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Hi, my story with the Norton is, I live very close to the Brooklands circuit in Weybridge Surrey in the UK, and spent a lot of my schoolboy days going to watch older friends race motorbikes ( Triumphs, Nortons etc... ) and was a member of the VMCC club so you had to have an old bike if you wanted to participate in their events - I still have three bikes, a F4 750 MV Augusta, VFR 750 ( 1990 ) and the Norton but don't ride much these days , old age and lethargy being the main culprits - I hope you find what you're looking for.
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Dear CP forum people,
I'm stuck in a bit of a rut and looking for some outside perspective from other developers.
So I've been working for this company for about 9 months (remote) and have been doing some level of tech support and product installation with the understanding that I would be doing this until I have a solid understanding of the product. Well this isn't true so much anymore and now this is an indefinite thing because I need to be available as an alternate to the other 2 tech support\deployment folks. I've been screwing up pretty bad on the tech support side as I have a really hard time with doing tech support and coding combined and have an even harder time doing arbitrary processes related "things" for the sake of doing them instead of trying to improve them and streamline. The situation has gotten to the point where I do very little actual coding from week to week if not after hours.
I have made a number of suggestions throughout the course of my time at this company on ways we could cut down as a whole on install\deployment if we automate the software deployment workflow and simplify some things about the UX for ease of product usage instead of writing a ton more documentation and throwing more Tech Support at it. I've made suggestions about this for quite some time but it doesn't seem like I'm really getting anywhere and I spend more time worrying about tech support related issues than anything else. Much of it comes from them being a company that had 1 programmer who was the CTO and part-owner up until now and this person has largely been unfamiliar with any architectural design or good programming practices. (i.e. lots of copy paste and single letter variables, deploys via windows form app and lots of copying and pasting in vb.net 2.0 up until recently )
The biggest reasons for me wanting to stay are that I have more time with my daughter by working from home, the hours are not bad, the pay is good and that I've hopped around a good bit,sometimes as a contractor and sometimes not, for about once a year up until now and I'm really not trying to be labeled a "flight risk" either. I'm trying to stick it out but I'm not sure I see things getting better.
I do love what I do when what I do is software development and design. More specifically, creating or improving software systems in ways that make life easier for developers, customers and co-workers. I see a lot of potential for doing that in this job but given the current constraints and maybe my instability to provide a convincing argument for doing just that I'm not sure I will ever actually be doing it.
But maybe no one is ever really happy with work and I'm silly for thinking otherwise.
modified 17-Oct-14 18:03pm.
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1. Never stop looking for the next job.
2. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.
Keep your job, do your best, don't give up. If something better appears with the same benefits of this job, but better use of your skills GREAT! If not, enjoy that you have an income and time with your daughter, and wait for that better situation to appear.
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Agreed. I would also add.
3. Don't talk bad about a job using your real name, if there is any chance someone at said company might see it.
However I do hope it works out for the OP.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
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Yeah I didn't realize I had my name up here.
If anyone i guess maybe the other developer at the company but I think he falls into the dark matter dev category so.... probably not.
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musicm122 wrote: probably not
Hopefully. 
And I hope things improve for you.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
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Thanks for the feedback. It was much appreciated. Its all to easy for me to have another gig though. Like most devs I get the recruiters calls and email a few times a month. The temptation is there but, I'd imagine those jobs wouldn't be a whole lot better. Especially not for the remote work situation.
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Pualee wrote: 1. Never stop looking for the next job.
2. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.
Honestly, this is some of the absolutely best advice ever.
It means: Always be learning, growing, ready to move forward.
Yet, always consider the fact that having a job and the ability to support yourself and your family is the most important thing of all (in career).
Great summarization of the everything you need to know for business.
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Life's short do what makes you happy!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 Beta
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Well I'm doing what makes me happy on the side anyway.. Making a game. But its not the sorta thing I expect to make enough to live off of anyway.
