just to keep this up to date.. more or less.... -
so,
here we are, almost to the end of the first month of the new year. technically i'm finished my contract at SFU, in reality i'm miles away from actually having the application finished to even remotely my standards...
of course, there are politics, underestimated timelines, dramatic resultant changes from the onset of the contracted project.
i was hired to build a job search board, and a resume wizard, with a few bells and whistles like an events calendar etc.
nothing major.
of course, it is now a full blown set of 5 websites, all functioning as one website, with 15 sub sections, and a multitude of 1400 pages (so far), a database with 140+ tables, as well as stored procedures, triggers, functions etc....
all of which wasn't in the initial build.
but hey, how do you tell administration that what they wanted, and what they thought they wanted aren't the same thing? how do i go about telling them that yeah i did say i could build all this, but i also said you have to keep an eye on your timeline...
cuz lets face it, no one remembers when they hear warnings; especially when its all about putting a feather in their cap.
I'll say this, out of all the companies i've worked for, and all the administrators that i've come across, at LEAST the two here are the closest to realistic when it came to expectations; albiet, they were trapped within their own politics and presentational requirements.
too bad actually; cuz this is the most potent application i've built to date. it is easily the most robust, the most convertible, the most powerful union of management, organization, and user features available on the market to date.
however, the old axioms still apply. Ego and pride over conservative realizations, when it comes to IT projects managed by administration is; as always; far from the mark.
After all, I only receieved the full breakdown of the entire 5 site (single site) setup in November; and that i had to subversively force by making my contact person actually go through and manually input the data for the dynamic navigational array.
which in and of itself, only actually in all reality - created 3 sites; cuz site 3, 4, 5 are exactly the same site; just different banners with only a handful of navigational differences.
I make this mistake everytime though; i build it too quickly and too efficently at the onset, and as soon as everyone can see what i can do, they want what it takes most coders years to build.
cuz now? well, they want a full reporting sharePoint like system, complete with users, groups assignments and seperation of distinct management, and commulative management.
which of course, has nothing to do w/ the entire project.
and well, i'm sitting in this little rowboat all by myself, cuz even though off the record, others agree w/ me about what i was commissioned to do, compared to what i've ended up doing, being so diversely different - there isn't a snowballs chance in hell, that anyone would step up to the plate and admit it, cuz they're afraid of losing their jobs.
amazing isn't it? in this day and age, people still being ruled by fear, when in all reality, standing up and taking point, is and always will be better.
hell i'd rather quit a job then let something go the way it shouldn't or let someone suffer what isn't the case.
but that's me.
so then, i haven't really an idea what to do about this... i tried talking to my contact about it, but my contact is only concerned with whether or not they'll lose their job, when ironically, if they had taken two steps back and one step forward back in august, they wouldn't - none of us would be - where we are now
i mean, i shouldn't have to say for over a month "i'm going to have to completely rebuild the database" perpetually almost everyday and then, have it come as a shock that i'm going to rebuild the database....
of course that was my fault you see, cuz i "misunderstood the intended result of the recruiters" section.... not that my contact had it all figured out until AFTER I built the first version and not like it was even on paper, or storyboarded, or even remotely worked out before then.
i know this cuz the company that was hired to do this prior, didn't and couldn't even provide the "intended result" options, that suddenly came about when i showed that i could do it.
and when it was brought to me as a 'well we always wanted this' option, i explained that yeah sure, but your logic is flawed cuz that isn't how it can work. it can't work that way, you can't have ambiguities in a database, it has to be linearly defined.
but of course, that again is my fault, my misunderstanding.
pride always has a way of preventing people from admitting error, or fault. Ego ego ego, the top thing in the destruction of a project, and the fastest way to kill motivation and ability within the people actually required to do the work.
sigh....
so then, i'm going to finish what i've started. finish and know that it isn't even close to teh level that i'd like it to be, cuz well, it has to be live to accomodate fear. not cuz its better, or good, but cuz people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, not wanting anyone to know that they didn't plan this properly.
quick is never the right answer. sometimes slow and steady wins the race... of course, you can't tell anyone with something to prove to slow down; they'll just get mad and frustrated and look for another mediocre solution...
its all good though. no matter what happens at the end of this, i have enough of an idea of how educational institutions function, to build this as a fully functional component, long before i bring it to anyone to purchase... of course, that will be a good year from now... but still...
slow and steady wins the race; and pride comes before destruction....
Permalink | posted by James Mendham @ 11:33 p.m. |
 
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