General

Day 3 of being unemployed

TehGrumpyCoder — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:14:58 GMT

Spent some time getting my butt kicked by SQLServer2008 R2. I had SQLServer2005 on there and never did really care for the install I had going on that, and I have to believe that’s what part of my problem was because I could not connect to anything useful with the new install.

After a failed attempt at a repair, I finally said screwitall and unistalled both, and reinstalled SQLServer2008 R2. Then I could connect in the manner I thought I should

So I got the AdventureWare database installed and the one from Chapter 2 of Julia Lerman’s EF book installed and I can see both.. and was able to proceed… geez…

I realized I didn’t have the latest version of Blend onboard… oh be quiet… the one I had worked fine the little I had time to be in it! So that all had to come off and the new go on… if I’d have known I was going to be doing this, I could have prepared ahead of time :)

Some more emails for potential work… some contract, some not… nothing in-my-face positive as of yet, I’m thinking with the holiday weekend coming up things are a little slow … yeah that’s it…

More plusses

NSFW lyrics, pictures, or email does not apply because I’m NOT at *W*
Twitter, IM, personal email all open – no net nanny software running to watch/hamper what I do, so contact away… I’m here :)

More Minuses

Had to send the $850 for COBRA today… I only hope the paperwork they have to do is annoying to them :)
This one’s bad – had to look at the calendar on my PC to make sure it was really Thursday :(
Wondering if this goes real long if I’ll keep up the daily… it could get old, we’ll see

So Far

I did 6.5 units of training yesterday: 2 Entity Frameworks, 3 Silverlight, and 1-1/2 Blend, not even taking into account the uninstall/install-arama and sending out emails

Plus I pushed SilverlightCream #939

I checked the wp7dev list at SilverlightCream, and there are now 324 posts tagged out there… that’s a lot of material, and very few have hardware yet… a prolific bunch!

Well, back to training and checking email…

Day 2 of being unemployed

TehGrumpyCoder — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:03:10 GMT

I had to run an errand the morning of Day 1 and returned to find the FedEx paperwork from Minerva.

My benefits ended August 31. I don’t believe I’ve ever worked anywhere that benefits ended the day of… but it also included the COBRA papers and that’s gonna run roughly $850/month starting *now* … a big bite into the reserves to try to extend the money.

Conversation with the HR lady was strained… she was really glad to get off the phone, guess maybe they *do* read my blog – I hope so!

Got an unexpected and pleasant email from a remote dev associate offering me a bit of contract money to help do some test code and documentation… woot… real work, not demo work during training or reading.

And a second unexpected and pleasant phone call from another dev associate wanting to throw some work my way… you guys are going to drag me into this whole contract work thing aren’t you?? … at this point, that all looks great to me and “keep the cards and letters coming in”.

Two more queries responded to, and lots more twitter posts… hope possible employers aren’t believing all the hype in the posts, but I really appreciate all the messages, thanks everyone!

Still making sure my phone is working and checking email…

More Plusses

No problem signing up for the local EF event (with Rob Bagby!) during the afternoon of the 15th – hey look, I’m off that afternoon anyway!… well, if I’m not, that would be cool too :)

More Minuses

A 3-day weekend doesn’t mean a lot when you’ve had 4-1/2 days of not working leading up to it

So Far

5 units of training yesterday: 2 more UnitTest, 2 Lightswitch, 1 Silverlight, and installed SQLServer2008R2 to get the database setup for Ch2 of Julia Lerman’s EF book.

11 units of training in 2-1/2 days… it’s getting there.

Plus I pushed SC #938, and hit 10,000 entries on my tagged links at WynApse.com

Back to training and checking email…

Day 1 of being unemployed

TehGrumpyCoder — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:40:40 GMT

This is officially my first day of being unemployed.

I was off half of Monday and all of yesterday, but my pay ran through the end of August.

I added the graphic on the right to my blog last night. I had a ‘bar napkin’ on there with a nice glass ring, but Shawn Wildermuth suggested it looked like a condom (in the wrapper). I suppose sized down it did, so I changed to this.

Monday was nice with all the notes from everyone, and yesterday started off good with a couple phone interviews. Have not gotten emails back, so maybe those didn’t go well or maybe I’m anxious … ya think?