My wip game stuff[^]
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Awesome stuff, who knows you may be the next great game designer/programmer?
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 Beta
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Awwwww.... I am but a small fish in a huge pond as far as GameDev but thank you for the compliment. But I do enjoy the heck out of it anyway.
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musicm122 wrote: My wip game stuff[^]
Why is the Jill of the Jungle theme stuck in my head, now?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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musicm122 wrote: I'm doing what makes me happy on the side
That's the way it goes.
If you're fortunate enough to be able to support yourself off of a career that still affords you the ability to have down-time to do things that you want to do, then you are very fortunate indeed.
We always have dreams of supporting ourselves from the exact thing we love, but it is often unrealistic and it often compromises the the things we love anyway.
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First, the relevant and shameless plug for a blog entry of mine: Selling Ideas to Management[^]
If possible, try to focus some of your streamlining energy towards the tech support side of your job. You will need to make time to gradually improve the process heavy workflow as you can, as well as make improvements to the software that cause continual tech support headaches.
The way I see it, you are in a perfect position to learn what the customer really wants rather than guessing, and writing software dictated by some marketing research. This sort of experience will be invaluable to you as you progress in your career.
If you don't get to code nearly as much as you would like, and you are not overloaded with hours from your current job, create a hobby project, or contribute to an open source project that could benefit from your talents.
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Paul M Watt wrote: The way I see it, you are in a perfect position to learn what the customer really wants rather than guessing, and writing software dictated by some marketing research. This sort of experience will be invaluable to you as you progress in your career.
I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess I'm in a good position to level up UX and my general user interactions. Nice article by the way. I think I'll read over it again before the next time I think about talking to management about improvements. You totally had me pegged in the opening scenario. I guess, for me, what it boils down to is that I will just have to make the time for the things I think will make a difference.
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Thanks for the compliments.
musicm122 wrote: You totally had me pegged in the opening scenario.
I think this has happened to many people.
I played this game for 4 years at a company until I realized that we were becoming more and more successful, and they would never schedule time for the quality refactoring I was asking for. I also realized, that I could find time to to make those adjustments gradually. So that's what I did.
At the company I work for now, we have a yearly request of R&D ideas, and they fund the best ideas. As I put together my ideas, most of them we quality related. That's when a colleague pointed out to me that the R&D committee is looking for "value add" proposal's.
That's when it clicked for me.
Regards
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Perhaps you can start with something small where you can prove that you end up saving time and money.
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Thats a pretty good idea. I could whip out an installer for patch gen updates or something like that pretty easy.
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My suggestion, my opinion, been in your shoes before...
If you have one iota of an inkling to leave, then leave. You will never go anywhere in this business, without moving up and broadening your horizons, and wallet.
Always move up, never laterally. Always move up in pay, never take a new job for the same pay.
Follow you dreams and you and your family will go far.
I am extremely happy with my work and I make very good money. I provide very well for my family now. I didn't start off on easy street. I had to work my ass off, but my hard work and learning from the best around me, paid off.
Good luck.
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Slacker007 wrote: Always move up, never laterally. Always move up in pay, never take a new job for the same pay.
Follow you dreams and you and your family will go far.
More great advice.
This has been my experience too.
I agree 100%.
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You have to weigh those priorities of yours. I can offer one piece of advice. Years down the road you may regret not having as much time with your daughter. Would you say the same about any job?
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Something I should ask, I got a phone call from an agent last SUNDAY @ 10:13am, I took the call and I am told spoke to him/her/it(?) for around a half hour. The down side of this was I was recovering from a Saturday the marked a friends 40th (alcohol + curry + alcohol) anyone else been bother by an agent on a Sunday morning....
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He called during church to see if you're religious.
Whether or not you passed the test is entirely dependent upon his belief system.
Good luck.
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Quote: He called during church to see if you're religious.
I did not think of that, might be why I have heard nothing since! 
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