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that would be quite unethical wouldn't you agree
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No, I wouldn't.
If you hire someone at an hourly (or daily, or weekly) rate, and give him insufficient information to produce exactly what you want, then it is your fault that what he produces is not what you wanted.
The alternative is for him to sit on his hands until you do provide the information while you pay him, and that is unethical - particularly if he doesn't know the info even exists.
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harold aptroot wrote: I<layer>t's the sort of thing that requires 5 years of training just to use it, let alone modify the code.
Sounds like IBM's Websphere.
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As an intern, you have an opportunity to grow your skill set, show your worth and document something that was previously undocumented.
Also, since you are a member of CodeProject you have an interest in writing code.
Take the high road, do the best job you can do, and learn from the experience.
Others have, and will, tell you to run... face adversity in the face and push forward.
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Grow my skill set? Show my worth? I think this is an other job that you're talking about here.. one that I might like to have.
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Dealing with some level of stupid/insane is part of any job. It sounds like your internshipenslavement will be earning you advanced certification in it. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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If you are working at a place where you don't like it, unless you know the situation will change or you can move to a better position, then leave the company. It is that simple. If you want/need to find something else before leaving, that is some you should consider.
Otherwise, I also think you should try to improve yourself with what was given to you. By doing that, it will be their loss when losing you if they don't value your skills.
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
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Experience is always worth something, even if the experience is torture.
I say hang in there, you'll have a better resume at the end. Since you're an intern they really shouldn't be expecting much, and you haven't got much to lose. It sounds like they want you to do a salaried programmer's job while being paid as an intern and that sucks, but it's a stepping stone to something better. You may as well take advantage of the opportunity to gain experience, even if it's a pretty lousy opportunity.
Having said that, as soon as you can find a real salaried job get the hell out of there.
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While I was in school, I was contacted by the local branch of a corporation. Between my "internship" job, and getting married, I ended up quitting school (bad move resume wise, but it's worked ok for me).
When I finally left their sorry butts, I was shocked to see I'd spent 9 years there. After I quit in September, I ended up making more from them in the rest of the year (as an outside contractor) than my previous annual salary.
I did the consulting thing for them and others for a few years, and because of too many details to get into here (mostly involving money and insurance), I ended up back working for them directly.
After an initial period where they allowed me to fix all the things my replacements had broken, we proceeded to race as to whether they were going to fire me (I was a troublemaker), or I was going to quit for another 10 years. Finally, they blinked and gave me my severance package a few months before closing the division.
I value the experience greatly. As some have stated, it taught me to deal with any insane politics I can ever encounter. Also, when starting my other businesses I'm in now (programming, direct mail, antiques, etc), it has been an invaluable guide to business.
All I have to do is ask myself "If my former company were faced with this situation, what would they do?"
I then do the exact opposite of that. Works really well.
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Perhaps you might take this as an opportunity to develop a translation tool and either use a computer language you already love or one that you have been wanting to learn.
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I have several wonderful programs I use every day that were developed this way. Some fool asked me to do some silly thing. I took the opportunity to make a more general purpose tool, and viola, I have a product.
Of course you have to be careful of invention agreements and non-dosclosures. When they gave me the invention agreement (short version, "we own everything, even if you make it on your own time"), I took their cover page and proceeded to write my own, which I signed. It was still fair. Anything they paid me to make was theirs. Anything else (which included a laundry list of specific tools, libriaries, etc), was mine.
One thing about learning about all these formats, you'll be the expert in the field. Once/if you leave, they will be calling you for years with questions and work requests (whether you consider that good or bad has to factor into your decision).
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Sounds to me like your mind is already made up and you are just looking for folks to support your decision. I for one won't do that. I'd be willing to bet that most of those who've replied to your post have "done their time in the trenches". It's part of any profession. I don't understand the mindset of kids these days...you don't start out as the CEO driving the Porsche and getting 2 and a half hour lunch breaks. You work your way up to that, and it takes a LONG time!! Either put in your time there, or quit whining and go find something else. Nuff said.
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harold aptroot wrote: Frankly I'm getting ready to leave the profession entirely.
I'm there too, but need to still pay some bills. And alimony.
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harold aptroot wrote: Instead, they want me to create something that converts some arcane XML format
(CAMT053) to an undocumented XML format they use internally. Ok, sure,
arcane to undocumented, perfectly doable, given enough time.
At least in the US the position you described is specifically intended for a limited audience so if equivalent then you should fit the demographic for what they want anyways.
The point of such jobs for the employee is to get actual experience doing something involving code. It isn't supposed to be exciting, cutting edge, fun, and well paying because those jobs are reserved for people who have real experience. The employee gets some experience and the company gets good press and cheap labor for a task that should be done but only because it is on someone's wish list.
It is also intended to be short term. So moving to another 'intern' type position is expected.
Now all of the above presumes that you really fit the target demographic. If not then you shouldn't take it and they shouldn't have offered it to you in the first place.
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I have been in a similar situation like you. I had 4 years experience in industrial automation (programming PLC's and human machine interfaces). I was bored of that programming because it was very 'low level' and I wanted to program some high level stuff in C# or java. So I changed my job into finance. My then new employer wouldn't let me code for 100% but told me that I would have to learn a lot in advance. I was promised to be allowed to code 50% of my time and do customer support and system administration the other 50%... Well in the end it was 100% support and admin.
After a year and a half I was at the point you seem to be right now.