I’ve got a sign I had in my cubicle: “This ain’t my first rodeo” … and yeah this ain’t the first time I’ve been laid off. The 3rd actually. These guys were really good at wanting me to use my PTO (Paid Time Off) for their deficiencies, so I’d decided ahead of time that if they intended for me to use PTO in any manner during the ‘bridge’ to something else, I was going to just take my vacation time and go. And about 10 minutes after telling them that decision I was gone. All I saw was my boss.. no HR exit, no security debrief (I have a clearance), just give him the badge, shake his hand and go. So that’s done.

Plusses

There are some plusses to not working…

I can wear shorts and TShirts instead of slacks and polo shirts.
I save about $12 per day in gas alone, so I’m $24 ahead already!
I can watch training videos and read books to try to be able to answer the questions I’m always asked in interviews
The refrigerator is close
The bathroom is close
“no shoes/no service” does not apply

Minuses

The whole “you have to work to get paid” thing
Getting up and getting showered and dressed and then remember you’re not going anywhere
Purpose

I’m one of those guys that left to my own, I would build up a huge vacation bank. I’ve worked all my life and enjoy what I do, so I’m somewhat out of sorts when I’m not.

So Far

So far I’ve done 4 units of training on Unit Testing, 1 on MVVM, and 1 on EF.

Plus I’ve put out a SC post, checked my email, fed the dog, checked my email, watered the backyard, checked my email… wash, rinse, repeat.

Back to training and checking email…

Time for another re-invention I think… but what next?

TehGrumpyCoder — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:19:27 GMT

My own very recent personal experience mirrors this blog post:

Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age

So what do I do to deal with that? Looking at Vivek’s advice, item number 1 is to move into management … yikes… I firmly believe that if someone thought I had the chops to be a manager it would have happened 20 years ago… nobody wants to make me a boss, trust me :) besides which, I like coding!

Item 2 sucks… and goes totally against the American Dream of continually moving up… expect to earn less?

And Item 3 is even worse… the implication is that you may not even be able to code in later years… how about this quote: “To be writing code for a living when you’re 50, you will need to be a rock-star developer and be able to out-code the new kids on the block.” … so since I’m writing code for a living at age 62 – WTF does *that* mean?

I consider all ‘re-inventions’ to be versions.

You’re sort of in version 1.0 as you go through K-12, since not everyone goes to college, but if I consider V1.0 to be a continuation of education, then mine took a side-step when I played guitar for a living, drove a truck for a living, and spent 3 years in the Army (70-73)… I think those were probably V2.0 and then actually getting back to school and earning a B.S. and M.S. (Electrical Engineering) probably was V1.5, but we branched the codebase on that one.

So V3.0 was finally hitting the working world as a hardware engineer in January of ‘77. I always did software, so switching completely to software in ‘81 was V4.0 That began yet another progression of Assembler, Pascal, C, then Windows and C++, then I broke out of the large company corporate world for the 3rd time in ‘95 and went with smaller companies doing Windows coding, call that V4.5 since it was still part of the progression.

But then one of the common problems happened… I was happy, doing good stuff, being productive, getting accolades and improving my chops, but I was still doing win32 desktop while all the young guys were learning .NET and the web.

Blam… I find myself out of work in 2005, and I have to very quickly churn out Me V5.0 to support .NET web database apps. This version went out fast… no Unit Tests, no QA, just get the version out the door, so although I’m doing the work, my knowledge is only “work deep”.

But I’m feeling pretty good as I’m hitting my stride on that one… I’m doing WPF/E then Silverlight (all on the side), get MVP (4 times so far), but what I’m doing all day is .NET web database code out to Oracle, Oracle Stored Procs, and MS Access still as a hold-over from when Me V5.0 was released.

Blam… now I find myself not out of work, but out of *that* work and I’m sort of at a loss as to what V6.0 is… or is it V5.5? … I’m too young to be V.Retired.

My company has some design documents they expect me to review while waiting for an embedded C contract to open up… them: “do you know C?” me wondering WTF… “…well, I’ve done C# for 5 years although there’s a guy downtown will swear I don’t know it (reference the post last week about my interview). I did C++ for 10 years prior to that, and oh yeah… so 15 years ago I did a stint in C for a couple years, so yeah… I know C” … embedded C… I’ve been doing UI since 1981… now reference the article at the top of the page.

Is that the ‘suck it up’ point? is V6.0 really sucking up the fact that I’m going to maybe finish off this career by strapping on the WABAC machine and writing embedded C? because how long could I really do that before I wouldn’t be able to get a job doing .NET stuff anymore … but that may be rhetoric based on that last interview anyway.

