[RANT WARNING] Should I stay or should I go?
Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:18 am
I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this matter cos its driving me absolutely mad.
Further to my "I don't think I want to be a web developer anymore" comment in viewtopic.php?p=336381#336381 I've realised 90% of the reason I want to jack it all in is because of one particluar client. I may have mentioned them before.
6 months ago three guys approached us about an ebay style venture for the scaffolding industry (!), coupled with a jobs/recruitment site for construction companies to hire workers through. By the time they'd spoken to the company I work for however, they'd bought two $50 php scripts, one set for an auction site, one for a job listing site and they'd hired someone to try and tie them together to make one wonderful site. At first I didn't understand why the first developer quit (actually, he/she didn't officially quit, I think they just gave up responding to the client until they decided to move the job elsewhere) but now I definately do!
First of all, the two off the shelf systems do nothing like what the clients really want. They don't want an auction, they want a classified ads system, so a few modifications later and thats what we've made the auction script do, (but remember, underneath its still an auction script). The jobs site is diabolical. Submitting a CV should be just a question of uploading a text file surely, but I've just spent half an hour going through a 6 screen process of writing a resume, with many redundant fields that were compulsory to the system but irrelevant to a scaffolder. Although the auction script uses an array of strings to switch between languages, the job script does not, and I keep finding hardcoded sections of english that don't make sense! The system also expected employers to "pre-pay" to use the site - i.e they put £10 into their account and then spend it on posting ads, rather than "pay as you post", so that took a bit of reworking.
Anyway, back in June I had a week to investigate the system before meeting with the client. I advised my boss who advised the clients that the whole thing was best custom built from scratch as it didn't meet their needs. The clients responded with "no lets continue tweaking these two scripts until its completely working". I spoke to my boss privately and expressed my concerns that the system would never completely work. The original scripts were badly written ; the modifcations the first developer tried to make had made the system even more unstable.
2 months into my involvment with the project, at my appraisal I was asked if there was anything I was unhappy about regarding my work for the company. I said this project, because the client was essentially flogging a dead horse. I would be embarrassed to let the public loose on the site, especially as the clients planned to make it a subscription service. My boss replied that although he agreed, it was a good little earner for the company, because the client would keep pouring their money into getting me to tweak it further and further. I meanwhile get to become more and more frustrated with them.
So here we are 6 months later. The site is a year over due (The clients first tried to launch it in Jan 2005 prior to our involvement) and surprise surprise it they're still finding problems with it! Astonishingly they're still finding new problems in places they hadn't even asked me to work on yet, which means its either down to the original code or tweaks from the first developer. The clients have probably spent enough for me to have rebuilt half of the system properly from scratch.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't worked solidly on this all that time, but its like a black cloud hanging over me. Its never going to be signed off and complete because it was designed wrong in the first place. It's making me depressed. I have considered resigning over this because leaving my job is the only way to be rid of the client!!! Am I being melodramatic?
I want to take pride in the work that I do and all this does is get me frustrated and takes me away from more important projects.
So what do I do? My boss isn't going to take the project away from me. As the sole web developer here theres no one to give it to! (a whole different reason for me wanting to leave) Should I look for a new job?
BTW: I was working on the site yesterday and saw that the client plans to charge users £120 a year to use it!!!
Further to my "I don't think I want to be a web developer anymore" comment in viewtopic.php?p=336381#336381 I've realised 90% of the reason I want to jack it all in is because of one particluar client. I may have mentioned them before.
6 months ago three guys approached us about an ebay style venture for the scaffolding industry (!), coupled with a jobs/recruitment site for construction companies to hire workers through. By the time they'd spoken to the company I work for however, they'd bought two $50 php scripts, one set for an auction site, one for a job listing site and they'd hired someone to try and tie them together to make one wonderful site. At first I didn't understand why the first developer quit (actually, he/she didn't officially quit, I think they just gave up responding to the client until they decided to move the job elsewhere) but now I definately do!
First of all, the two off the shelf systems do nothing like what the clients really want. They don't want an auction, they want a classified ads system, so a few modifications later and thats what we've made the auction script do, (but remember, underneath its still an auction script). The jobs site is diabolical. Submitting a CV should be just a question of uploading a text file surely, but I've just spent half an hour going through a 6 screen process of writing a resume, with many redundant fields that were compulsory to the system but irrelevant to a scaffolder. Although the auction script uses an array of strings to switch between languages, the job script does not, and I keep finding hardcoded sections of english that don't make sense! The system also expected employers to "pre-pay" to use the site - i.e they put £10 into their account and then spend it on posting ads, rather than "pay as you post", so that took a bit of reworking.
Anyway, back in June I had a week to investigate the system before meeting with the client. I advised my boss who advised the clients that the whole thing was best custom built from scratch as it didn't meet their needs. The clients responded with "no lets continue tweaking these two scripts until its completely working". I spoke to my boss privately and expressed my concerns that the system would never completely work. The original scripts were badly written ; the modifcations the first developer tried to make had made the system even more unstable.
2 months into my involvment with the project, at my appraisal I was asked if there was anything I was unhappy about regarding my work for the company. I said this project, because the client was essentially flogging a dead horse. I would be embarrassed to let the public loose on the site, especially as the clients planned to make it a subscription service. My boss replied that although he agreed, it was a good little earner for the company, because the client would keep pouring their money into getting me to tweak it further and further. I meanwhile get to become more and more frustrated with them.
So here we are 6 months later. The site is a year over due (The clients first tried to launch it in Jan 2005 prior to our involvement) and surprise surprise it they're still finding problems with it! Astonishingly they're still finding new problems in places they hadn't even asked me to work on yet, which means its either down to the original code or tweaks from the first developer. The clients have probably spent enough for me to have rebuilt half of the system properly from scratch.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't worked solidly on this all that time, but its like a black cloud hanging over me. Its never going to be signed off and complete because it was designed wrong in the first place. It's making me depressed. I have considered resigning over this because leaving my job is the only way to be rid of the client!!! Am I being melodramatic?
I want to take pride in the work that I do and all this does is get me frustrated and takes me away from more important projects.
So what do I do? My boss isn't going to take the project away from me. As the sole web developer here theres no one to give it to! (a whole different reason for me wanting to leave) Should I look for a new job?
BTW: I was working on the site yesterday and saw that the client plans to charge users £120 a year to use it!!!