Chapter 5

Phew! Chapter 5 is finally done. I do not understand why that was such a time consuming chapter to write. I knew everything I was writing about. There was hardly any research needed. It just seemed to take forever to write a script to test a chunk of code to make sure what I had written actually worked.

On the upside, this may be time consuming, but i am having a good time writing. In fact, I am having more fun with each passing chapter. And, on another positive note, I am halfway to my September 1 deadline…and…I am 1/4 of the way to being completely done.

I still need to speed up some. I’ll find a way somehow.

Talented Web Developer Looking For Work

Well, TechPhob has finally done it. I saw this coming for a long time, but this is almost funny. Well, it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Ever since last fall, things have started to go downhill. Then suddenly two months ago the slope became so incredibly steep that I thought to myself, “This cannot be happening.” Things kept building, and last night I would say that we leveled off and now the cliff is right in front of us.

My boss is being “moved” from his position as manager of IT for our division, because our division manager has had some complaints.

Complaint #1: (I have to be careful what I write here) We lost a bid we really wanted and it is all your fault. My boss’s reply: How is this my fault, you didn’t include me on any of the meetings when we wrote our estimate; a week after you had it you told me you needed our estimate; I gave it to you and we lost out to another office. That was not my fault.

Ok, fine. Complaint #2: Our communication is not working. My boss’s reply: You think?

Div Man: I think you need to work on it.

My boss: I need to work on it? I’ve asked you for over a month, emailed you, and you have never gotten back to me on our marketing brochure.

Div Man: You sent your email on July 17.

My boss: Really? I was on vacation then. I’ve sent you multiple messages.

Div Man: Oh, I guess I need to work on my communication.

Ok, fine. Complaint #3: (This is a doozy) People come to you looking for help with something, and well they ask for a Pinto and you always want to give them a Cadillac. You are here to give people what they want, not what they need. My boss’s reply: Did you hear what you just said?

My boss is pissed (rightly so), and apparently they are dissolving our IT department. I am being moved to a position that He had, under The Asshole himself. Asshole: I think we should do it my way; I’ve worked with Access before so I know a thing or two about relational databases.

My thought to that: So my years working with Oracle, Teradata, M$ SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and even *shudder* Access count for nothing and you know better than I do?

I need out of TechPhob now. Anyone have a job for a talented web developer looking for work?

Book Progress

I decided to make a little chart of my progress with the book…

First Draft of Book

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	73%	2%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

First Draft Deadlines:

1. July 21, 2006 – 2 chapters of book (DONE)
2. September 1, 2006 – 50% of the book
3. November 24, 2006 – First draft of book
4. December 18, 2006 – Completed manuscript

I will let you know when I know more on my deadlines…