From the desk of the Customer Service Adventures department:
I have to admit, i am of late feeling somewhat slighted at work. I just designed and built an entire intranet for my work, from scratch, all during a few hours here and there when i was “allowed” to do so. It’s comprehensive, it’s modern and standards-compliant, it looks clean and nice, with some tasty flourishes via CSS, and it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen – all by myself. I even had to make do with MS Paint to do some little extra graphics, and the entire f-ing thing was hand-coded in Notepad.
Instead of getting recognized, i got a couple of “hey, that’s really nices” and a lot of flack – for, of all things, taking too much time. Mind you, i created something like 100 pages filled with useful technical and product information in Notepad. I was expected to do it with just a few hours here and there. All in all, i’d say i probably only put about 50-60 hours into the entire thing, from start to finish – and it actually looks really nice and functions exactly as it’s supposed to function. There’s probably something like 3 or 4 MB of hand-coded XHTML and CSS, with just a touch of JavaScript (just to correct an Internet Explorer CSS :hover issue).
I even offered to do it on my own time, out of loyalty to my company, and just because i could have gotten it done about 3 months ago if i had. Yes, it’s taken since late November/early December, because i could only work on it when we had less than 1000 e-mails in our queue, which was extremely rare during and after the holiday season (it’s an online retailer) (actually, we never did have less than 1k during that time – i had to wait until late January/early February to dig it all back up). It’s not really even done now – i really want to go back and update all the old information they already had that i fixed and converted to the new format for them.
I’ve also explained numerous times that if i could just do it in PHP, preferably using a database such as MySQL (both of which are free and secure), i could do it in far less time, as i could set up one template that could handle pretty much all functionality and markup, and just dynamically inject content into it via the links the users click to request information. But no. That would be too much hassle for the IT department to set up (nevermind that i could do the damn thing myself).
And now, instead of a note of thanks or a pat on the back, neither of which i’ve even hinted at requesting, natch, they’re sitting me down and patiently explaining that i need to work less on it, because of budget reasons. No, i’m not getting paid a cent extra – it’s just that i’m no longer working for Brand Y, who pays for it, but am taking Brand X’s time. They bully me and make me feel like somehow, all of the hard work and dedication i’ve put into my work notwithstanding, i’m lazy for doing all that i have done. (Naturally, i won’t be getting a copy of my hard work for my portfolio, even though there’s nothing even remotely top-secret on it.)
Bullshit, honestly.
So I am now officially keeping my eye open for other positions in the area. I need more challenge, and to feel like i’m making an honest difference. My girlfriend will be out of school in a year’s time, and then we can do anything we want to do. Most likely, the Dot Com sector will be more stable and robust by then anyway. I admit i lack schooling, but i lack little else, especially determination, perseverance, and dedication.
