A Bedtime Story

When I was 20 I decided to get my first proper, full-time job for the summer. I have to be honest with you, I never had money-problems, at least not related with my survival. I was at the university back then, I have just completed my first two years of studies, and I knew only C and Pascal (and a little assembly for x86), but nothing serious. Practically I had no skillset to sell. So, I did some data entry for a medium size company that organised and performed polls for various products etc.

The IT department of the company ran by a guy named Nick (I will not reveal personal information in this story). He was more a practitioner. He did not have much computer science background, but he was smart and hard working and in the right place when companies were moving from the paper-based to the computer-based age.

This guy had developed in FoxPro (oh, yeah) a program for the data entry. When you setup the questionnaire, you could add extra validation rules. With these rules, the system could validate the incoming data and catch data-entry errors in real-time. It was a real nice approach. I was working from midday to night, because all seats were taken in the standard business hours, since all the regular employees were there.

One Friday, Nick came in the room and said that this weekend, we should go for work, since they had a big poll set up for a major client and it was very important for the statistical analysis to begin on Monday.

I thought, “ok, I could come and gain some extra money”. I have to note here that the company was paying me according to my performance. With each questionnaire, I was getting some money. The price varied. If the questionnaire was big and complex, the rate was around 300–500 drachmas (the Greek national currency back then).

I went on Saturday to work, but no one was there. A friend of mine later came and we did some data entry. After a couple of hours, we got tired and bored. We decided to take a break. The break lasted until the next day. I worked for another 3–4 hours on Sunday.

On Monday, I got to work around 4pm and we I entered the office, Nick was asking all the employees (regular or not) to get in his office, one-by-one. He was mad. The progress of the data entry was nowhere near the end and the higher management of the company had a very serious problem with this.

Ten minutes after my arrival, Nick asked me to go to his office. In short, he told me that it was unacceptable that the data entry never finished in time and it was my fault, because I was not there to help. This requirement will remain for the next weekend and if I planned on not taking this seriously, I should leave the company right away.

I remember myself watching at him and thinking of what I should do. The thing was that Nick was frustrated and was blowing steam to all directions, after all, I was a hired gun and I could never have the same amount of responsibility with the employees that worked there with permanent contract.

So, I told him with sincerity, “Nick, I prefer to leave the company. But I have to ask you a favour. Please give me your personal phone number, because I want to check on your progress with the data entry. After all, you are responsible to get the job done here, not me.”

He did not expect that. I did not expect that. So, I continued, “If you want me to help you, you should do something in return. I want a seat to work in the morning. In addition, I want a fast computer, because bad hardware slows me down. Do this for me and I will help you. I will come full-time each day till the end of the summer”.

He did not answer. I left the office and continued my work. After two days, he told me that | could come in the morning. In addition, he got me a seat with a fast computer. I was there the next weekend and with another 4 guys we did all the data entry in time.

I haven’t seen Nick from this summer, but in the end of our business relationship, we were making jokes and talking about 8-bit computers. He even got me a 50% bonus.

Food for thought

The truth is that I was lucky. Most people would have thrown me out of the building. In addition, I had no risk, my working father eliminated that. But, I learned many things from this story.

• Nobody is making you a favour You have to respect your boss, but you do not have to act like his servant. Remember, he is not making you a favour, he needs you to do a good job, as much as you need the money he gives you.
• The money is not the case Most people think that negotiation between boss and employee has to do only with money. But this is not always the case. You should negotiate all the time for better working conditions and more flexible hours. Remember, you should pay off with efficiency.
• Speak like a billionaire Always negotiate like you have 10 billion dollars in your pocket. Never settle with something that is bad for your career. Most of the time it is better to break of and search for something better. Beware, there is thin line between being right and being impolite.