In some respects I feel my blog has taken up space that could have been filled by really learning more, but at the same time, it’s taken on a life of it’s own and is almost like a 2nd job. I don’t want to abandon that and all the readers, yet there’s only so many hours in the day… and speaking of that, I’ll be driving farther now.

Friday I walked past the courtyard at my client’s facility and there were a couple guys out there drinking coffee and smoking and talking on a break. I thought it would be nice to have a job like that… one that you knew you could work for 30 years and then pack it in… but then I realized the flaw in that whole concept is that I’m not like that… I want to learn new stuff, and keep learning… and that’s what got me into this whole Revolting Development.

Silverlight, WP7, Lightswitch, MVVM, UnitTesting, and on and on… it’s a never-ending stream of knowledge and information. You either pick one and hope you can ride it for as long as you need, or you keep chasing it all and try to hang on. You pays your dime, you takes your chances… or maybe as B.B. King sings “Nobody loves you but your mama, and she might be jivin’ too” … or maybe it’s too late on a Saturday night at the end of a really crappy 2 week run…

But I do know one sure thing… on Monday morning I’ll be driving about 40 miles to an office I don’t know wherethehellitis… to be doing ihavenoclue… or forhowlongitwilllast… and that worries me.

Professional Insult

TehGrumpyCoder — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:29:06 GMT

I’ve worked at the same client for 5 years. I’ve had a really good relationship with the two managers I interface with regularly. Unfortunately, during this ‘dial-down’ situation we’re in, I find myself around the edges of a manager that within days of my arrival in 2005 proved to be someone I had no respect for.

Unless my company pulls a rabbit out of a hat, Friday will probably be my last day, and I can already see the writing on the wall.

His right-hand ‘man’ mandated that the company PC in my cubicle will be transferred to it’s Monday destination on Wednesday of this week. It’s quieter where I sit, and out of the traffic area associated with his folks, and makes no sense. I’m told that having it over there will ‘ensure that nothing is broken before I leave on Friday’ … in other words somehow having me and the PC over there will make sure I don’t tank the software.

They’re also pushing pretty hard on one of the people replacing me to get the code into their version control system ASAP.

There’s some things that just rub me the wrong way and making assumptions that I will do something unprofessional is one.

I’m also expecting a ‘surprise’ perp-walk out of the building shortly after lunch on Friday rather than wait until quitting time.

When shit like this happens, I always assume that the guy mandating it assumes everyone is just like him.

So I’m going in early tomorrow, and when he and his right-hand man show up, I’m going to suggest we just start the dance then…

What a place…

Another attempt at interviewing... sigh...

TehGrumpyCoder — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:35:43 GMT

Well... I should have known better than to try to interview for a new job, but it was a Windows Phone gig... and could have been a career-extender.

Not to even think about the crap that's going on at work right now, this would be a sweet deal.

But... I don't interview well. I've proved that to myself and others multiple times. I work on .NET 2.0 web database software connected to Oracle, Oracle Stored Procs, and Microsoft Access 8 or 9 hours a day. The stuff's not tricky by any means, it's mostly a sort-of DBMS to the data populated by other processes.

So, I don't know the tricky shit about C# or .NET. This is 93 webforms a lot of which were there when I inherited the job and I just don't need all that to do this work. So even though I'm programming C#/.NET most of the day, you can play stump-the-band with me quite easily.

However, how many devs interviewing for a Windows Phone gig know how to build a dynamic query in an Oracle Stored Proc, get the results in an output cursor and then manipulate that into a DataSet that you can bind to a control, huh? huh? ... oh well...

So... I got past the phone interview this time, got all the way to a face-to-face with two guys late on a Friday. Both were very nice. The first is quite a good liar (in the nicest way)... he actually had me convinced while I was there that it was ok that I didn't know much. The second one kept saying "no worries" sort of like you'd tell your kid "no worries, just try again 'CAT, CAT' ... what makes the 'Tuh' sound?"

They validated my parking stub, so at least there was that. Sort of like losing the old Space Quest game and getting the screen that says "Thanks for playing, as usual you've been a real pant-load"

If you think about it, and I *did* mention this to them yesterday... at my age, being able to actually get another job is tricky, so I would not put myself at risk of being out of work unless I thought I could produce the work required, and I can.

I suppose the fat lady actually hasn't sung on this yet, but I swear I can hear her clearing the phlem out of her throat as I type...

Since I mentioned it above, I may as well say what's going on at work... I'm the only .NET dev that works for my company, servicing this contract at my client's facility. It's a big lumbering government outfit. Their customer for this gig is actually paying the freight, and is a couple of the acronym-named government agencies.

