"Work from Home Jude"

Five years ago, from the date of this posting, I worked with a gentleman named Jude. That's not his name, but it's close. Jude was a senior software architect which, aside from management, is the highest position a software engineer can obtain. Jude was a quiet guy, like myself, and not much was known about the projects that occupied his time. All that was known, was that he was on the “vertical team,” which was a group devoted to internal needs. The rest of us were stuck on the “horizontal team,” which was responsible for product growth and expansion.

Jude had quirks, and contained a remarkable ability to treat deadlines as if they were akin to the food pyramid. In other words, he would ignore them. This wasn't a big deal back then as we didn't have many time constraints. He would attend the gym, everyday, at around 2 pm for over an hour. In addition to this, he would go on a walk in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's safe to say that he didn't work an eight hour shift, it would average out to be more like six or seven. Flaws aside, he had a creative mind. We brainstormed a web app for about three months that would cut costs and meet client needs, and he even made a desktop app that gave real estate appraisers a ballpark to determine if their appraisals were outside the curve. The business uses it and sells it to this day.

I left the company, and ventured into the world of software for resorts and timeshares. I didn't know what had happened to my old colleague, Jude, until I hit him up about two years after I had departed. Apparently, he was in the market for a job. I set him up for some interviews, and our management seemed to take to him. A few days into his new job, I arrived at work in the early hours of the morning. There were two or three of us that came in at that time. A colleague came up to me and informed me of some startling news. Jude had been arrested the previous night after he had become intoxicated and beat his wife, all of this occurring in front of their daughter (a minor).

Without pressing him on the matter, he voluntarily revealed to me and another colleague (female) that he was getting a divorce. This female colleague defended his actions (and arrest) to me for months, and became his biggest ally. He was her “project,” like a bird with a broken wing, and the two seemed inseparable. There was nothing romantic about their relationship, but he was the only one that would give her any attention. Jude started showing up late, probably around his second or third week, and claimed that he was “working from home” to make up the hours.

I contacted a former colleague, who shed some light on Jude's behavior at our previous juncture. In the near two year absence from my past position, Jude's actions became erratic. He either became an alcoholic, or something close to it. He would show up late, no show, and claim that he was “working from home” at that position as well. He, somehow, convinced those bosses that he deserved to make an extraordinary amount of money. It was an unheard of salary in Northern Utah, and he was, at best, undeserving. After no-showing weeks at a time, they finally fired him. A few months later, I found him.

He began showing up four hours late on average, sometimes no-showing, and often smelling of alcohol. Our company has a bad reputation of not firing anyone, and he was pushing our limits. I recall, vividly, the events that led to his demise. I voiced my concern to my management on, at least, three occasions about him. Another colleague voiced his concern regularly. There were many Friday's, in which, Jude would not be at the office. The girl he was seeing (a few months after his wife filed for divorce), would tag him on Facebook at various events (during office hours).

He regularly logged forty+ hours to defects that would take an average developer one or two hours to fix. The whole office turned against him, pretty rapidly, as he couldn't be relied upon. The female colleague that I mentioned earlier, began calling him each and every time that he was late. When he did show up on time, which was rare, we would play tennis at lunch. He was a great tennis partner. In the final stretch, there was about a three week span where he no-showed regularly. Before his big court date to determine alimony, which his wife demanded an extreme percentage, his lawyer asked him to jack up his expenses. He purchased a new car, and found an expensive new place to stay. He was fired the next day.