Thug Life

It was about 2005 and I was at that time were you know nothing, you have no experience and all the Jobs are crap. With almost no perspective I started to apply to a lot of opportunities from an IT hub job. For more than three months I had nothing, not a single interview, and I only had emails telling to keep up with the search. This was the normal way until December, when I finally have my first appointment for an interview, in a small company with almost no reputation, but that was the only alternative I had.

I dress myself in the worst way possible — and I only realize that now — pick up the bus and went to the company. I mean, “company”. It was a dirty room in the third floor of a decayed building in the worst part of the downtown city. It was a place surrounding by bars which close at 9am with the owner expel the drunken and the prostitutes from the sidewalk.

This was hell, but, was also a job (a possibility) and I was there with my striped polo shirt and hair gel, sited in a waiting room that reminded me about an old hospital waiting room, in a hot day and with the cleaners in strike. The smell inside was the same outside. The old rusted cabinets helped to composed the decadent mood. On the other side of the table, staring me, was the receptionist, an old lady who look too much like Steele from Friends, with long fake nails, a cigar and a giant yellow hair with a very strong smell of hairspray. After more than thirteen minutes of waiting and staring, my possible boss walk in the room, all sweaty and with a seedy suitcase crushed under his armpit. He whispered something to the receptionist and walked into an even smaller room — which, thinking now, could be a closet. Steele — I’ll call her that name, fits perfectly for her — yelled to me, saying my name wrong, in a dialogue like this:

“Mrs. Paulo Henrique.”
“It’s Paulo Guilherme miss.”
“Sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“It should be Henrique, it’s much better.”

I passed by her and walked into the tinny room. The smell becomes even worst, an acid smell that reminded me from the ancient rooms of the public school. Waiting for me was Mauricio - the name of the boss - and a plastic table, like the ones we have in gardens, with two dirty chairs and an ashtray (a very dirty one). By my side rested an infect glass of water. Mauricio looked at me, looked down at my resume, mumbled something that I can’t understood and then swallowed his cigar. He repeated this ritual a couple more times and then start to read, loud, my résumé. After that we had a conversation.

“Very good, you study at UFRGS, right? “Yeah, I stu...”
“Very good indeed, we never had anyone from UFRGS here... ever for an interview, you are the first one.”
“Yeah, I can understand, the schedules are really complicated in there...”
“I know... but tell me what brings you here? What is your motivation?”
“Right, I read about the job in the newspa...”
“How much you want?”
“I don’t know... I...”
“How about 600?”
“Look, I really don’t kn...”
“695, my last offer! Now!”
“I...”
“NOW!”

When he saw that I was scared, he tried to calm me down.

“Don’t be scared kid, I only do that because I want you to feel the IT market, you know, with all the pressure and other things.”
I didn’t say anything, I was still in chock and he was still talking about the market, the pressure...”
“You have to be prepared for the time.”
“What time?”
“The time when you have to take a decision, a rapid decision without much thinking.”
“Right. But you know sir, I want to know something about the company... Like…”
“There is nothing to know. It Works like a charm. You’re a programmer, you coded and we counted the lines and you’re paid according to the number of lines you wrote. Simple as that.”
“Yeah... but what kind of software you develop in here...”
“Anything. We don’t deny jobs. A job is a job. Also, we have to eat.”
“Yeah... right... I guess...”

The interview stopped at this point and he handed me an internship contract. I was hired. My first job. I left the hell room with a smile as big as the fake nails of Steele, and thinking if all the interviews are like that. And, even with the warnings about the company, the boss and the huge fake nails of Steele, I was happy about the job.

That was my first mistake.

Next morning, I was there, with the contract signed and a new clean and stripped polo shirt. Next to me, at the sidewalk, was the doorman and a toothless 92 years old prostitute. It was shocking. While I was waiting for Mauricio, an older employer stared at me then asked me:

“What the hell are you doing here?”
“You see, I'm the new intern …”
“WUT?”
“The new intern … You know …”
“Yeah, I know what an intern is … I don't know why someone want to work here.”
“You work here.”
“I have no choice kid. Trust me, if I could …”

Then I was interrupted by Steele. She wants me to follow her to the “company's HR” — which worked side-by-side within a counter where a steaming coffeemaker which possibly was working continuously since the eighteenth century. At this time I founded that Steele was also the responsible for HR. Everything was right with my paperwork and I finally could start with my first job. Steele took my papers and led me over to my table. I sat in an old chair fixed with some kind of gray glue. At my desk I recognize some 80’s stickers from Banco do Brasil and an open CPU with a yellowish CRT monitor. That, definitely was not a good sign.

Second mistake.

I waited in my desk for almost two hours, with no internet or a magazine to read, just a newspaper from the previous day with the crossword already done and a conduct guide, probably copied from a serious company. I was finishing the guide when my new boss arrived, all sweaty again. He sat next to me and started to talk about some old frameworks and languages. He started to inquire me about things that I never said that I know. Apparently some old system for a bar was all buggy and someone had to fix. He looked at me with a psycho looking and yelled:

“Do you know MySQL?”
“Nope.”
“C? C++?”
“Nope.”
“PHP?”
“A little.”
“GREAT! We have here a legacy system of inventory management... and this system doesn’t work for almost two months. You see, this system already has gone through at least six programmers and no one can fix it... maybe you can take a look at the code and see what you discover.”

He gave me some access codes and I logged in to see the code. It was shit. Worst that shit. To be shit needed to improve a lot. After see the gates of hell in form of code, I went to Mauricio’s desk to talk about the system.

Third (and last) mistake.

“How do you not understand anything? Do you know how to code in PHP?”
“I know. But it's just a little, and that code was a little messy... maybe we can start some refactoring or...”
“You know shit.”
“WHAT?”
“I know your type. You read a book, coded a hello world and then start to send résumés to anyone.”
“Résumés for internship...”
“Who the hell cares?! You have to know how to program in anything, a good programmer should be able to take care of himself, can look at Google... You know, I will give you another chance.”
“Another chance... how it’s...”
“Go back to your desk and start to code... and only come again here when you have something concrete, some bug fix at least.”

I just nodded my head and walked back to my desk, waiting for lunch break. Sitting in there I took a look around and saw an old telephone — like the one in Adam West's Batman show — an old lady with giant fake nails, a sweaty old guy and a nasty building that could well serve as a backdrop for some crime series. All I wanted was go to the bathroom and cry until the day is over. But the bathroom was also nasty and dirty, so, it was way better to stay where I was and pretend to work, like a give a fuck.

Just after a lot of thinking I looked around and realized I waited so long for the salvation that was alone in the room, everyone else was at the lunch break. That was exactly what I needed. I just grabbed my backpack and the contract at HR’s office and ran through the hall. I just stopped at the bus station. My only fear was bumping with Mauricio in some dark corner of downtown. It was a long and tense running. I really don’t know what made me sweat more, if was the fear or the exercise. When I finally caught the bus, it was if I had taken a ton from my back.

When I told my mother about the job she just laugh and said that I had to chose more wisely next time. I shrugged and threw the contract and other papers into the fire, open a beer while watched them burn.