The whole department is composed by me (the programmer/flash/updating person), A web designer (web layouts and desktop publishing) and our art director (the 'leader' of the department). We do jobs for the company's websites and for external clients as well.
My primary job is to update every website we have made every day with news documents I receive etc.
I also update our intranet, deal with server downtime problems (hint, hint, no IT in our department), help customers use their email client, do web design work (when the designer is away) and do all the programming and debugging for the sites we already have or are currently working on. I get a basic salary of 700 euros a month.
I am pretty busy all day dealing with all the above and new challenges that appear and nearly have no time or proper environment to deal with programming complex web applications.
We currently give all CMS, e-shop etc. related works to an external programmer to handle them for us.
Our art director complains that I must learn how to create CMS and use programs like Joomla so we don't have to pay him.
Our art director is a person that just wants the work to be done and take the money, he doesn't do what he was supposed, in fact, he doesn't care. He do designs websites... in Dreamweaver with tables. He uses Flash as well... Flash 4. I've seen some of his external works and they are just awful designed, bloated and search engine unfriendly as he even uses Flash for menus or even text!
I put all my heart to every page I make because it is something I love to do. But he doesn't care.
Of course to survive I also do freelance jobs in most of my free time. In those sites the result gets a lot better because I am a boss of my own work and decide how to do it, so I use only the best. Full CSS/JS, PHP-driven websites.
Lately I have encountered a client who wanted a CMS to update his news and updates page. After a lot of research I decided it was time to learn SQL and do it because more clients will ask for it. So I did and so far it's progressing nicely. I got so excited about this that I want to do every complex site we currently have or going to do with PHP & SQL so to simplify the process of updating. The problem I have is that:
I am not paid enough for the effort I will put into,
The art director will start asking for making CMS for every job I do, even demand it,
My work environment is not exactly what you call programming friendly,
As you read above I am kind of jack-of-all-trades, I have more that enough work to keep me on my toes, so that will mean more headache for me if I reveal that I know SQL,
Also I've asked and learned that none of the previous web developers that came before me knew what I do.
In fact the only things they knew is how to edit sites in Dreamweaver and edit pictures in Photoshop.
I am full of energy and excited when a new project comes up and always tell my art director to do the websites with CSS, use JS libraries for cool effects, optimize the pages and do some SEO and he just says, do whatever you want as long it works, it's in the timeframe, and I can edit it in Dreamweaver.
So what should I do? Tell them I know SQL or keep it for my external jobs only?