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Musings on Work
Dec. 6th, 2001 01:15 pmCurrently work is a strange thing. Sometimes I really enjoy it and other times I really hate it. I'm just on the way out of a period of hating (to the extent that if I could have I'd have my CV sitting on a few people's desks.
for those that don't know I work for a web design company called Domino Systems. Go look at www.domino.com if you want to know any more about it. My job is currently as a Web Developer helping to write part of a big E-commerce store to be rolled out in several countries in multiple languages. All good fun. No really.
I never know how much detail I am allowed to give out on it because I know I am meant to keep my mouth shut on some of it which is why I may be kinda vague when talking about exactly what I do. However, one thing I will say is that the site is based on a Microsoft Product (a new version that is about to go into Beta, no less).
I got really hacked off last week when getting shouted at for not working hard enough on something. Apart from the fact I had no clue how it worked (It was a weird method of doing reports that made very little sense at first), don't know much about SQL (in particular the brand used with MSSQL server), don't know what exactly is expected of me (nor do they is why) and that the dev (development) machines were being reinstalled with latest build of the software which took two days longer than expected... Essentially I felt really got at.
Now I'm somebody who takes criticism in one of two ways usually, either I go and cry in a corner and try to run away from the world or I try to prove to them how wrong they are somehow. In this case it involved mainly the latter (with a little bit of the former) and basically working late nights (about 2 hours extra on average and missing lunch a couple of times). I sent a huge e-mail documenting everything I had done including some of the issues that I had run into (only ones she didn't already know about) and sent that to her. Not a word of thanks back. Not even an acknowledgment of receipt.
I don't know what was worse, being shouted at or being ignored when you have worked your arse off. She's been a lot better this week but I am still not entirely happy. Currently my thinking is that I will definitely apply for a few more jobs around January when this project is coming to a close.
Oh, did I mention that I am also one of two people working on the integration of the e-commerce store with the SAP system that they use as their backend for their entire corporate network. Going live in just under two months and we are yet to even receive specs from them on file format and then there is a fortnight of no work due to christmas. Its going to be an absolute nightmare getting that bit done and this is most definitely not what i first signed up for.
*Sigh* so there is my job situation. I generally enjoy the basic programming type stuff but battling with customers who don't know what they want (which follows through to my superiors) and crappy products that don't do what I want and I have to try to warp and twist them until they do. I swear that the way we are doing it is much harder than using a bespoke system. However, this is what we have been told to work with so we do.
Anyway, need to get back to it all now. Lunch draws to a close and now I get to work through to the end of the day. Some planning work to do and write down so that the people above me who know what it wanted can tell me if I successfully read their mind or not. I mean, why ask *me* what fields are going to be in the reports? Why doesn't somebody who knows what they want give me some idea in some sensible fashion. I've looked at the previous version where they have occasional weird fields like "Average Tax". I mean, Tax is 17.5%. What the hell does the average tax mean?
Right... work...
for those that don't know I work for a web design company called Domino Systems. Go look at www.domino.com if you want to know any more about it. My job is currently as a Web Developer helping to write part of a big E-commerce store to be rolled out in several countries in multiple languages. All good fun. No really.
I never know how much detail I am allowed to give out on it because I know I am meant to keep my mouth shut on some of it which is why I may be kinda vague when talking about exactly what I do. However, one thing I will say is that the site is based on a Microsoft Product (a new version that is about to go into Beta, no less).
I got really hacked off last week when getting shouted at for not working hard enough on something. Apart from the fact I had no clue how it worked (It was a weird method of doing reports that made very little sense at first), don't know much about SQL (in particular the brand used with MSSQL server), don't know what exactly is expected of me (nor do they is why) and that the dev (development) machines were being reinstalled with latest build of the software which took two days longer than expected... Essentially I felt really got at.
Now I'm somebody who takes criticism in one of two ways usually, either I go and cry in a corner and try to run away from the world or I try to prove to them how wrong they are somehow. In this case it involved mainly the latter (with a little bit of the former) and basically working late nights (about 2 hours extra on average and missing lunch a couple of times). I sent a huge e-mail documenting everything I had done including some of the issues that I had run into (only ones she didn't already know about) and sent that to her. Not a word of thanks back. Not even an acknowledgment of receipt.
I don't know what was worse, being shouted at or being ignored when you have worked your arse off. She's been a lot better this week but I am still not entirely happy. Currently my thinking is that I will definitely apply for a few more jobs around January when this project is coming to a close.
Oh, did I mention that I am also one of two people working on the integration of the e-commerce store with the SAP system that they use as their backend for their entire corporate network. Going live in just under two months and we are yet to even receive specs from them on file format and then there is a fortnight of no work due to christmas. Its going to be an absolute nightmare getting that bit done and this is most definitely not what i first signed up for.
*Sigh* so there is my job situation. I generally enjoy the basic programming type stuff but battling with customers who don't know what they want (which follows through to my superiors) and crappy products that don't do what I want and I have to try to warp and twist them until they do. I swear that the way we are doing it is much harder than using a bespoke system. However, this is what we have been told to work with so we do.
Anyway, need to get back to it all now. Lunch draws to a close and now I get to work through to the end of the day. Some planning work to do and write down so that the people above me who know what it wanted can tell me if I successfully read their mind or not. I mean, why ask *me* what fields are going to be in the reports? Why doesn't somebody who knows what they want give me some idea in some sensible fashion. I've looked at the previous version where they have occasional weird fields like "Average Tax". I mean, Tax is 17.5%. What the hell does the average tax mean?
Right... work...