Two weeks ago, I started a new job working on a GIS web portal. Right now, I'm running through QA testing, oh joy, oh rapture, take me now. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FREAKING BORED IN MY LIFE!!!
On occasion, I get to write some code. It's funny, I was hired because I knew how to program C# using the features of .Net, and I had some experience with the eXtreme Programming methodology, which they are transitioning to (from what, I don't know, maybe CBTSOYP).
Transitioning to XP, my ass. They are flat out RESISTING it. Absolutely NO pair programming. Tasks are assigned, not volunteered. Strangely, we ARE doing the morning standup meetings. Almost no unit testing, and certainly no test driven development. I wrote a single class the other day and quadrupled the number of unit tests in the entire project, and it wasn't a large class (it handled adding and retrieving URLs from a DB). And yet, they find themselves with the problems that XP is meant to prevent (breaking large portions of functionallity when refactoring, ensuring that components integrate properly, etc), and wonder why.
(I need to cut this short, at work *right now*)
Some of you have probably already read "wasting time, but getting paid for it, so it's okay". So you'll know that little bit of code that I got to write is basically 50% wasted. I can reuse the DB code, since it's essentially the same data, I can reuse the data retrieval module (thankfully, that's the class that quadrupled the number of tests). But I have to completely rewrite the UI and the business logic, and add on top of that an RSS aggregator. Oh, did I mention that our "client" stipulates that we cannot use any OSS of any kind? (not that *I* mind, but I think the VP won't like the fact that I'm going to have to spend a few days reimplementing something that could be just dropped in).
I went to Miami, Florida to visit a friend and just generally party for 5 days. It was great, I took pictures.
I've gotten no work on projects done since starting this new job. It's about an hour drive to and from work, so by the time I get home I just want to eat, relax, and get to bed by 10pm so that I can get up at 5am and start over again. I hope it doesn't stay like this.
My flipping computer died. I think it's the hard drive. Luckily I keep all my docs on the secondary drive. And I don't have any money... I still need to buy a car and pay off my student loans. Someone kill me now.
I suffered that for a couple of years before finding somewhere closer to home. Hope you can keep it up :-) It was my first games industry job so I don't regret it but wouldn't like to do it again.
ukdm