The Legend of champions begins with the arrival of Bojan Markovic to Dodoni computing. Bojan is typical computer nerd, impregnated with computers and programming since elementary school. As a typical nerd he also lacks some social skills, and we won't be wrong if we say that he is an introverted person. Those who got to know him better learned that he has been in programming since 8th grade when he got his first Commodore 64. Since then he's been programming in Clipper, Access, ASP, Visual Basic, Visual C++ etc. Before joining Dodoni, he worked part-time for several companies designing and programming small business applications. In most of the cases he worked at home, meaning he had more than humble experience of working in software team. 

He had enough of teaching

Bojan joined Dodoni computing after he spent several years working in a small private school as a teacher of information technology. Being a teacher had many advantages for Bojan, just to mention a lot of free time, many opportunities for improving communication and other social skills and finally, more than solid salary. But all that didn't satisfy a real programmer inside him and after some time he decided it was time to change a job and become full-time software developer. He wanted to find an environment where he could boost his programming skills, learn from other people and the most important, find out how it feels to work in real development team instead of being solo player. He believed it was possible to find such a place, so he started to look at the job ads.

After few weeks of browsing through the ads and job newsgroups, he realized that finding a good job that would satisfy his professional and financial needs wouldn't be an easy task. Although his primary motive for changing job was to work as a full-time developer, he wasn't such an idealist who wouldn't care about the money and would cut his income just for the sake of the job satisfaction. 

The first attempt: Manufacture of 21st century

His first interview took place at the company named AgileSoft. When he got there, he was introduced to 120 kg of solid fat that bore the title of AgileSoft development manager. Walking with invisible whip in his hands, fatso showed him the office, or better said, two rooms with nothing but four youngsters sittings at their tables, pounding tons of DHTML code and carefully monitored by his majesty pig face. While they were walking around, he also explained to Bojan that AgileSoft worked exclusively for German customers and that owner of the company was also a German firm.

After few minutes, they sat down in manager's office, oh sorry, kitchen, and started to talk about the salary and other juicy details. Fattyboy generously offered Bojan a salary that was only 60% of his income at that time. He didn't forget to mention that, after few months, salary would probably rise, maybe even 10%! And the most important, whole amount was totally legal, taxes, health and pension plan were paid by the company and salary was always on time, up to 5th day in current month.

Note for non-Croatian readers: If you are wondering why it is important to emphasize that salary is legal, taxes are paid and salary is always on time, you are probably living in normal country where legal system is working and every firm that violates the law and tries to cheat on taxes is immediately shut down or fined extremely large penalty. Well, in Croatia it is perfectly normal for a firm to cheat on taxes or to pay whole or part of the salary in cash, without covering employee's health or pension plan. It is also normal that salary is late for weeks, even months, and employees in such firms work for free, like modern slaves. All that happens without any consequence. Why, you ask? Well, simply put, our judicial system has collapsed many years ago and courts are filled with unsolved cases, so it is a rare occasion that bastards who cheat their employees and the government get busted. Why employees tolerate such practice and don't quit and find another job? Again, there are many reasons, but the most important is that we have big unemployment and it is very hard to find another job, unless you are very good.

Bojan didn't have to think a lot about AgileSoft's offer. Sad faces, filthy and ugly environment with no air-conditioner, small salary, unattractive projects, no perspective - all that he compiled in his final decision that once he walked out that door he would never come back. He thanked Fatty for his time and left to pursue another opportunity.

The second attempt: Surrounded by money

The second interesting interview took place in totally different environment. Modern, brand new glass building, people in suits, air condition and feeling that you are walking on money. Bank! The dream of every non-ambitious IT person in Croatia. If you like to work as little as needed, get regular and predictable salary and wait calmly for the retirement, then find the job in the bank, my son! 

Maybe Bojan would also listen to that siren call and end up in bank, if only he wasn't offered a job position that hardly met his expectations. Although he said to them he preferred to work as a developer, the offered position was a strange mix of system engineering, user support and maybe some minor development tasks. He realized that he would be the one who would react to user requests like "Oh, help me, my screen saver just froze" or "My tea cup holder just broke (stupid bitch from accounting thought that CD-ROM was used to hold her tea cup)" etc. That was surely not a dream of any normal developer. So, after the interview ended and as soon as he left the nice building, he started to forget about the bank, although some of the bonuses they mentioned looked really appealing.

n-th attempt: CHAMPIONS

He attended some other less interesting interviews until one day he read the following post in one of job newsgroups:

We are Dembelian-Croatian software firm. We are looking for developers with good knowledge of Visual Basic, SQL and Oracle. Our clients are big Dembelian companies, mostly banks and insurances. Please mail your CV to zbalijic@dodoniinz.com.

The post ended with signature of Mr. Zarko Balijic, Dodoni computing ltd.  Although Bojan cared a lot about grammar and good writing style, he didn't pay attention to few grammar and spelling errors in that ad. Only later he realized that messy grammar and bad writing style is one of the trademarks of Zarko Balijic, his future manager.

