Make the comments count! He wants you to write 5k lines of code, do the code in 2k lines and comment the shit out of it. Most compilers (if you’re using a compiler) don’t compile comments so while the source may be bloated and manager friendly, the executable will be trim. Just a thought.
V.
If I were you, I’d just leave. Rating on lines of code is pure BS, and obviously by someone who doesn’t know shit from C++. And you can easily find a better job. I do that bout once a year, and always find something better. And I’ve neve had a Dilbert boss yet. Well, maybe a semi one, but he was a client, not a real boss. But the stories I could tell…
[slight hijack since this is the Pit]
software engineer? Does everyone need a title nowadays? Is programmer not good enough anymore? One job, my official title was “System designer and Analyst”. On my resume, I put “Programmer”. Whats with all this self-important crap lately?
[/hijack which was not aimed at the OP]
Thank you all for your advise and opinions. I would have liked to see more people swearing at my boss, after all, this is the pit. I know you guys can do it.
Here’s the update - today he’s decided that he did not, after all, dock me for lack of productivity. Despite what he told me two or three times previously, he “compensated me fairly.” He did not use lines of code as a rating for compensation, but he does have a vague feeling that I’m “not as productive as the other developers.” I asked him three or four times to quantify what he counts towards productivity, and he couldn’t answer.
The worst part is that I can tell he’s trying hard, but he just doesn’t get the management thing. My feeling is that if he thought I wasn’t as productive as other people, he should have given me more projects to do and see if I could do him. I don’t see my job as going into his office and begging him for more stuff to do. If I finish my official job tasks, I go and do stuff like re-write that one routine that I figured out a better way to do it, or put more error checking in, etc. Any coder knows that a piece of code is never really done - there’s always new ideas and optimization that can be done given enough time.
I’ve lost the energy to even be mad at him at this point. I can’t change the past, and trying to get him to up my salary/stock options would be an enormous energy sink that I prefer not to do. What I am going to do is hound him incessantly over the next year and put everything I do in his face. I did get him to throw me a very difficult project as my next thing to do, something that he said would definitely be a very high mark in his book if I did it in a timely manner.
For all you guys telling me to quit, unfortunately that’s not an option. If I can stick it through for 2 more years here I can retire on my stock options. That’s even if I don’t get one more option or pay raise. Kinda hard to find another job like that.
But it is difficult to work for a Dilbert boss, and this guy certainly is one. It’s even harder when I think in his heart he really thinks he’s a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Gads. I foresee many more pit threads in the coming two years…
I’m not in your line of work, but I think you have fallen into a trap with your employer, one in which you will always end up the loser. My last job was very much like this.
I got ridiculously low raises (try $5 a week – got that two performance reviews in a row).
Like you, I would then exert all kinds of effort to do a good job on very difficult, showy projects. But it would always be more of the same at the next performance review.
Finally, after doing some talking with my co-workers about our raises (of course a fireable offense), I figured out that they were low-balling everyone, and just having the manager conducting the performance reviews “sell” the pittances that were predetermined from on high, with no regard for work performance, only judging by what everyone already made.
I left, went to a competitor who appreciated my work more from afar than my employers ever did when it was under their noses, and the competitor gave me a 40 percent pay raise to start.
Try to find a better situation, Ath.
Ummm… Mil, didja see this part of my post:
My employer is definitely NOT lowballing us. Although I may be able to find a job that pays me an equivalent salary, I’m not going to walk into a stock option deal like the one I have here. A particular set of circumstances and luck landed me here, and I’m not going to find this elsewhere.
To be honest, I’m not all that worried about the money. Like I said before, if they gave me no raises, no stock for the next several years I’d still be here. The money is secondary. The main thing I’m pissed about right now is that my boss is a weasel, and he has the impression that I don’t produce as much as my coworkers. He can’t back that up with any solid evidence, it’s just a vague feeling he has. I can and will hound him this coming year. If we have this same conversation next year (or even in six months) then I’ll have to consider doing something more drastic (switching jobs within the company, going over his head, etc.)
Couple of quick comments:
Have you looked at the stock market in general (and tech IPO’s specifically) lately? IMHO this is a pretty shaky way to look at compensation. I had a friend with 150K options at $2/share. The IPO was set for $11/share. He’s a millionaire, right? Wrong. Within a few days of the IPO the stock was at $3/share and there it sits 3 months later. Not saying that this will happen in your case as I don’t know the specifics.
As a manager myself, this sounds an awful lot like CYA. He tried to straighten things out, found out he couldn’t and had some l**yer (I guess this will be ok, apparently even The Pit has standards) tell him to make sure that he didn’t expose the company to any discrimination complaints. If he doesn’t have prior documentation of performance problems, he doesn’t have shit. Find one male colleague with a similar amount of code (his [your manager’s] stated criteria for grading employees) and a bigger raise and you own them.
Just my 2 cents, but my personal experience (painfully learned, believe me) is that if they’re willing to screw you once, they’re willing to do it again.
Did you say you get rated on the number of lines of code you write???
Geez… Please tell me where you work so I won’t ever buy that software by accident. 
Figure people would’ve heard of “software development” by now.
grem, I work for a company that’s already public. My options aren’t a vague promise that we will someday IPO. They’re solid. They are the reason I have a brand spankin’ new BMW Z3 sitting outside my office window, bought with a miniscule fraction of my stock. Barring the stock market failing altogether (which I realize can and does happen on occasion), or my company totally fucking up, I’m virtually assured of 7 figures once I’m fully vested.
