For those about to rant.....

I'll start by saying I'm sorry......... If people are reading this that know exactly what I am talking about (ie. I work with them) I'm sorry that this is the only outlet I have...

Work. You may have read of my fun at work recently.... well it is really starting to get to me... It (amongst other things) fucked up my game of golf today.... and is generally leaving me pretty annoyed and everything and everyone.......

The one thing that I have learnt from this, is, that I think the PTB at work think I am a hack.... someone who does something it a quick and dirty way (which while I capable of doing... is not what I try to do... it is normally what I have to do... but that will be explained)

pause while eating pizza

... I also know for a fact... hackness ability or not... I am the shit cleaner... when something comes along that is shitty and crappy and plain a pain in the arse I do it.... I do web development, design, server admin, content changes, security clean ups, fault recovery... anything that needs to be done in the web type enviroment. A call today from someone I have never spoken to about the web rang and asked about how to to HTML in emails (I said don't), because I was the "Web Guru", that was his wording...

.. but yet, when it comes to making decisions about where we go in the future (the desgin bit) I am not listened to , and generally given the answer that "This is big boys stuff now... um can you go away and fix that table alignment on this page that no one has accessed for 2 years?".. It is not that they don't care... it feels more to me (which of course is what all this is MY OPINION) they actively do not want me to do any of it...

Soon I need to make a choice... it seems that they have finally realised I'm doing either too much work or too diverse work and it is time for me to choose.... Development or Operations(admin).

Herein lies the problem.... which way do go... on one hand... we have development... I like doing software development, I have designed and implemented a couple of different systems in the web sphere of things in the last 12 to 18 months... I have lots of knowledge and considerable experience of web technologies (although reading these crappy webpages doesn't really show that I know). With the by current boss moving up the ladder to Development Manager, this leaves the Senior Web Developer role open. This is great.... a chance to finally move up the ladder a bit and gain some management (both people and project) skills. I have the requiste knowledge fomr a technical stand point and I have been with the company for 3 years. I know the business fairly well....

I hear you saying, "that sounds great! Go Development" with appropriate arm waving and hooting type noises... but do you remember what I said earlier? They think I am a hack... that cannot see past the shit I have to put up with, they just see the shitty moods I'm in and my rather (at times) abrubt manner....
So now maybe you're thinking.. "Well webdeveloper doesn't sound too bad... who needs that senior crap?" with much looking at feet and mumbling... Well as a Developer you get to..... CODE! that is right! You get to code marvellous bits and bobs, from specifications that you had no real input in on a system they do not want to hear your ideas about .... that is right..... it is fucked... it is the reason they are called Code Monkeys... not developers.... also with the addition of the new management ladder... staying a developer will actually put me BACKWARDS in the company structure....

Part 2 coming soon..... Operations.... (I have to go and spend some time with someone... [: )

Update... 2.5 hours later...

Part 2.
So that is development.... in a nutshell it can be good, doesn't look like it will be good... unless I get the Senior role. So.... on to operations........

The other side of the IT world is operations... ie. looking after things so developers can do their thing and make sure their things are available to people. At my work this would involve delving deeper into administration of Sun Solaris, Oracle, Apache (Which I know well), Coldfusion (which I know pretty well), Webobjects (Which I have looked at, but haven't been involved with that much) and various other bits and pieces (ew... there is some WinNT and ASP stuff as well... blergh). On the whole, operations seems to be a bit better, I will be on call for server outages (which I am at the moment) and the possiblity of (unpaid) overtime is higher, but generally I like the idea more and more. The person I would be learning a lot of the stuff from (well Solaris anyway, which would be my main concern) I get along with really well.... and he is great at mentoring/helping work things through. This position however is not actually up for grabs yet.... it is still in the mythical never-never... after this round of restructure I think it might become something that is mentioned (perhaps even directly to me...). I would be at the same step on the ladder as a Web Developer, but the skills I would learn would be more portable if I ever left the company.... however (you were waiting for that huh?) I still have the feeling that by inherit hack-itude may come into here as well.... because the operations side of things (on my part) have been a bit of a running race, where I started well behind the rest.... I haven't gained control of the servers I look after because they to be up-up-UP all the time... so the only reconfigurations that have been done have been because of outages.... the outages haven't been my fault either (I'm sounding whiny and defensive now I know... but it is the truth) they have come about because of lack of planning on the business' part or the fact I haven't been listened to on some security matters....

So dear readers.... if you are still awake and not trying to gnaw your leg off in frustration, I will leave all this open.... I haven't got answers for you.... if you look at this you know where I am headed at the moment... but that could change... time will tell......

As to my shitty mood... I've calmed down now... but the rant engine is still firing... maybe tomorrow...... [: