out of so be it. If I have to give up a weekend, I will. The client is the most important and I will always give my best, not just give something just good enough.

What about when a company decides to go in a different direction and rebills the client because they have to rewrite something because of that direction? How about changing your QA Automation tools 3 times in 6 months and billing the client for rewriting the tests. Does this seem ethical?

What about the company who "truly" values your skills and puts you on multiple projects at the same time and when you get to the end of them, burnt out and in need of a break because you had to work Christmas, they let you go. They tell you the client's didn't like the work not knowing that I am to this day friend's with the clients.

As you can see, I am not naming names. The company/companies who read this will know who I am talking about.

It is time that companies realized that their greatest asset is their staff and treat them with respect and honesty. In one job I was told I was an excellent individual contributor, then the next week the company mentioned me at a global meeting on the Thursday because I was going to do something for them and then next day get told they are letting you go because you are not a good team player. What they meant is that I was replaced by a lower paid employee. It was like musical chairs, but the bottom line was they needed to make more money. More money to buy more companies. A cycle that will keep going until it fails.

I want to go back to the days where employers cared about their employees. When they worked hand-in-hand with their clients with honesty and respect. When they held their hands up when they did something wrong and fixed what they'd done without charging the company more. 

So, I challenge you to think deep about what your company really is like and not be afraid to stand up and call them out. 

I am to the point where I don't want to work for companies that don't care about their clients or their employees. I have been a full stack developer, QA Automation Engineer and many other things for 40+ years. I've worked with some very ethical companies and some really greedy ones. These days unfortunately there are too few ethical ones thanks to the atmosphere of greed that is around us everywhere.

Everyone needs to be honest and open. On my last day at one company, I walked in, got a coffee and the recruiter who recruited me said good morning with a big smile on her face like she always did, hiding the fact that she knew it was my last day.