In light of the above, I can’t really complain much about my compensation package.
As far as CYA, I think you might be right. I’ve had no less than 3 other women who have worked with this guy warn me he doesn’t play fair when it comes to women. At the very least, I could probably make his life hell by accusing him of such. However, I’m not going to do that (at least, not yet.) I will first make an honest effort to work with him and see if I can change his mind about my work. If that doesn’t work, well, I’ll deal with that then.
zero and all the others who are agast at the idea of rated by number of lines of code I produce, I’m right with you on that. It’s a completely stupid metric as far as I’m concerned. But trying to convince him of that is not a battle I’m willing to take on.
you could work for nototiously cheap folks whose heads are up their asses…
bust your ass, put forth that extra effort…oh by the way, no bonuses this year, here’s your $100 christmans bonus, and oh yeah, your raise and bonus for the upcoming year has already been submitted and approved, so no matter what you do, this upcoming year, your raise has been established…
OOps! I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.
Frankly, I think you should try to get the raise based on the work you do as opposed to sleeping to the top, but hey–whatever works!
LMAO!!! Goooood, even the thought of that is repulsive…!
That goddamn Dilberted lilly-witted liver-nutted panty-fucker! That fuck-headed wet-vac for brains! That ignominious ignorant iguana with a snake-like temperment! That pig-headed orangutan ass! That baboon loving tree hopper! That mud diving worm! That scum sucking blowfish who’s still enrolled in remedial school for management! That habitat for hubris! That chunky-monkey flavored butt-donkey!
That stupid, stupid man!
Athena,
That is, of course, a completely different situation.
It does sound like your company has some problems. As we’ve grown, it’s been difficult not to compromise and move toward fixed, easily measurable metrics like code counts. Right now, our performance appraisals are still primarily based on code review done by the manager (in this case, me). The only problem we’ve found is that requires the manager in question to have quite a bit of technical knowledge and those people are NOT easy to come by.
As for the hint of more widespread discrimination (I originally mis-typed that as dicrimination which is pretty damn funny) all I can say is that there is absolutely no excuse for that crap.
If you still feel like working after your sentence is up, give me a call.
Here’s what I’d do. I would write him a nice memo requesting that you’ve taken this performance review to heart and that you’d like to work towards improving your weakness. Ask him for specific guidelines on how he would like you to improve. Tell him that as a proactive manager, his job, in addition to trying to evaluate your stengths and weaknesses, is to give you a game plan for improving. It does no good to say, “You’re not as productive as Bob Jones.” without telling you how and why and giving you suggestions on how to improve. If you really want to make him squirm, suggest meeting with him on a bi-weekly to discuss that game plan so that you’ll both know that you are on the right track towards becoming the programmer that he wants you to be. (Gawd, I’m tearing up as I write this.)
Chances are he’ll either: a) get a hard-on because he feels you are genuinely in awe of his superiority; or b) flip out because he has no idea in the hell what you do and even less idea how to help you improve.
Either way, the memo covers YOUR ass because it makes you look like you really want to improve. And if he doesn’t take you up on your suggestion to develop a pro-active game plan (don’t you just love corporate-speak?), he’ll have no room to give you a less than stellar performance review next time. After all, you DID ask for help…
Good luck and stick it out. 2 years will go by before you know it.
Lisa
PunditLisa, that’s pretty much what I did do. I’m not going to bang my head against this review. It’s over and done with. What I am going to do is make damn well sure that he has no basis to accuse me of this again next year. What that’s translated into is monthly meetings (at my request, not his), well defined objectives spelled out on paper, and me prodding him into tossing a long, hard project my way.
I think he’s vacillating between the two reactions you’ve spelled out.
Grem, the problem with my manager is not that he’s not technical - he is - it’s that he’s technical but doesn’t really understand that some people work differently than he does. There’s only one way to do things - his way. Deviation from that results in him thinking less of you as a coder.
Grrrr… I’d better not write any more, I get so angry at him.
And I am listening to you bitch about your job, why?
Oh, that’s right. I’m not anymore.
I know, I know, Milossarian. It’s sick, isn’t it? I’ve reached the point where I really do have to ponder about how much shit I can take when they’re paying me as much as they are. At some point, it’s not worth it. I don’t think I’m there yet.
The whole concept of “performance reviews” is nothing more than a front for a lazy supervisor or system that can’t comment on your work or productivity from a personal point-of-view.
One day some bitch-in-a-bunch decides that my attitude towards her was less than the kiss-ass standard and filed a complaint with inHuman Resources. My super gets a whiff and decides to implement punitive action BEFORE EVEN DISCUSSING THE ISSUE WITH ME. As luck had it, my immediate supervisor overheard the entire exchange between me and the ‘BIAB’ and documented it. However, review comes out and first item of business…Yep! I’m “difficult” to work with…!@##$$%^^&%&*#%!!! I fukin hate this impersonal review system. Personally, I’d sue for your stocks if he doesn’t get them for you. The argument that he’s created an untenably hostile working environment between you and your Administration might hold water too. You could leverage 6 months or so of paid job-hunting time off.
Good Luck.