As always, there is a brief summary at the end.
Remember the story ? Он на днях заезжал в гости, и рассказал одну забавную историю. Мне кажется, вам будет интересно. Дело не в самой истории, а в том, что так, блин, бывает. Я оглянулся на свой личный опыт, и увидел сразу несколько таких Тёть.
In the mid-2000s, our guy worked at a 1C franchise company. It was quite peculiar in terms of sales. There were only four managers, including the owner. One managed the support department and also sold services/projects (quite successfully, actually). The owner sold everything indiscriminately since he didn't pay himself commissions, and it turned out well. One guy was listed as a manager, sold something, and then moved to Moscow (rumor has it he now opens doors at conferences, like a doorman).
The fourth manager was an Aunt. Aunt was smart and got hooked on the topic – UPP (at that time it was 1C's flagship product, "Management of a Manufacturing Enterprise", the most complex and expensive). Back then, there was a boom in factory automation, people were lining up, there was no escaping it.
The key problem back then was the shortage of specialists. Our hero joined the company in September 2005, when two UPP implementation projects were underway.
So, two UPP implementation projects, and only one person in the company who knew even a little about UPP – Vasya. To be fair, he only knew the budgeting part of UPP. And to be completely honest, that is one of the least demanded subsystems of UPP.
Alongside our guy, Lexa also joined the company. Our guy was fresh out of university while Lexa had some experience with 1C version 7.7 (the predecessor of version 8, the second most popular). Our hero and Lexa sat next to each other, so they became friends, and after a month, they passed the specialist exam on the platform. It was an on-site exam – an instructor from 1C would come, and they had to solve and submit a programming task.
After passing the specialist exam, our guy and Lexa immediately became Respected Specialists – which was a rarity, as the platform version 8.0 had only existed for about two years, and few had passed that exam.
Naturally, both of them were immediately thrown into the trenches – they were sent to a glorious city, to a large factory, to implement UPP. A month after being hired, with one month of experience working with 1C8. When the client asked, "Do they know UPP?" Vasya confidently nodded and went on vacation. Vasya was the project manager there.
Then, as usual, we tinkered, figured things out, and half a year later the project was ceremoniously wrapped up with a cost calculation and the submission of VAT.
Now the company had 3 specialists in UPP – Vasya, Alyosha, and our guy. Vasya, however, immediately left to become the IT director at another factory, where he was also implementing UPP – this was another ailment of the time, the market for UPP specialists in Chelyabinsk was measured in units.
And then Auntie appeared. The first UPP projects were sold before she arrived, personally by the owner. Auntie took on the task with great enthusiasm.
Auntie was selling projects so well that people practically prayed to her. Apparently, this fame had some effect on her. Auntie decided that the sold projects were practically her property.
Of course, she never stated this out loud. But she personally selected the project executors. She sold the first project just after the one where our guy was working with Alyosha was completed.
The question of choosing a key executor arose (back then they called it the 'project technical leader'). There were two candidates before Auntie. Alyosha – charming, smiling, sociable, and decisive. Our guy – a young nerd (22 years old), self-serving, an introvert who held disdain for managers as a class (he only considered programmers to be people at that time).
Naturally, Alyosha went to the project. Meanwhile, our guy went to fiddle around with UT, BP, ZUP, etc. (smaller 1C software products).
The project lasted about six months. Alyosha and Auntie became quite friendly, even sitting in the same office. They implemented well, earned well, enhanced their competencies, and brought a couple of specialists up to the level of apprentices.
Alyosha wanted to bring our guy onto the project as an executor, but Auntie decided it wasn't worth it. I don't know why.
During this time, Auntie established a queue of new projects, a whole collection, with the crown jewel being the Large Factory, part of the Large Group of Companies. Alyosha was finishing up the project and was rubbing his hands in delight, anticipating a new treat.
And the queue was indeed a queue – the boxes and licenses were sold, but implementation had not yet begun. Back then, it was trendy to keep clients on hold with courses from the CSO (Certified Training Center) – you would bring groups to your office and teach UPP. Each group – a full week. This way, you could stretch it out for several months, already receiving non-refundable money.
And then something happened. Our guy doesn't really know, but rumors were going around. Lyokha, as I mentioned earlier, was sitting in the same office with Auntie. The office managers had been trained: if someone calls and asks about UPP, they should transfer the call to Auntie. And then Auntie, one day, went out for a smoke, the phone rang, and Lyokha talked to a client instead of her.
And that's it, a divorce. Harsh, complete, and real. For the project that Lyokha completed, there were a couple of minor tasks left – Auntie didn't even let him finish those scraps. She completely cut him off from anything related to UPP. The UPP topics were only hers.
But projects needed to be done. She remembered our guy – came in, smiled sweetly, as if nothing had happened, and said – let's go implement UPP. This included finishing up the scraps of Lyokha's project.
And our guy was just about to quit – why sit around doing nothing when they weren’t giving him any work? Not 'no work,' but 'they're not giving work.' It felt weird to go ahead and beg Auntie for work. In short, he was looking for a job. And then, lo and behold – she herself showed up.
