[gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?

Hi,
Isn't it true that you were looking for someone with about 3 years of professional experience for a graphics programmer. It is extremely hard to find good help in game development for sure and it is equally difficult to find good companies to work for.
Now coming to the whatever questions he/you asked - you might land up in a situation where people don't ask you a simple question and totally misunderstand you and come up with a prototype way off your vision. Employing a person is always a risk and you will make some good decisions and some bad ones. But you must understand that the first week the person will be nervous - nervous to ask questions, nervous to do things etc. So for you all you know he may be asking good questions framed improperly or afraid the ask good questions and asking the wrong ones instead.
Lets us consider this scenario - you fire the person on the 1st day, you find a new guy and then he is no good either or worse than the current guy - what do you do then ? Considering you are small and probably paying from your pocket I can understand the difficulty you are facing from a business point of view but when you take in a new hire you must factor in cost for initial adjustment and not expect anything mind blowing or 100% perfection for at least the first few days. 




Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:42:23 -0700
From: Kevin Jenkins <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?

If it had been the case that I hired him from another company I would
have waited longer.  He was unemployed from his own choosing to begin
with, so I feel less bad about it.

 From a cost perspective, waiting a week is $1000 in salary costs,
plus another $1000 from my own lost time to support him, plus going
behind schedule, and waiting another week to hire someone else, and
95% odds are I wouldn't have gotten anything for it.

It sounds harsh, but the gentle route is also the way to fail as a
small developer.  One of the first guys I hired was from the Ukraine.
  I tried to provide motivation, support, training, and overlooked
warning signs and red flags, etc.  I thought 3 months was a fair
probation period, so just kept trying to improve the situation.  In
the end I waited two months, fired him, got a week's useful work, and
was 2 months and $10K behind schedule because of it.  The only reason
it didn't put me out of business was that I planned to go overbudget
from the start.

I can't afford to do that again.  I've learned the hard way to cut my
losses early.

Leighton Haynes wrote:
> Wow. Firing after 1 day, that's pretty low. I hope you weren't rude
> enough to hire him away from another company to then fire the poor
> blighter on the first day. I have to say, I think it's one of the most
> pathetic things I've ever heard. There is no reality in which one day
> is enough time to work out how good/bad someone is. The only reason
> someone should be first on the first day is gross misconduct.
>
> If you can't afford to give him a week to work stuff out, you can't
> afford to be hiring people period.
>
> Leighton....

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:51:51 -0400
From: "DARKGuy ." <dark.guy.2008@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?

I'd feel bad for the poor guy.
Here in Venezuela, there's some kind of new contract where you start a test
period of 1-3 months, and if you develop well you might be in the company
permanently, if not, well, you were warned. I'm just 18 and I've made tons
of webpages, some 3D gamemaking, Linux programming, etc. and now I'm making
a 3D engine using OpenGL+SDL. I got interviewed in February at a company for working as assistant programmer and tech support. I got interviewed first by 
the webmaster and then by my boss, both asking clever questions and asking
to see -real- stuff, stuff I've made or put online, they asked me the
objectives of some of my projects, programming experience, they put me some
test situations and asked for my answer and solution for those, etc...
personally they did a great job interviewing me - and so should you have.
They were impressed though, that me, in high school still and no degree in
ANYTHING, could do so much of everything.
However, choosing the right employee isn't an easy task, you should've asked 
the things you were really concerned about. Sometimes, one interview isn't
enough, you could have interviewed him two or three times before deciding.
It's less painful for both to reject him if you didn't found him worthy of
your project, than to hire him and fire him the next day, that gives you a
BAD, BAD reputation (and big companies aren't free from this, look what
happened to EA because they were abusing their employees in the making of
one of the LOTR games)... imagine what the guy could say around, that you're 
some kind of jerk that fired him the next day, that you don't know how to
interview people, or just a greedy guy, etc... I don't think you'd like
that. Well, neither he would like to be fired after you ACCEPTED him, that's 
what actually "hiring someone" means. You're not playing with variables,
files or code, you're playing with REAL PEOPLE, and with real people you
can't play in that way.
Also, developing a full game in 2-4 months? whoah, that could be possible if no one you have in your team has a life... a game now requires lots, lots of 
time... from about half a year to a year or two I tell ya, there's no way
you can ship a game in that deadline... or at least, a decent one.

