> And choosing the 1st of January as a release date is utterly 
> moronic - for a start it's a holiday anyway, secondly a lot 
> of things happen at the start of the year (accounting 
> year-ends, and so on) so everyone is already busier than 
> usual and won't have time to learn a new system, and finally 
> it's preceded by the most disrupted time of the year, when 
> many people take a few extra days from their annual allowance 
> to make a ten or eleven day run of time away from work.  Not 
> the time to have a looming deadline!


My old boss used to set the project deadlines on the holidays. If we got
done early, we got extra days off (never happened) but if we were behind, we
were expected to give up the holiday to "make it happen" for the company.
Birthdays were "a day like any other." We didn't pay bribes, we "allowed
important people to participate in the revenue stream." We didn't attempt to
defraud the state by failing to pay sales tax, we "misunderstood the local
regulations." We didn't spam, we "kept interested users informed of products
they would find useful." We didn't run up huge shipping and supplier bills
and then declare bankruptcy while selling our product line to the owners
wife and moving 5 miles down the road, we "went through a very necessary
reorganization." And the same UPS and FedEx drivers serviced the new
account, picking up the same product from the same warehouse manager on a
standard account. The company was "very successful" and is still in
business. He owned several houses out-right, drank Sam Adams after 5 at work
and drove a top end Mercedes. 

I didn't like myself very much when I was working for that company; the
pressure made me into a total prick. Or I allowed myself to become.. However
you want to word it. I had a mortgage, drank rot gut coffee and drove
Tercels and Civics. Still do.

Life is better now. Well... At least until the boss retires and the bosses
daughter takes over... She has no net worth despite a 6 figure income,
drinks Starbucks and just purchased a top end beemer; which in my experience
is a sure sign of bad things to come. Nothing against BWM, they just seem to
be the car of choice for bad managers.

---
James.
 

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