The Rabid Paladin

It has become something of a tradition in IT circles, particularly in Software Development, to trash your predecessor. There are a number of perfectly valid reasons to do so, of course. The old guy isn't there any more and he took with him a good chunk of institutional knowledge that is now lost--things like what were they thinking when they did that. And you want to look good to your new boss, the simplest way being to trash the guy who left him in the lurch by leaving or who got himself fired for (presumably) plenty sufficient reason.

Knowing the tradition well, having been to my shame a participant from time to time, I expected to hear stuff when I was given "involuntary sabbatical" from XanGo recently. Well, my expectations have been exceeded, it seems, and I find myself in the most extraordinary position. How do you defend your track-record against public assault when you have signed an agreement not to disclose proprietary business information about your former employer? Even saying "there was no such project!" is enough to constitute a potential violation. New IT management at XanGo has decided to spend a whopping lot of cash to bring in a new tool that will rid them of all cares and worries, bring paradise on Earth, and cut current and future costs practically to zero all at the same time. This new vendor has made it a practice of leveraging the contract with XanGo by making the most outrageous claims about former XanGo development practices and how purchasing the new tool has solved all their problems.

Since I still have friends in XanGo IT, I have had a front-row seat to the goings on since my departure. It has been frustrating for me to watch as the pain begins to penetrate there. This new tool has some serious "feature challenges" that have plagued the poor souls left to attempt implementing them. No source control, no Unicode support, seriously compromised object oriented principles, clumsy system backup, you get the picture. It's a nightmare for any serious developer to work with, particularly in a multi-developer environment. And worse still because they have been forbidden from speaking of any of the drawbacks or challenges with threats of being fired should they squawk even internally at XanGo. And since the project seems so doomed, when it comes time to implement this great new tool, they are pretty clear that the sacrifices to expedience will be the developers due to their "lack of performance" (because such a great tool must mean that they are the reason for failure).

So I'm being trashed, the team I left behind has been cut all to pieces and some of the best programmers I know are finding their competence being denigrated all for the sake of a questionable business relationship of questionable value to the company with a partner who was very near closing their doors until the XanGo contract showed up and saved them from worry or care (how looking at the financials and law suits against the company didn't prevent them from going with this vendor I'll never know).

How do things like this happen? How does a rapidly growing company leave itself open to such outrageous conduct, and what can possibly be done about it? I don't have any answers to those questions. Frankly, there isn't a lot that can be done from where I sit. The only ones with the power to alter the situation are busy with all the concerns brought about by their rapid growth and popularity. Anything I can do is compromised by the fact that I was forced out in the first place, anything I say is easily dismissed as mere bitterness and spite.

I will say this, though: This whole thing has strengthened my resolve not to participate in the time-honored tradition of trash-the-old-guy in my next position. And it has strengthened my suspicion of tool vendors and their extravagant claims of cost/time savings.