Tired of thinking

[Randall]

LOL I was not knowing that someday I will post myself in this section for help wanted. :grin:

But I am not ashamed of myself. Why not take some opinions from others rather then being egoist and getting burnt.

My problem is I am going to hire some programmers here to share my work load with me. The contracts that are pending are so huge that it's impossible with my speed of coding + my two hands + 24 hours in one day.

It is not mathematically possible to complete the projects. So I have decided to hire 2 programmers.

- What if they are not capable of programming. In interview they will say "YES SIR" to everything. But if they don't code properly then I will be standing there with 10 days wasted in just testing out if they know something or not.

- Lets say if one needs to be fired in somedays then I will again have to get one more person to fill in his or her place. Which will again be a 10 days testing period before I would come to know what he knows and what not.

- They might have a different coding style then me. The project is so huge that 5 programmers will have to code it round the clock and still it will take 6 months to get it done. What if they break down under the stress.

- Plus the biggest problem is that I will need them physically in my office on the PC's so will have to choose from my city. Where I doubt I will find the programmers with that caliber and knowledge which will be needed for completing the project.

- If I get busy on this one and will of course have to train them a little then who will take care of my 50+ sites that are running online.

- If I train them a little and then they start thinking that they don't need to work under me for a salary then they will leave the company and I will again be wasting my time in training other persons.

- Profits are good but the budget is tight in starting as I am not getting enough funds from the clients. So again their salaries will not be like CEO's of the I.T. companies but atleast enough for them to get inspired to work for me.

Please give some opinions of yours on this one. Thanks.

 

[nielsencl]

Good questions, so I have one more for you: Are you a programmer or a manager?

You may be both, but depending on how you answer that may indicate what direction you should move in. Most people will be better at one role or the other.

Being a manager takes the ability to make decisions, take some risks, be able to trust people, but also be a firm leader. I think the easiest way to do this is to be very specific and clear on what you expect from people, and even put it in writing. This avoids mistakes and allows you to go back and say, "This is what was needed, this is what you agreed to do, so why do we have a problem?". Then you can find out what happened and decide if there is a problem with the ability of that person to do their job. If there is then you apologize and tell them it's not working out and that you will have to part ways. Of course that's easy to say...

But the thing that makes the most sense is for you to consider becoming a manager that know programming, which is the best kind. You will have to be less worried about "how" the job is done, and more concerned about the "quality" of the work.

The other option is to hire someone to be the manager. You remain the owner but are also one of the programmers. You will have to pay for someone to take that responibility, but it will take the stress of that role off your shoulders and just leave you with the end resposibility if your manager doesn't work out.

If you hire someone, you need to set some criteria and some standards. You can get some examples of their work, check their references, and put together a coding test. There is NO WAY you should have to wait 10 days to see if they can code or not. The coding test can be things like:

- Write the coding steps you would take to create a form in PHP that would take some data, check for input errors, save the data, and email the data to one of three people based on information found in 3 fields on the form. Use psudo code and not real commands. These are the only instructions you will have.

- The follow code has errors. How many errors are there and are they important or not?

if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/files)); {
echo "Directory handle: $handle\n";
echo "Files:\n";
while ($file = readdir($handle)) { echo "."."$file\n"; }
closedir($handle); }
if ($hande = opendirt('.')) {
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handIe))); {
if ($file != "." && $file != "..") { echo "$file\n"; }} closedir($handle);}

-Write the lines you would need to add to .htaccess to use modrewrite and convert this URL: domain.com/bad-url.php?flem-str(xword)=Gliffy&rocket=blaster&piersq=black%20dirt
to this:
domain.com/good-url/flem-str/xword/Gliffy/rocket-blaster/piersq-black-dirt

One trick in this question is if they really also convert the "bad-url" to "good-url" or just focus on the rest of the problem. If they are detail-minded they will convert that too, if not they may assume it's not important. If they miss details or start assuming things, they may still be a good programmer, but it tells you that you need to watch them more or be extra-specific with your instructions.

Spend a few hours and make a variety of these kinds of tests. Start with some easy but tricky ones and get harder and harder. 10 might be a good number. When you review the test, talk with them about the errors. Sometimes they can tell you things about the tests that you may not expect. See how they handle it when you show them something they missed. You can learn a lot about the person from a programming test that has nothing to do with programing, but the other important things like communication and respect.

There's a lot more we can talk about, but this should help get you started.

And if you are getting this busy with programing, you may not have much time for your 50 sites. So the question is which makes you more money for the time you spend? And which do you enjoy more? If the programming business wins, then you need to either find someone to watch your sites and become the manager, or put them on the market and sell them.

I have often wondered why so many people find they get busy and then decide to sell their sites. "I don't have time to work on it anymore". Well, if you were to open up a small shop in the real world and then opened some others, you would also become too busy to run them all. But most people don't sell them, they hire a worker or shop manager to run them. Sure they make less money, but they keep growing their investment and still have some profit coming in.

 

[Randall]

Got it.

In real the websites do make me profits but my own websites will also need a dedicated staff in some months. So thought that why not get some people started with the outside work and then shift some of them on my website's works.

I will re read the thread if I have some problems. Thanks a lot for your detailed input.