I am so fucking sick of getting asked to implement special cases / features for 1 fucking customer just because the customer wants to do something differently (read fucking stupidly).

This piece of shit codebase already has easy on 500 special cases that were put in place to please some asshole who does'nt even use the feature he demanded once he realised what a wanker he was being.

Now I have to put in yet another bunch of conditional statements all over the place to pad another fucking douche bags ego.

For fuck sake can they not just use the software as it is. If some dick really wants shit his special glorious way can we not just fork the codebase give him his shit and he can stay on the same special fucking version forever without future updates because the other 99% of user aren't retarded.

If I wanted to hire someone to install software-as-it-is I would hire a bloody monkey. It is part of your job and it is part of the value you are adding to get paid - If you don't want to add value, then get out.

@MaverickCMDR I don't install software, I write it. The problem comes in when you have to implement special screwed up features for 1 customer that potentially affects the other odd 4000 companies actively using the same system (the way it is designed to be used). It becomes incredibly easy to add a potential bug for the vast majority of users just to please 1 user. That's not even including the fact that every dev in the future that handles the codebase has to accommodate and figure out all the conditional statements in the codebase added to please the bastard.

I feel you

I'm kinda with @MaverickCMDR on this one, to the point of you are adding value and providing a service.

The real issue though is that your codebase is becoming this huge mess of spaghetti. Why is it becoming so difficult to add new features/customer specific features? The moment customer no. came with his special request, it should have triggered something!

Make your code extendable/pluggable allowing you to add new/customer specific features without breaking the whole system/framework/whatever, and you'll be sitting pretty!

This is, in my opinion, why the customers/boss are paying you!

@GinjaNinja To fill in some blanks...

1. It's a legacy code base that's in the process of being refactored.
2. The customer pay's a monthly service fee for the product, not for development.
3. There is additional dev charge for adding this crap (It's a favour someone promised without checking the actual implications of or feasibility with the dev team and now it's being demanded to save face).

The whole thing is just one smelly dodgy mess that further pollutes an already near maintainable system but hey who cares anyway.

@kurtr
Just in reply to your points...

1. Great stuff! While the refactoring continues, I'm assuming there's still these requests coming in. Ward them off until you're ready!
2. Glad to hear that you'll be able to eat.
3. I'm also glad you'll be able to eat when there's a dev charge. But, when Mr. Man promises bullshit to the clients, it's YOUR job to call bullshit and that this is completely unrealistic based on the current situation. And Mr. Man must go do what he's being paid for, i.e. manage the customer and the trough of lies that he sold them.

I have to agree here. If this is anything at all like what I do, It's stuff like these special modifications to things, that don't incur extra cost, that blow budgets and kill bonuses because we're chasing bugs that didn't need to be there in the first place and add very very little for the client at the end of the day. PMs and salesmen are too afraid to say no or properly manage expectation. At the end of the day I do what I'm told and I don't really care but I'm also not the one to take any of the backlash when we have to write off tens of thousands of dollars worth of wasted labor because the client doesn't want to pay anything extra when they see how much it costs after the fact. Shoutout to all the PMs and salesman that get it though because there's only one or two in my whole company that do this.

I am with @GinjaNinja on this one

I feel you man.

You were talking about a special version for a special customer. Well, that's exactly what a company I was working for made me do.

Later I modified it so these special features only run when he logs in.

Blink some light with this guys name or something, make the device say his name, etc. Bizarre requests. One guy asked if the device leds could not blink while be was sleeping. Some people think if they buy a service or a device, they buy the whole company.

@MaverickCMDR, saying "well that's your job, get on with it" is pretty short sighted. If you are happy to just develop whatever the fuck is given to you regardless of the implications on the system and the business at large and just blindly implement shit, it sounds like you're the only code monkey here.

It's the PM, sales and marketing people's jobs to sell the product as a complete package and that means not pandering to their arbitrary ideas just to get a quick win. They have a product to sell and it should be sold on its feature set, not on the assumption that it can be warped and hacked to fit whatever unrelated use case the potential client appears to require. It is also their jobs to assess potential new features along with development to decide whether it is robust enough and viable to implement for the entire platform, not hacked in as a conditional spaghetti mess.

Continued...

...

You have two options here, one is to refactor/rebuild an componetised, extensible platform that is maintainable and easy to add new features, or you can refactor/build a white label product that is build to function as a bespoke platform that can be customised per client with ease.

Either way, you have every right to be annoyed at that shit.