This was so NOT in my job description.

It came to my attention today that I have not posted in an entire week. WTF? I mean, I can see missing a day or two, but an entire week? In my defense, I did have to run to the Main Office, which not only adds an hour to my commute, but they tend to be a little more strict on work web access there than in my remote office here. Meh, what do you do?

To the best of my experience, with any given job, there is a certain level of "bend over and take it"-ness, and that it really is impractical and unwarranted for me to complain at all about what I am going to be forced to label as one of the better jobs that I have ever had. And I suppose that people are continuing to use VB6 much for the same reason that there are companies out there that are continuing to manage COBOL systems. They're in place, and they work. Kind of.

So the other day I was voicing an opinion of VB6, when a co-worker of mine, Speed Racer, gave me one of those quizzical looks that imply "what're you talking about man? You on drugs again?" "VB's not so bad" he says, "It's only a marginal pain in the butt, I was a Java developer before I came here, and sure there's some differences, but it's not that bad!" To which I replay "As a Java programmer, you don't have a soul to crush, so it doesn't surprise me VB doesn't hurt you."

I bet you can now guess what my next project is in. Damn.

~M.

Corporate Bean Counters and the Bottom Line *GASP*

I guess I'm still adjusting to working for a "Real Company", as there are some aspects that completely baffle me yet. And by "some", I mean "the absolute vast majority". I don't think a day goes by that I'm not floored, or at the very least, mildly caught off guard by some new concept of the work environment. And yesterday I came face to face the most intriguing of individuals in the Company Melting Pot, the Lead Project Manager.

As far as I can tell, the Lead Project Manager's duty is to manage the Project Managers, and keep tabs on the ongoing projects, to ensure that they're at least pretending to stay on budget. Now I understand the need for checks and balances, and that it is defiantly in the best of interest of the company to make sure that, from a financial standpoint, the projects themselves stay within scope, but doesn't this strike anyone as unneeded overhead? I'll quote one of my heroes, John Carmack, in this article (and paraphrased a bit) where he refers to this type of thing as "......the parasitic management overhead on top of all of it."

What kind of person makes the best Manager of Managers? What are the qualities such a person possesses that instills value to an organization by organizing the various facets of modern business execution? In my opinion, this kind of person can have only one thing in mind. The Bottom Line, the "In order to make money on X, Y must be pushed to the limits and then beyond. Kill as many of the grunts as needed, there's plenty where they came from. I swear they breed like rabbits!". In fact I'm not quite sure that they are actually human, as my current theory is that they're some sort of denizen of the lower levels of hell, whom take great pleasure in proverbially flailing the flesh from the backs of employees and crushing their souls, just to mix in with his / her morning coffee.

And how about their bottom line? How much are these people getting paid to inspire the lower untrustables (us not-management-type employees) to greatness? If I understand the pay-scale at all, on the bottom you have the people that actually are doing the work, then the managers, and after that, I'm going to be forced to assume are the Manager Managers. But what do I know, I'm just a Code Monkey.

Watch out for that tree!
~M.

EDIT:
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Just found this comic from Penny Arcade hilarious for some odd reason. Because you know, I'm always up for some good old Canada Bashing!

Where has my job market gone?

When I went to college, Computer Science was toted as THE major, with graduates able to command $80K salaries for working 35 hours a week. And the Universities and Tech schools began churning out programmers by the hundreds. Fast forward about 5 years or so. I have been out of college for 4.5 years now, and we have 3 Universities / Tech Schools offering computer programming degrees of some sorts, and we have a market absolutely saturated with average to less than average programmers.

Approximately 4 months ago I began the search for, as my father puts it, a "Real Job", implying one that was continuous, had an actual office, and provided Health Insurance. I'm sure there's other criteria for a job to be classified as "Real", including but not limited to: Dress Codes, Regular Working Hours, and Having A Real Phone System, but we'll leave those details to speculation.

The very first thing that became apparent was that the job market, at least in the technology sector, has become absolutely SATURATED with programmers. What once was a rare and valuable resource had become as common as quartz! No longer was I a part of an elite society of techno-addicts, but rather my colleagues became any person with the cash and urge to take a few night classes, and recent college grads who wouldn't know a pointer from a div.

It's almost gotten to the point that programmers are as numerous as Mexican workers in Austin or Dallas. Anymore, all the corporations / companies have to do is drive up to the corner and say "I need 2 dotNet programmers to do XYZ for $.50 an hour." and it's a bloody fight as programmers scramble to be the first on the back of the pickup truck.

Now that being said, there is also another trend that is becoming apparent. As the quantity of programmers rises, the quality falls. One of the biggest complaints I heard as I was going through the interviews was that there were absolutely no good programmers out there anymore.

Never before has there been a truer statement. And this is because Microsoft and Google have already snatched up all the good programmers! Well that's only partially true, all the good programmers already have jobs, and are getting paid on a level coordinating with their abilities.

But this is not the only reason there are no good programmers around, the root of the problem lies within the hiring companies themselves. Just because there's a desperately high level of programmers in the "programmer pool", the only ones that you are going to get to bite a 20K-30K level jobs are 20K-30K and lower level programmers. As with any desired skill, you get what you pay for. That's just the long and short of it!

Jesus loves....well me at least....
~M.