Day 1 of my I.T. Career: Welcome to the Job, Young Man!
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Oh, I can remember that crisp October day of 1998 so well. So eager to make a good impression was I that I arrived at work at 7:30 AM. I had experienced success at I.T.I., but this was the big time….the big show. It was time to knock their socks off and show them what I could do. It’s amazing how disillusioned a person can be regarding the quality of his/her 9 month education when a $22,000 price tag is attached.
It’s funny how most of us walk into a job assuming that our boss is somewhat knowledgeable of the business and will guide us down the path to success. I was quickly struck by the stench of ignorance. Within 10 minutes of arriving, my boss gave me my first task. She stated that she had a meeting the following afternoon and was to present three sample software applications: a single-tier application, a two-tier application (client/server), and a three-tier application (client/server with a dedicated database server).
I was familiar only with the single-tier design, but I was up for the challenge. I thought that my best approach would be to find a well written book that could guide me along. My search began on Amazon.com. It was great. Within 30 seconds on the site, I found a listing for a book with a 5 star review. As I read the first post, I began to fill with enthusiasm. The poster wrote about the book in glowing terms, stating that it made the development of multi-tier applications fun and easy. I was on cloud 9 until I reached the final statement of the post….”by following the techniques outlined in the book, I was able to get a multi-tier application up and running in less than 6 months”….6 MONTHS? I barely had 6 hours. I thought that there must be some kind of mistake. How could my boss possibly ask me to deliver this in less than a day?
It turned out that my boss was somewhat of a procrastinator. The task had been on her plate for some time but decided to wait until the last possible moment to look at it. After subsequent conversations with a couple of co-workers, I learned that our company had a large team of developers building a multi-tier system for the state of New York. They had been working on it for months and had been experiencing tremendous difficulty.
I communicated this information to my boss and the request was subsequently withdrawn…..as was my boss within a matter of weeks.
It’s funny how most of us walk into a job assuming that our boss is somewhat knowledgeable of the business and will guide us down the path to success. I was quickly struck by the stench of ignorance. Within 10 minutes of arriving, my boss gave me my first task. She stated that she had a meeting the following afternoon and was to present three sample software applications: a single-tier application, a two-tier application (client/server), and a three-tier application (client/server with a dedicated database server).
I was familiar only with the single-tier design, but I was up for the challenge. I thought that my best approach would be to find a well written book that could guide me along. My search began on Amazon.com. It was great. Within 30 seconds on the site, I found a listing for a book with a 5 star review. As I read the first post, I began to fill with enthusiasm. The poster wrote about the book in glowing terms, stating that it made the development of multi-tier applications fun and easy. I was on cloud 9 until I reached the final statement of the post….”by following the techniques outlined in the book, I was able to get a multi-tier application up and running in less than 6 months”….6 MONTHS? I barely had 6 hours. I thought that there must be some kind of mistake. How could my boss possibly ask me to deliver this in less than a day?
It turned out that my boss was somewhat of a procrastinator. The task had been on her plate for some time but decided to wait until the last possible moment to look at it. After subsequent conversations with a couple of co-workers, I learned that our company had a large team of developers building a multi-tier system for the state of New York. They had been working on it for months and had been experiencing tremendous difficulty.
I communicated this information to my boss and the request was subsequently withdrawn…..as was my boss within a matter of weeks.
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