>>>>>Software devlopment in pictures:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://imgur.com/r/pics/kMPJ5
>>>>
>>>>Where management in this picture?
>>>
>>>
>>>Management is in Aruba, enjoying the good life, while the developers work 24/7. :)
>>>
>>>To be honest, the owner of a company I worked for loved to go to Aruba, while I worked 20/7, which I did for three months straight. I completed a major hardware/software design for the military (our customer). We received millions of dollars in contracts and my "reward" was I was also given the job of production engineer, in addition to electronics design engineer and software programmer. So I called a friend, and got a job at a different place.
>>>
>>>Working is so much fun. Sometimes you have a job that is great, with outstanding people. And then there are times that you cannot believe! It is all a matter of trying to survive. :)
>>
>>I worked in a place that had a project outsourced to Arthur Anderson. Unsurprisingly the contract was a year behind schedule and twice budget. They took over the project with in-house resources and started requiring 65 hour work weeks. They expected this workload to continue for another 9 months or more. After several weeks the turnover started up. To stem the flow the company announced a bonus to those that would stick around. It was $1000. Management was astonished when the flow became a flood. Two years later a cut-down version was finally implemented.
>
>Years ago I designed, developed (with a couple of developers I trained as we went along), and delivered a system for my then current employer that was light-years ahead of the system it replaced, saved more than the entire cost of development in the first year of operation (and this was an annual $3/4Million saving due to the design), and best of all was something a lot of people said could not be done (and I did it in FP/DOS BTW). I had worked 60+ hour weeks for almost a year to get this to happen.
>
>The company Board of Officers made great political capital of it since I did it on their watch.
>
>They grandly brought me into a meeting where they gave me a $500 bonus.
>
>I graciously exited the meeting, headed to our CFO's office (he was a great friend BTW), asked him how much accrued vacation and comp time I had (3 months+) and told him I'll call him from wherever my next employer settles me. He almost fainted when I told him about the 'bonus'.
>
>Apparently he had a little chat with the Board, as my bonus suddenly swelled to greater than my annual salary by next morning.
>
>I still quit the place, but it was a couple of years later.
>
>I don't expect to be rewarded by an employer or client after the fact anymore. It better be determined in writing up front.

yep...and even having it in writing doesn't help sometimes either.
I had a job a while back where I (like the others here) ended up working 60+hrs a week for well over a year. I was promised (in writing) by the CEO that when finished I would get a $5,000 bonus - which I of course didn't feel like was very much - but hey 5k is 5k. Well by the end of all this - the CEO had been replaced with another CEO - who decided that he didn't have to honor the previous CEO's agreement. When he told me that ..I said OK - slammed the lid shut on my laptop - went to my bosses office - handed him the laptop and said I was "going home - and not coming back". They actually tried to talk me out of by promising me $5,000 worth of stock - once they got their IPO..hahaha. I politely pointed out that I didn't trust any "promises" they would try to make as the only one that HAD made they'd not upheld. As it turns out they did eventually get their IPO - over 4 years later. The stock started around $28 - sat around $32 for a while - now it's a steady 9 bucks (it tanked over some fishy reporting of numbers)...and they've burned though 3 CEO's since I left. I'm sure I could of sued them for the 5k - but I just wanted to get as far away from them as possible.