Alex’s Blog

Having handed in my notice at work, nothing much has changed – I’m carrying on in the same way as before. I turn up in the morning, fix the odd uninteresting bug, and leave in the evening.

Since I’m not working on a big project at the moment, I don’t have anything to hand over, so I don’t even get the satisfaction of wrapping things up and handing them on to someone else. Instead I’m plodding along, counting down the days until I can leave.

As software developers, we need varied work with a sense of purpose. Giving staff nothing to do but bug fixing for months is a good way of filtering good developers out of your organisation.

With no real goal in sight, there’s no feeling that things are moving forward, and working life becomes an unrelenting march, bug bug bug bug, bug bug bug bug, bug bug bug bug. Every day is much like every other day, and they merge in the memory. Weeks skip by with nothing to identify them except for the management’s statistics on how many bugs you’ve fixed. The idea of introducing these statistics was, I presume, to encourage people to work harder, but it’s pretty demoralising when your entire week is distilled down to “10 bugs fixed, 1 test failure”. That’s not a way of getting the best out of your developers, that’s a way of getting your best developers out.

The latest missive from senior management tells us the strategy for the next year or so is to focus even more effort on bug fixing, at the expense of work to enhance the product. While there are certainly plenty of bugs to be fixed, I strongly feel that there also needs to be an investment made into fundamental refactoring and redevelopment of the software – the company is storing up problems for the future otherwise. So much of the system is written using crappy old VB6 – moving over to .net will take many years, and putting it off means it’s going to be harder to recruit and retain good developers. They’ll be paying premium rates for the kind of developers who don’t have an interest in technology or creating good software – they need to invest now to stop that happening.

The current strategy will undoubtedly save money in the short term, but failing to invest in your future is a terrible mistake.

But at least I now know I have made the correct decision, because I’m not afraid of making the effort to invest in mine.

A classic job interview question is “what is your greatest weakness?”. I suppose mine is that once I get bored, that’s it. As soon as I’ve got comfortable in a job and think I’ve got it all figured out, as soon as I’ve stopped being stressed because I don’t know what’s going on, as soon as I’m part of the furniture, there’s only one place to go – the exit.

So, after three years for my current employer I’ve handed in my notice. I’ve certainly improved a lot as a software developer since I got there, but the pace of improvement has slowed a lot recently so it’s time to move on.

I’ve decided to seek out temporary contracts instead of permanent employment. That should keep the boredom levels down, give me a nice variety of different work – and let me spend time between contracts building up my software business Axe Software. Yes, you may not think that text adventure games are the future, but you’ll see. Eventually. Perhaps.

It will be a bit more hassle – regular job interviews, the administrative overhead of setting up a limited company, and reduced job security, but really, overall it’s a no-brainer. I wish I’d thought of it sooner!

So, I have two questions – anyone need an awesome C# developer starting in August for, say, six months? And does anybody know a good accountant?

It’s the beginning of a new decade, so it’s time to sort yourself out. Do you want to be the same old grumpy, boring, fat and stupid you of the noughties? Of course not! So turn your life around, try something new and rid yourself of ugliness using my fantastic guide to a whole new you, for a whole new decade!

Step 1: A Positive Outlook

Yes, maybe you think January is actually a rubbish time to stop your life from being crap. It’s dark and cold, and the memories of a loving, laughter-filled and delicious Christmas are fading, to be replaced by the cold reality of your fat, grey reflection staring back at you in the bathroom mirror.

That’s why it’s time to Think Positive! Yes, you really can ignore reality if you just delude yourself enough! Turn that frown upside down! Those tears are tears of joy! You’re not fat, just cuddly! You’re not ugly, you just have an interesting face! You’re not sad and alone in a big scary world full of people you wish would die – you’re just independent!

At the end of every day, try to think of three good things that have happened to you that day. For example, although today has been a fairly average day for me, I can easily think of three good things about it:

• Today I wasn’t brutally murdered by an escaped maniac!
• I managed to eat all my breakfast without spilling any down myself! Shame about the cup of tea I had afterwards though.
• I got a letter! That shows there’s someone out there who cares! Even though it was an unscrupulous debt collection agency. Still, as they said themselves, it would be a real shame if something bad happened to my house – they’re such caring souls!

Step 2: Rebrand Yourself

So now you’re positive on the inside – it’s time to get positive on the outside too. Cast off your old name and go forth into the brave new world with a moniker that tells everybody who you are, and why you’re so great!

I hired a cutting-edge but cheap advertising agency to come up with a new brand. After several minutes of blue-sky thinking and meticulous market research, I now have a new identity to present to the world. Say goodbye to plain old “Alex Warren”, say hello to “Alexwar^® sponsored by Anusol”.