Like all large companies, someone got a wild hair and decided they wanted to do something and ran with it. In this case, the finance department decided to get rid of all contractors. That includes me even though the only thing the company covers for me is a crappy chair, a warm room to sit in, a very nice PC, one crappy monitor, and one very nice monitor.

Someone outside the department I work for mandated that I be gone and gutted the hours out of the purchase order... to the point that I came within 1/2 hour of being gone last Tuesday at 4:30 when I got a 'stay of execution' to continue through the 27th. So I have been training my replacements.. yes that is plural.

5 years ago when I walked into the building, a certain gentleman (and I use the term very loosely) told his devs to not support me when I needed assistance in finding information about Manufacturing data coming from a segment of Oracle that I do not have direct access to.

Karma came full circle, jumped up on his desk, and took a nice warm dump about a week ago because he was the lucky winner that got tagged with supporting this project that not only didn't fail without his support, but has flourished. So they have me talking to 3 of his people... one that studied .NET in school, one that may or may not do the Access work because none of them have Access experience, and one that is to do the database work even though the type of things I've asked them questions on (under the covers) over the years, they haven't known the answers to anyway.

It's bad news for the project and the many people that use it because in my opinion it's going to wither away from lack of support.

And me... on the 30th I show up at the office that I haven't been to since October 26th of 2008, and I know for a fact they have no .NET work ... so I'm thinking the plan is for me to work on some embedded C even though I've been doing user interface work for the last 33-1/2 years. I suppose I might also get tagged to help the guys at the other building review design documents... that would be 'fun'. My boss is an ex military colonel and believes the KFC thing about parts-is-parts, so we're all just pluggable entities... I'm a 'programmer', so hey, assign him there.

Honestly, I have no clue what I'm going to do if I really am assigned one of those two jobs... since I don't interview for shit, I may end up the only Silverlight MVP that's working the door at Wal*Mart.

A Bad Day at Work

TehGrumpyCoder — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:47:34 GMT

There's lots of ways of having a bad day at work... I suppose for many people, just being *at* work makes it a bad day, but I happen to be one of those people that found a way to do something I like for a living.

I've always said "if you're not having fun, what's the point?" ... on the latest Zune podcast, they were interviewing someone from the WP7 team and he said ~~they're~~ their (sigh) mantra is "It's not done until it's fun" ... I like that too.

But, even when you're doing what you like for a living, it can get tedious. There were times that I didn't look forward to going out and playing guitar on a Friday or Saturday night, and some nights I was looking at my watch just waiting for it to be over.

Well, that was today... like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" ... the first hour was like a regular hour, but then the rest of the morning was like a day, and the afternoon has been like a week.

I've got a list of stuff I need to get into my head, and it's tough when the highest technology you have during 9 hours of your day is .NET 2.0 and you can only run what IT installed.

I get wrapped around the power take-off reading something and dearly want to write some code to try, but with the state of technology here, it's like trying to teach jazz chords to someone that showed up for their lesson with that stupid plastic guitar from Guitar Hero.

I tried to watch a training video... downloaded it zipped so maybe it wouldn't be noticed like it might if I streamed it. Then nothing on this machine would play the video... dang!

Well, if someone doesn't take me out on the drive tonight or back in tomorrow, maybe it'll be a better day... or maybe I'll d/l a bunch of training videos in a different format, or bring in a decent viewer, or download them to my Zune maybe... that would work.

I suppose at age 61 there are worse things than feeling stifled... for instance, so far I've lived 2 years longer than my father... but at the same time, he's the one that pointed out that in my first letter home from Boot Camp "He's complaining, he's fine"... guess he had my number :)

I think he'd appreciate "Teh Grumpy Coder"

Morning rant - Slacker Students and HOV Violators

TehGrumpyCoder — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Maybe I shouldn't have been up til 12:30 coding last night, because things are pissing me off this morning.

I check in with my class on the morning of the last day (today) and the one student that is a self-proclaimed "experienced programmer" has yet to interact with his team on the paper due at midnight tonight. Maybe he's spending all his time hand-compiling the Week 6 program, because I don't believe he's run the compiler yet on anything. That was obvious in Week 5 when it wouldn't compile, and we're talking *simple* programs in C.

If he plans on playing the system and taking credit for a team paper he didn't contribute to, he should have read MY syallabus. I modify the standard UOP one and add in this disclaimer interleaved with the boilerplate from the syllabus builder: "However, I reserve the right to report different grades for different team members if I see a substantial imbalance in the level of effort put forth." I have no problem giving someone a zero for their zero contribution... so we'll see.