I talked to my boss and asked for more money (which I got) and that I liked to code 100% of my time (I already knew I could code and did not have to prove me any longer). His last words during our conversation were:
"You know, I once learned a very important thing on a management seminar:
Love it,
change it,
or leave it."
I was knocked over by the clarity in this.
I could not love this. I had that clear. After thinking about this a few days I figured out that I was actively trying to change it since a year or so. Then the last option was leaving - which I did two month later.
I am now having a job were I can program 100% of my time and do it the way I like (TDD, scrum team, nice pair programming partners, etc.). It is not all perfect here and some tasks are just boring but I guess that's the same with every job.
There is one thing I could have done better: Find a coding job in a field that really interests me in a non coding way. For example: I like aviation and music but I am working in the renewable energy sector currently. I could have done even better by finding a job in one of the above fields.
My advice: Don't leave the profession entirely. Find a company that does something that you would like to do when creating your own company and then get a job there.
If you do so, doing work that isn't cool (like that xml conversion stuff) is not that bad at all because it is for the "higher goal" of your company that you also share.
Regards,
cmger
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Sounds like an awesome opportunity to develop something in F# (my new favourite language) 
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No, not all programming jobs are like that. Some are worse:
- Revising an undocumented 250,000 line FORTRAN 66 program (it analyzed neutron scattering patterns) that arrived on your desk without documentation;
- Finding the deadlock that causes an MVME-147 SBC and an obsolete vector processor to spin in place, each waiting for the other to release its hold on shared memory;
- Finding the error in a large microcode program for a proprietary device (whose author isn't just unavailable; he's dead) that causes the VAX it's installed in to machine-check and halt hard.
(Yes, I've had to do all those things.)
There's always something worse, and Murphy's Law as applied to the programming trade -- it's a trade, not a profession, but that's a tirade for another time and place -- guarantees that if you moan that "nothing could be worse than this," you'll learn better on your own hide.
Software can be fun, but it can also be pretty dreary. Maintenance and obsolescence being inexorable facts of the deal, the dreary parts can outweigh the fun ones for long stretches of time. That's one of the reasons why most software people do their best to escape the "hands-on" part of their occupation by age forty. Those who succeed find, to their sorrow, that there are even worse things than the worst of software jobs: for example, wearing a suit and tie and spending forty hours a week attending meetings and reading and writing reports.
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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No not every job is like that. People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers. And at the moment my managers are Congress and Security, no matter what my supervisor says. So you could have a job in which you don’t know if you will be paid and when you are, whether you will get a full paycheck or one that is only 80% (though deductions are calculated at 100%). And every day you lose a new privilege for security reasons, like using the command prompt two days ago. Technical web sites were blocked a year ago and even some of the other military web sites in the same branch of the military are blocked.
Your problem is typical, none or intentionally wrong documentation, management that won’t read past the verb in the first sentence, illogical and conflicting policies, political backstabbing, budgets that cut training first in a highly dynamic and changing industry. All signs that those that can, do. While those that can’t are promoted into management.
Find the folks that keep their head down and keep the business working notwithstanding what management does. It’s a skill that will keep you out of management.
If you want the money, learn to be a politician. But given your reaction, you probably don’t want to go into management. Management acts this way in all fields, more in others. The problem in the IS field is that computers can’t deal with the mistakes of management and that magnifies the problem. Welcome to the interface between the real world and the world of logic.
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I understand completely. Last week I told them I'm retiring (I'm only 55). I wanted to work another 5 years or so but I just can't stand engineering any more.
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I'm inclined to say to give it a try. Other than the initial pain and potential political baggage, this is a win for your career all around.
1. There will always be a niche market for translating data between legacy systems and modern systems. The nastier the project the more you "real world" experience you gain.. Because lets face it, the real world is can be stranger than fiction.
2. because of this niche skill set, the market value of your work could be incredible.. Finding devs for Translating EDI data is dime a dozen.. But legacy undocumented data transaction on proprietary systems is something no 4 year degree can get.
3. To further points 1 and 2. you can also put yourself in a position where you can be an asset and in some cases shield yourself from the bureaucratic crap.. It's their mess and they are ultimately paying you to keep it in the closet. Be the rock star and you could hold the cards come review time. Worst case you move on to greener pastures and they still call you to fix stuff as a contractor and you set the price.
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Oh yeah, I used to work there. Before attempting to convert to SGML (far as I know they never succeeded in converting the older documents, just creating new ones) they had 50+ conversion filters because the text editors could not do anything consistently and would not go back over their formatting to correct it. Leaving it to the IT department to write a new conversion filter before they could load the data.
Maybe I'm thinking of some place else...
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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I was intrigued what this format was. Seems there is nothing arcane about CAMT053 - just an XML format for bank statements - version I googled was dated this year, the something ought to be some XSL. As for the undocumented format there must be at least an example otherwise how is this possible?
Newsflash - this is a typical programming job.
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I wish my job was this easy.
As long as you explicitly tell your bosses in writing that you can't guarantee the compatibility of an undocumented format you're covered. Just make the code easy to modify the format by encapsulating the XML doc in its own class so that's the primary thing that might need modification.
In the jobs I've been working my bosses want impossible things... "If I think it, it can be programmed".
I've been doing software for almost 40 years and it's just getting worse every day. Just look at Obamacare for a really good example of the mentality today.
modified 17-Apr-22 21:01pm.
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Not all programming jobs are like this
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Unfortunately, in the United States today, most developer positions are similar to what you describe.
Every now and then you find a really great company to work in but a single bad manager hiring can reduce an entire department to ashes...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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