2002-10-29 - 2:22 p.m.

OKay...it's free advice seeking time...

Imagine if you will that you are on a "team" of 7 programmers, working for a company that is not in the IT field at all, and in fact the owners of said company know next to nothing about IT.

Your manager reports directly to the owners.

Your manager constantly plays favorites within the group.

There are some who can do no wrong, their opinions are always obviously correct, their code is flawless, and their procedures are sacrosanct.

Then there are some (you) who can do no right, your opinions are always second-guessed, you are assigned the unimportant and tedious tasks, your procedures are thrown out the window whenever they inconvenience someone else on the team, and you are publically raked over the coals whenever you make such a minor mistake as having a bug in an obscure portion of a piece of code you just released to test.

The economy sucks, so the job market is extraordinarily ugly. Your salary is reasonably decent for the local market. Your wife doesn't make enough to support the two of you for any significant period of time.

You believe in what the company is doing, and you think you have a lot to offer them. When you were interviewed, you made no secret of the fact that part of your role was uncomfortable for you (you were being expected to program in a language you had little experience in), but another part is exceedingly comfortable for you (Database design, development, and administration).

Your manager has no control over the group. Meetings quickly devolve into social gatherings, where the "Who's in and Who's out" are reinforced. The owners of the company are not concerned with much other than generating billable hours.

How do you get your manager to treat you like you have value? Alternatively, how do you get the owners to intervene?

Oh, btw, you can't really quit, because your wife works for the company too.

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