Step 3: Change Your Look

Hey, you with the stupid noughties face! Announce your new life to the world with a fresh new look…

Step 4: Give Up Alcohol

You might think that the best way to while away the bleak winter months would be to drink so heavily that you spend much of this early part of the year completely unconscious, and the rest of it utterly oblivious to the misery that surrounds you. Not so! We’re thinking positive, remember? You don’t need alcohol to lull you into your new happy-go-lucky way of life, you just need a mantra.

So, next time you find yourself reaching for that bottle of vodka, just sit down and repeat to yourself, “I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m so very happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, so very happy, happy, happy, everything is fine, everything is fine, everything is fine, everything is fine, everything is fine, I’m happy, I’m not crying, I will be OK, I’m fine, everything is fine, everything is fine” while rocking gently back and forth.

Step 5: A New Career

After following the above steps, you’ll probably turn up to work and realise that it just isn’t fulfilling you any more. And, by complete coincidence, you may find that your current place of employment are more than willing to let you seek out a new life elsewhere. They’ll be simply begging you to leave!

Perhaps you’ll find the job of dreams out there. Maybe you’ll decide that 2010 is the year for nothing but quiet contemplation, perhaps alone in a bedsit or some kind of hospital?

Step 6: Save Money

With your new direction, you’ll have a lot less money coming in, and you won’t be able to rely on your old friends to support you, because they will have stopped speaking to you. But they were useless anyway! They were holding you back, and you don’t want to return to your old ways now – you’ve come too far. Just think positive.

• Save on transport costs by walking everywhere, or just going nowhere!
• Eat less! You’ll save money, and not be quite so hideously fat!
• Stop washing your clothes! You may stink, but nobody will complain since nobody talks to you any more anyway! And we all like a bit of peace and quiet – so there’s a bonus!

Step 7: Your New Life Awaits

If you’ve followed this guide, you’ll have transformed from a sad, unloved, repugnant waste of space into a much happier one.

May all your dreams come true in 2010 (except those induced by heavy medication).

I spotted this make-up advert while I was in Hong Kong:

There’s something disturbing about it. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the range is called “Nude Inspiration”, yet the model is wearing thick, dark, make-up, there’s just something… erm, wrong about her eyes.

Is this a Photoshop disaster? Admittedly not quite as bad as Ralph Lauren‘s, but possibly more disturbing for being subtle.

Or is it just a trick of perspective?

Whichever, to me her eyes are either not at quite the same level, or one is closer to the centre of her face than the other.

Oh and her mouth is fucked up too.

When I was in Hong Kong I went to a shop called Aji Ichiban to pick up some sweets for the office.

I really wanted to pick up some duck kidneys but UK customs forbid importing meat from outside the EU. So, I had to make do with some other weird-looking “treats”, and they turned out to be almost as off-putting.

Usually whenever an email goes out about free food, there is a stampede and very quickly nothing is left. You’d think my colleagues never got fed. This time though, a few hovered around my desk, poking the sweets curiously and only a brave few were tempted to try one, with some trepidation.

It turns out that these sweets are more bizarre and disgusting than most of the food I tried while I was in Hong Kong. “Highlights” of my particular bag of delights were:

• Liquorice Wampee – this didn’t taste at all of liquorice. You know when you’re visiting a stately home and there’s that kind of musty, old-fashioned smell? These sweets taste like that. It’s like eating Henry VIII’s duvet.
• Ginseng Candy – “like sucking on an incense stick”, said one of my colleagues. I think it was more like licking a school hall floor – kind of woody.
• Honey Plum – “sweets aren’t supposed to be salty are they?” said a co-worker, before spitting out the enormous seed into a nearby bin.
• A salty plum stone in a bland boiled sweet which looked like an eyeball – “the worst thing I’ve ever tasted” was one comment, which wasn’t far off the mark. Bizarre and disgusting.
• Lemon tea – this was actually quite pleasant. It was odd to have a sweet that tasted of tea, but it did a great job of refreshing the palate after eating one of the other ones.
• Preserved strawberries – these were OK. They were just dried-out strawberries, so no unpleasant surprises there.
• Preserved spiced olive – this sounded like it would be hideous, but it was surprisingly nice – not much of an olive flavour thankfully, just an interestingly tasty mix of sweetness and spice with a hint of savoury.
• Hawthorne Cake – a sugary wafer, not too bad.
• Iced hawthorne – just like a sheet of fruit gum.

There were some great grimaces as people munched on what has to be the most unpopular office treat we’ve seen for some time. Mission accomplished!

Here are the leftovers…