An IT tale about management's extreme attempts to cut costs -- and the horrifying result

You should really read this entire thing to see how far some companies are willing to go to save a buck.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/manufacturing-chaos-and-one-man-it-shop-980

Manufacturing chaos and a one-man IT shop

Over the years, I've seen firsthand how expensive it becomes when there is no planning or coherent strategy within an organization. Extreme attempts to cut corners and costs will always create a severe detriment to all departments -- and the operations areas are no exception. I've seen this management mentality in many companies, but one experience stands out as being the most extreme case I've ever witnessed.
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The IT department had always been a one-man shop, and my predecessor had been a technical school graduate with very little IT experience. When he resigned, he did not leave the password or any admin information, so I was unable to log into the system for two days. We had to pay him for two hours' consulting time to get the passwords.

As the only IT staff person, my on-call time extended 24/7, with no overtime pay and no backup person, and I was advised to consider selling my house and moving closer to the plant so that I could be on site quickly in case of a problem. I was told this is how it was always done with their IT staff.
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So they purchased the source code (Version 1.0.0) and hired their accountant, who dabbled in computers on the side, as a consultant to rewrite the commercial system. Since the "consultant" did not know the platform, the proprietary system programming language, or the company's manufacturing process, he created a system full of work-arounds, hacks, and bugs. The software crashed constantly.

Additionally, because it was originally developed in another country, not all of the error messages and text were in English (maybe that fix was in Version 1.1). I was expected to learn another language at my expense so that I could support the system. And since the source had been modified, we were not eligible for upgrades, technical support, patches, or bug fixes.
<snip>

The whole experience became a day-by-day crisis resolution situation. Needless to say, I left the minute a new job became available.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/manufacturing-chaos-and-one-man-it-shop-980

When it's not about a livable wage, it's livable conditions/

Humans are not machines, though SOME executives - like computers - have no heart. And in the case you mentioned, the brain the size of a fingernail too...

There are work-related issues, and then there are non-work-related issues. . .

I've run into, and worked in the same situations, as he describes.

He has been looking and found something comparable. He was told in July he could take a week off for his Honeymoon but he had to stay within one hours drive of work.