September 28, 2007 at 11:10 am
In Monster.com, there is a posting for Database Programmer / Analyst job in Fairport NY.
Just to warn you, I worked for this company and in the beginning of this year I got an outstanding performance from my manager. A month later, the company re-organized, my manager became the director of the BI department and the ETL manager became the BI manager. This guy used to work for Robert Mondavi winery in California. At that time Constellation acquired RM and they kept certain programmers. People in RM said this guy had problem with his manager and he was considered as 'a******' according to my former manager. But my former manager said 'a******' was good because they got things done. (I had no idea what that meant.) At that time Constellation needed SQL Server developer and he drove a hard bargain, either he became the manager or nothing. So they offered him the job of ETL manager.
I looked at the ETL process, he had over 30 databases in his ETL system. Basically every text file he received, he created a database. There is no DBA in house otherwise I don't think any DBA will let him do it. Two ladies work for him. One constantly had conflict with him, she used to work with him at RM. The other one was an Oracle developer so she relied on him to help her and he was not a good teacher. That poor lady works over 10 hours everyday.
After I was assigned to him, he told me he would micro-managed me because he did not know my working ability even I was in the company for over 1 year with good review. The ETL system and Data warehouse system are closely related. Even I worked on the data warehouse system, I still went to the ETL system to look for information and basically I knew how it was working. But he worked in the ETL side for so long and he had no clue about the data warehouse system.
He wrote a function to convert gregorian date to Julian date, he told me to use it in one of my procedure. I found out the result was wrong. This function had been used in ETL system for a long time and no one cared to check the result. All the DTS packages he wrote was just executed stored procedures. I don't think he knew how to use any tasks or scripts. Why bothered to write a DTS package if just execute stored procedures?
A new system was needed and there would be multiple text files coming in and all the text files would be loaded into the same table. He commanded us to use trigger to do the job. Every text file would be loaded into a staging table, the staging table would have the trigger to start loading data into the data warehouse table. I did not feel right so I posted the question in this web site. Most people answered why used trigger instead of using DTS package and used script to check if the file existed. The last post the gentleman even said it might cause a deadlock. The next day I went to work, my co-worker told me the trigger caused a deadlock so we had to put with (nolock) in every select statement that using that table. Somehow my new manager knew I posted the question, he told not to post any question in this web site anymore and he told me don't ever trust anyone on the website answering the question.
He wanted me to used 'SELECT ... FROM linked server..table' but I told him using OPENQUERY would run faster. He just said 'DO WHAT I SAID'. He started giving me a hard time and picked on me for everything I did. I felt his male ego was bigger than his head and he could not stand a female developer told him what to do. His SQL skill was not good and I did not think he ever updated his skills since SQL Server 2000 came out.
If I played along and followed everything he said, I guessed things would be fine. But I was too stubborn, I felt I had to do the job in the correct way. So I started having conflicts with him. He started sending me emails with unprofessional and harsh words. I worked 10 to 14 hours a day and he was not happy. My former manager (his manager) now became the director was on his side. They eventually forced me to resign. I talked to a labor lawyer about this.
I wrote this email was not because I was angry with them. I did not like working at the company anyway. The atmosphere was gloomy, everyone kept everything to themselves and did not like to share the knowledge.
If you don't mind to work for such company and managers, go ahead and apply the job, especially if you are a man, it may be totally different. That guy was just prejudiced against woman.
September 28, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Thanks for sharing this. But as someone who's read a lot about your past work experiences. I strongly suggest you watch the movie The Secret. That could literally change your life around... especially if you're sick of all those crappy job experiences.
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