He asked Lyokha if he'd mind – no, he said, it's all good. I came up with a few things, so don’t worry.
In short, our guy got both the scraps and the diamond of Auntie's collection – implementing UPP at the Big Factory. At that time, this project was simply gigantic.
Well, our guy recruited two people – Kostyan and Lenka. The first one was just a coder, and the second one had an education in accounting. She had tried to become a programmer but couldn’t because of her long nails – it was uncomfortable to type, but she was too reluctant to cut them. She tried using a pencil to press the keys – it took too long. Gave up and became a consultant (by the way, one of the best in Chelyabinsk). At that time, there were hardly any consultants as a class; there weren't even any certifications.
They went to implement, did something there, became very proficient with UPP – right down to the bones. This whole story lasted about a year.
Meanwhile, Lyokha showed what he had come up with. He made a deal with the owner and started selling UPP himself. That is, he was a programmer, a project manager, and a salesman all at once. It didn’t take off immediately, but in the end, he actually sold UPP somewhere, who knows where, gathered a team, and went off to implement it. Those were the days – no decent internet, no remote work, just dragging your body out to the fields.
Our guy on the project experienced some miracles. The implementation is nearing completion, everything seems fine, and then – bam! – for some reason, he had a falling out with Auntie. He can't even remember what it was about. He might have said something wrong, looked the wrong way, or made an unfortunate joke (he has this 'competence').
She immediately pulls our guy off the project, completely, just like she did with Lyoha. And she appoints Lenka as the manager.
Lenka is a great person, but she only knows accounting and tax reporting, as well as payroll. And there’s production involved. Of course, she went, took a programmer with her (but Auntie forbade taking our guy's people, only new ones), they fiddled around a bit, couldn't succeed, and a mishap occurred.
Auntie told them not to contact our guy. But without him, they can't figure it out. Lyoha is who knows where, Vasya quit a long time ago. And the unfortunate Lenka is left to come up with something.
So she came up with an idea – she secretly approached our guy while Auntie wasn’t at work. She apologized for how things turned out, and somehow they solved the project's problems, and then the project ended.
Then Lyoha returned. Not just like that, but with the news – he’s quitting. And not alone, but with his whole team. Because he’s fed up.
More precisely, it wasn't like that. He was fed up earlier, when Auntie kicked him off the project on her own judgment. And then he, as I said, came up with something. At first glance, he decided to sell projects independently. But it turned out to be more complicated.
He already knew how to sell, implement ERP, manage a project, and program, and he had a team, bonded by a long life together in the steppes. What solution is seen here? Well, it's elementary – Lyoha left with the team and created his own franchise. Somewhere in another city, it seems.
And our guy was left. Almost without work, because the main volumes were in ERP, which Auntie dominated. He, of course, tried to bypass her somehow, talked a lot with the owner, but a normal solution couldn’t be found. He was like a leper.
Auntie already had new favorites who were being given projects. For example, Rustam – our guy hired him, a good, cheerful guy. He worked with Auntie, then left and opened his own franchise.
Well, our guy sat down, waited, looked for opportunities, but everywhere he hit a dead end. He became bitter, reclusive, and resentful towards the whole world.
His competencies didn’t help him land decent projects and tasks. He already had 5 specialist certificates, a project manager certificate, the title of 'Quality Director', he completed custom development for 1C (his code is in the standard UPP), made friends with the head of the UPP development department, and all clients wanted to hire him – both the Big Factory and the project he was finishing for Alex. They even handed over internal software for him to support and refine – that was like a form of ultimate recognition of his programming quality. He conducted all programmer interviews – checking both technical and methodological knowledge. He even tried to work with internal development – they had such a division creating their own products. He made several solutions that were included in the PMC 'Machine Engineering' (a huge project from 1C). In short, he was trying to dive into everything, attempting to be helpful in any possible way.
But, damn, they just didn’t give him any work. Because he said something wrong to the Aunt.
So he left, what to do – there was a mortgage.
The phenomenon of this Aunt remains unexplained to him. Well, I mean, her motives are clear to me. What’s unclear is the business's attitude toward such motives.
It’s just clear how many people left. And roughly how many of them started their own franchise or organized some branch in Chelyabinsk. In conversation, our guy casually recalled nine.
Only Lenka didn’t leave. Apparently, women somehow understand each other.
The only criterion for landing a decent job or project was 'to be liked by the Aunt'. Just like that, without any explanations, riders, or dress codes. Either you’re liked, or you’re not. It’s sad.
Have you ever experienced such a thing?
Summary
A person has an instinct for ownership. My toy, my bike, my laptop.
Some bring this instinct to work.
They receive some resources and consider them as their own.
Projects, tasks, contracts, even furniture — the rules of distribution become too personal.
As long as such a "distributor" isn't caught and stopped, their possessive instinct only intensifies. It’s as if, since no one complains, everything is being done right.
He firmly believes that he is doing everything correctly. He thinks he is the only one who understands who should receive what resources.
People who can't get along with the "owner" of the resource leave. Not because they can't, but because they don't want to.
So, businesses, open your eyes, as they say in the village.
Source: habr.com