Then there was the a--hole that pulled into the carpool lane in front of me this morning ... hey spanky... that cardboard box on your front seat doesn't count as a passenger unless you blow her up! ... and the reason I was riding your axx was because you were doing 55 in the carpool lane solo where the speedlimit is 65... honestly, you don't have to hold your speed at your IQ... really!

I really think ADOT should be proud of what they've constructed on the 101. I only wish I could make the designers drive it every day with me. There is absolutely no enforcement that I have seen of the carpool lane. People like that mental midget this morning drive in the diamond lane without a care in the world. Or the blonde in the little white car last Friday using the diamond lane like a passing lane. Why not? I drive the 101 a total of about 1-1/2 hours a day and I've NEVER seen a cop pick anyone off for driving solo. When I'm driving by myself, I bet there are 50 cars pass me in the carpool lane that are solo. And yeah that 25 year-old Toyota truck with a ladder hanging out the back is NOT a mixed-fuel vehicle, so don't bring that up!

And one other thing about the genius HOV design... going West on the 101 it's always been a bottleneck where they cleverly have the 51 end up in a single lane of about 1/2 mile of cars having to merge into 3 lanes that's trying to do the speedlimit, but now add to that merriment the fact that those of us that are carpooling have to *somehow* merge into that freakin' mess just before the 51... so there's some rocket scientist involved in that design that I'd like to give a round of applause to... or make him drive the 101 West every night. Half my commute is spent between the bottleneck at the 51 and the house ... and that's about 1/4 of the distance... sigh!

How about enforcing the carpool lane? I found this site: HOV Violation Fines, and if that's right, $354 X 50 would be $17700 (at least) in the first day especially for a cash-strapped state, plus numb-nuts from this morning would get 3 points on his license.

Well, the Excedrin is kicking in, so gotta get some work done...

Feeling like the two of Clubs re:Peanuts

TehGrumpyCoder — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:20:16 GMT

With everyone talking about their flights to LA to go to PDC, I'm feeling a little under-appreciated here. I remember a couple years ago I saw a T-Shirt that read "PDC - because I'm worth it". So does that mean "Not at PDC - because I'm not worth it"? -- lol

It's just one of those days/weeks/months ... is it the whole year?? But sometimes the weight of 'producing' every day can get to you. Engineering, for me, isn't like a job that I learn a task then do it for 30 years, go home, put my feet up on the coffee table and have Princess bring me a beer. So you chase down the technology, and sometimes you guess wrong and chase the wrong thing. It may be fun, and even fulfilling, but not lead toward a good career choice.

There's only so many hours in the day, and only so many things you can cram into that, and when 7AM to 6PM is involved with transit and the work that keeps the roof over your head and allows you to eat, that only leaves (for me) from 5:30 AM to about 6:30AM, and from maybe 7 to 9 or 10 PM, ocassionally midnight, and that assumes no time spent with family.

I tried to find the peanuts cartoon for today. The online one is not the one that was in the morning paper. I don't know the characters but the one is telling the teacher:

"No, Ma'am, I'm not happy.. I feel ignored."
"I raise my hand, but you never call on me, Don't I mean anything?"
"What am I, the two of clubs?"

The two of clubs indeed!

Fugly code

TehGrumpyCoder — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:20:58 GMT

OK... particularly fugly code... wow.

I'm about 2/3 of the way refactoring this huge beast of an application. I'm pulling SQL out of the code behind and putting it into the database layer. I'm using StringBuilder to avoid the loooooong chained together strings they used. Anything possible, I'm pushing to Oracle.

But some of the worst is the client-side code. Multiple times I've found 60 or 80 non-breakable spaces to move something to the right! Data entry forms with 6 rows of data to fill out, and when I try to fix up the UX, things blow up and I find a label that's only in there to space something out... sigh.

I've mentioned some of this before, but today's challenge is a 6-row form that's not-exactly orthogonal in it's layout. Of course I didn't really notice that until I started working on it. The reason it's not lined up both horizontally and vertically is because it's a table cell of a set width, and all 6 display rows are just non-breakable space-separated elements that wrap and make up the display ... seriously!

I missed out on classic ASP, and came in on the tail-end of .NET 1.1, but I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be advisable in either of those, and it's a total Pain in the A$$ to straighten out.

Just thought I'd share ... at least I know what I'm going to be doing all morning!