Few days after he sent his CV to Dodoni computing, he got reply from Mr. Balijic that they invited him to come to an interview.

The first interview in "champ" firm

The first interview was conducted by Zarko only. He described the firm in short details and then started to talk about the projects, clients and other usual stuff for impressing the future employee. To emphasize the firm's reputation, he again mentioned that their clients are really big players in Dembelia's industry, ranging from car manufacturers to banks, insurances etc. "Wow, that's really impressive", thought Bojan and automatically started to count the pros: prominent clients, familiar technologies like VB, SQL, C++, full-time development, occasional business trips to Dembelia... Even that what he counted was enough to make him decide in favor of Dodoni, but then Zarko put extra sugar in the mix telling him that it was not all. He said that, besides regular job, the company also gave each employee opportunity to learn  project management and apply that knowledge to actual projects, in other words, to become project manager.

What a beautiful music for Bojan's ears! Only few months before the interview he passed Microsoft's Solution Architecture exam (70-100) and became totally obsessed with terms like MSF, Three-tier architecture, COM components etc. He thought that if he started to work for Dodoni he would finally have the opportunity to apply those theories in practical every day's work. And not just that, he would also have the chance to learn project management, new unexplored area that interested him very much. "Oh, if only they hired me", he wished.

During the interview Zarko asked Bojan about his experience in certain technologies. He was especially interested if Bojan had any experience with grid controls. "Well, I used DBGrid and Flexgrid Visual Basic controls when I was developing a report application for one of my previous employers" he replied. "Have you worked with Janus Grid?" asked Zarko and continued, "We use only that grid, it has great features, grouping, sorting etc.etc." He practically couldn't stop to talk about the magical grid. "Unfortunately, I haven't worked with that grid" said Bojan nervously. "Bloody hell with my ignorance, why I've never heard of that grid, it can cost me a job" he thought. Being so impressed with the opportunities in Dodoni, he didn't start to doubt in Zakro's knowledge of programming, and he surely should, because the only questions the great interviewer kept asking were related to one particular grid, instead of being targeted to more important areas. It is like somebody asks you if you are good in ADO recordsets and doesn't ask you whether you know SQL. 

After grid questions, Zarko asked few more and then ended the interview saying that they had to evaluate other candidates and after that, there would be a second round of interviews for the best of them. Also, the owner of the firm, Mr. Dodoni, would be present at those final interviews. 

Champions said "Yes, we want you"

About ten days later Bojan got another mail from Zarko saying that they invited him to the second interview. Like Zarko said, this interview was attended by big boss, Mr. Dodoni.

When Bojan entered the room and for the first time met his future employer, he was relieved because Mr. Dodoni seemed like a very nice and calm person. When they introduced themselves, he said that his first name was Erich and that he hadn't been born in Dembelia but came there from Greece twenty years ago to study mathematics, which he successfully finished and even got Ph.D. Some careful observer would probably have thought that Erich was a very unusual name for Greak, but Bojan has never been keen for details, except if they were related to debugging and coding.
After introduction, Erich said some basic facts about the firm, projects and clients, nothing that Zarko hadn't mentioned on the first interview. He also emphasized that salary was completely legal, all taxes, health and pension plan paid by the firm. Then he started to ask Bojan about his previous jobs, experience and the vision he had about his new job. Bojan calmly replied to all those questions, asked few of his own and the remaining half an hour of the interview passed in relaxed atmosphere. When interview ended, Dodoni said that he would have to think a little about what he heard and then he would decide. If they picked Bojan, he would personally phone him.

After shaking hands and saying goodbye, Bojan ran out of the Dodoni computing full of good impressions and immediately hurried home to wait for Erich's call. When he got home, he had to wait only for about an hour and then phone rang. He heard the familiar voice of Mr. Dodoni saying that they chose him as a new employee of Dodoni computing and so he could come again to sign the working contract. Bojan didn't waste the time and an hour later he was back to Champions headquarters where he was given three-pages contract to sign. Because he was young and enthusiastic, he didn't pay much attention to some very strict terms in contract, such as 3 month leave notice or obligation not to work for partner firm for at least two years, if he decided to quit Dodoni. It didn't matter to him, he wanted to work, to prove himself, he was even offered bigger salary than expected and in all aspects Dodoni looked like a perfect opportunity for him. "Give me that paper to sign and let's go - sky is the limit!" he thought.

After officially joining Dodoni, he was introduced to his future colleagues. All of them looked very cold and unfriendly, except skinny guy named Krunoslav Bazdic who greeted Bojan with smile. "What is wrong with that people, do I have some strange odour or what?" Bojan wondered, "or, maybe, they are sad because they loved the guy I am replacing?" Unfortunately, very soon he would find out the real reasons for such dark atmosphere in Dodoni computing.