I dunno, that's my opinion... let the guy impress you, encourage him to. He
might not be a good programmer, but he might be good at what he's good at,
so let him show you his best. If after all you're not satisfied, BE POLITE,
don't just be an ogre and scream "YOU'RE FIRED IDIOT" or stuff like that
xD... remember it was YOUR FAULT to not to have interviewed him correctly or 
very throughoughly (spelling?) before --hiring-- him.

Hiring means you're already in and accepted and you're gonna stay with them
forever, or at least a reasonable time. Interviewing means you're in a test
period and there's no sure way to know if you're in or not.

- DARKGuy.

On 3/23/07, Kevin Jenkins <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> If it had been the case that I hired him from another company I would
> have waited longer.  He was unemployed from his own choosing to begin
> with, so I feel less bad about it.
>
> From a cost perspective, waiting a week is $1000 in salary costs,
> plus another $1000 from my own lost time to support him, plus going
> behind schedule, and waiting another week to hire someone else, and
> 95% odds are I wouldn't have gotten anything for it.
>
> It sounds harsh, but the gentle route is also the way to fail as a
> small developer.  One of the first guys I hired was from the Ukraine.
> I tried to provide motivation, support, training, and overlooked
> warning signs and red flags, etc.  I thought 3 months was a fair
> probation period, so just kept trying to improve the situation.  In
> the end I waited two months, fired him, got a week's useful work, and
> was 2 months and $10K behind schedule because of it.  The only reason
> it didn't put me out of business was that I planned to go overbudget
> from the start.
>
> I can't afford to do that again.  I've learned the hard way to cut my
> losses early.
>
> Leighton Haynes wrote:
> > Wow. Firing after 1 day, that's pretty low. I hope you weren't rude
> > enough to hire him away from another company to then fire the poor
> > blighter on the first day. I have to say, I think it's one of the most
> > pathetic things I've ever heard. There is no reality in which one day
> > is enough time to work out how good/bad someone is. The only reason
> > someone should be first on the first day is gross misconduct.
> >
> > If you can't afford to give him a week to work stuff out, you can't
> > afford to be hiring people period.
> >
> > Leighton....
>
> ---------------------
> To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html
>
>
>



------------------------------

From: Scott Harper <lareon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:47:15 -0600

I'm not going to berate you for wanting to fire the guy so soon, as I
think there's been a lot of that already and I wouldn't have anything
new to add...  But to this:

> Also, developing a full game in 2-4 months? whoah, that could be
> possible if no one you have in your team has a life... a game now
> requires lots, lots of time... from about half a year to a year or
> two I tell ya, there's no way you can ship a game in that
> deadline... or at least, a decent one.

I have a supportive comment.  I did bug testing at a company for
about 4 months, during which time we finished up an 8 month project.
The game was VERY basic, the levels simplistic, and in the time I was
there I saw the game go from grand idea to watered-down crap with bad
voice acting and dialogue complete with internal nicknames for
characters used.

This was also a SEQUEL game, so they already had the engine WRITTEN
from the first one!  Level design, bug testing, enemy AI, and engine
changes all took the entire 8 month period and they STILL couldn't
add in enough to make the game truly great.  Or even really that
GOOD.  So 2-4 months just seems like a whimsical fancy to me, unless
of course you're making a Pop-Cap game?

Anyway, sorry for being so harsh, and I know everyone's already being
rather berating to you already.  I hope you can make a good choice
that doesn't leave you with a sullied name and this guy alone on his
ass worse off than before.  I would probably make a horrible manager,
as I don't think I COULD fire someone the first day even if their
conduct was GROSSLY disrespectful! ^_^

Best of luck,
-- Scott

------------------------------

End of gameprogrammer Digest V4 #51
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