Dec

7

Company direction

Filed Under Make it better, Work | Leave a Comment

I’m having trouble understanding what I am supposed to be doing in my position in the company. Not because I can’t do the job, but because today’s vital tasks are always different from yesterday’s.

It would be so much better if the company had a clear, honest description that said exactly what it was setting out to achieve and, even better, what it was NOT interested in. I remember this being referred to as the company’s goal statement.

The second paragraph would be the broad description of how it might like to go about doing it. What products/services it plans on selling and in so doing, what an ideal customer would look like.

Something like:
RoseGarden provides high quality rose flower arrangements.

RoseGarden will only sell flower arrangements of more than 48 roses at a time, mainly targetting the corporate events sector.

That way, when a prospective client rings up to order 12 roses for his girlfriend, the employee can politely inform him that the business isn’t able to supply what be wants. Then the employee can spend more time chasing the clients the business does want and everyone is happy.

Possibly the client who rang could be referred to the sister company that *does* sell what he wants, if there is a market for it.

Nov

26

User upload system

Filed Under Make it better, Work | Leave a Comment

I am having some problems with a program at work that imports some user supplied files into a database.

What it would look like if it was better is:

The client would be able to go to a web site and send the file(s), one at a time, to the processor page. The page would ask them for the usual credentials and then take them to a work area that showed the last couple of results for files they sent before, so they can see where they are up to.

After clicking ADD FILE they are asked to select the file they want to send and begin the process. If everything is okay, they get a message saying so and the list of “things you have done” has the file added to the list.

If there were errors, the file contents are displayed and the line with the error is highlighted and the particlar field is underlined. Or maybe just the line that has the error is displayed, with a number prefix telling the user where they can find the offending line in their original file.

Either way, the user gets immediate feedback on what happened and they can easily figure out for themselves how to fix any simple errors. If it’s not so simple they can ring us for help and we can see what they did, because every upload and result is stored by the system.

Sep

5

5 days in

Filed Under Making changes, Work | Leave a Comment

So, at the end of the first week I have these things to say:

I can see now that The Company is in dire need of a new direction. I am to be the spearhead of that new direction. This is going to be so cool!

I am having a little bleed over of work into my life but I think that is a symptom of how I used to do self-employed work. I’m striving to keep that under control. Well, I’m trying not to care too much about work stuff after work. The results are great, but I still feel a little dirty purposely not thinking about work outside business hours. Core hours. Such a quaint idea.

The department consists of the Lead Programmer, a Consultant Programmer, a Trainee Programmer and two Indian Programmers. It’s an interesting idea, what The Company has done here. After working for a week, this is my assessment:

So, for the moment, the company pot is quietly simmering along.

Next week I will have a better idea of the management team.