Monday, July 31, 2006

Camping

Bill's Rock Balancing
Bill's Rock Balancing,
originally uploaded by b3ardman.
I like camping.
I also like my SDL (past + present) buddies.
So, this past weeked proved to be most pleasurable, as I managed to do both.
Walking, beer and food all featured. As well as stone balancing and general tom-foolery.
Strangely, I think bouncing down the edge of Kinder Scout fixed my knee. Hooray.
Back to work today. Bum.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

All I want is a job where I don't feel like I'm compromising myself everyday.

So, I was offered a job, good pay, good benefits, but simply too far away.
Then, yesterday at interview, I failed to sell the non-technical side of my skills, and so failed to get a job nearer home.
It's the second part that I'm most fed-up about. I didn't have a job specification before the interview, and then, at the interview, they didn't really explain that the job would involve customer interaction, so I went all technical on them, and totally missed the target with the other side of the job, which I didn't even know existed.
I'm really hating my job at the moment. Everything I do is a fucking hack. Hack this, hack that. I'm a bit worried I'll forget how not to hack.
Fuck it. fuck fucky fuck fuck.
Time to put the CV on monster again, to hell with it.


Friday, July 21, 2006

2 job interviews, no job

Not because I didn't do well at interview (one have already come back indicating they're putting the final touches on a proposal), but simply because they're not right for me.
One, which seems like I might do well there is simply too far away (would require 1h15m drive, hence £++s on travelling, and less reading time). The manager seems to have a flexible attitude to working hours, even if the official company line difers, and when I had to give an inprotu presentation on something technical (they asked me to tell them something about SQL Server 2005, so I told them about Report Services), they seemed like they were actually thinking about how & where they could use it. It's a shame it's so far away, and they'd mentioned outsourcing things to India previously (although I think they got burned).
The other one is for an online games (read 'gambling-lite')(or should that be 'gambling-zero'?) company in Manchester. Seemed ok, although they stumbled when I asked about Test Driven Development (seemed to have looked at NUnit, but not grasped the nettle). No benefits (no pension, minimum holiday), and the £££s didn't seem to compensate for that. Had a bit of an argument with the agency guy about what he'd told me beforehand, but I think it's best left alone. Why do companies forget that employees are people, with wants and needs?
I've got another interview next week, where there's more benefits ( 25 days hols + 8 stats, Stake holder pension, subsidised Gym membership just up the road & bonus scheme payable upon individual performance), which is always good. Not read the job spec yet, but it's closer to home, which is always good.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Back buttons on webpages.

Don't do it. You know it's wrong.

My browser has a back button, so I don't need one on your webpage. Give me bread crumbs, help me see where in your site I am, but back buttons don't work.

Either they go to the page's referrer, or to the last page in the browser history (should be the same, but not always). How pointless is that? If I come to one of your pages from outside your site and the best you can do is send me back to where I came from, then frankly you're not trying hard enough.

So, pull your socks up and decide how you want me to navigate your site. Either that, or I'm going somewhere else.