LittleWyvern.com

NetStudy is making it harder and harder on me to stay with them. Set aside the fact that I am thoroughly bored and unchallenged during my day to day activities. Ignoring that I am interviewing for a job vastly more exciting, difficult, and well-paying than my current job. Taken entirely on their own, today's events made me rethink why I work there at all.

The morning started off pleasantly enough. Lukas came into the office early to interview for a job, which apparantly went pretty well. Despite my best efforts to sabotage his chances, odds are he will get the position. It isn't the greatest job in the world, and likely will involve many things with which he has zero experience and only marginal interest, but it's a job just the same. Comes with a paycheck and everything. So there I was… morning at Netstudy. I tackled some hard issues, asked the tough questions, put it all on the table and came out the better for it.

Lunch time is when things got nasty. We had planned to have a lunch meeting today with all the development people at Netstudy. Pizza and conversation, that sorta thing. Awesome. Free pizza is reason enough for me to show up someplace. Things even started out well at the meeting (we started by not so much talking as eating pizza). How quickly our happy gathering descended into a territory far more dark. The purpose of today's meeting was to discuss the introduction of several new forms of documentation that Netstudy is going to start requiring. Typically, the burden of creating and maintaining this documentation falls entirely on the proud programming staff (both of us). Before I continue I feel I should take a moment to review today's cast of characters.

Myself – 'lead programmer' at Netstudy. Realistically i am the 'sole programmer' at Netstudy. I am responsible for pretty much all aspects of development and maintenance for Netstudy. Whenever anything at all needs to be done, it's my job to make it happen.

Roberto – formerly the 'lead programmer' at Netstudy. He's been around since the beginning and was responsible for designing and coding everything before I showed up. Currently he works 2 days a week and helps with odd jobs. He mostly handles the experimental side projects for Netstudy.

Maria – technically she is a programmer. I am not actually familiar with anything she has written as a part of Netstudy (at least nothing longer than 3 lines of code). She comes in for a few hours every other week or so. To be honest, what she does isn't very clear to me. However, since I only rarely have to talk to her, I dont particularly care.

Brian – our project manager. He handles all the client/firm relations for netstudy. He talks to our clients, finds out what they want, then tells me to do it. Sometimes he understands what I am doing, sometimes not. Sometimes he is a good manager, sometimes not.

Ok, back to our story. At some point in the shadowy past it was decided that we should document all of our projects. We should also document all problems that occur with our site. Document all complaints and glitches. Document the reasoning, method, and effect of every code change that is made. Basically, if anything is ever done, for good or bad, we need to document it. It was made clear to me at lunch that Maria has taken it upon herself to spearhead this bold (and, just at a glance, very worthless) initiative. When it came her turn to lead the discussion I was handed a 15 page packet of paper. The packet contained multiple templates for the new documentation, various examples of such documentation, and several pages of tables outlining what exactly should be documented. From here, I am not even sure where to go with this journal entry.

It would be fair to say that I was immediately upset with her presentation. Maria was effectively demanding that every piece of work I do also be accompanied by multiple reports outling my thought process behind the work. Effectively it meant that all my work would take three times longer and become even MORE ridiculously mundane. Within 5 minutes I had asked the perhaps too-blunt question 'Why are we doing this?' three times over. This questioning was not received in the good-spirited manner I had expected. Perhaps the best way to explain the situation is by an example with which we are surely all familiar. Remember back to high school? Try to remember the absurdly anal girl who always sat in the front row? She wrote 3 page formal outlines before writing any paper. She couldn't hope to understand a concept as it was explained, but would only learn by copying the teacher's notes word for word and then memorizing it later. She would take notes on the first day of class and bring her books to class even when it was obvious you wouldnt need it. Shudder. Now take that same girl and fast-foward thirty years. The packet I was handed reeked of a longing to overachieve. She took screenshots of our website and pasted them into her 'quick and dirty' mockups, complete with photoshop highlights and arrows pointing to all relevant portions of the image. Seriously… shudder.

Ok, so here was Maria telling Roberto and I how all this added work was going to help us. I suppose my problem was that I simply didn't believe her. To me, extra work is nothing more than extra work. Writing documentation like this is probably useful for programmers and managers at Microsoft. Netstudy is not Microsoft. Our team of programmers ultimately comes down to me: a development team of one. Personally, I dont give a shit if Maria understands the nuances of my projects or code. Even Brian only rarely asks how my latest addition was made possible. So long as it works, nobody gives a shit. Occasionally I receive an off-handed remark about how the latest feature is really cool, but for the most part I only get feedback on my projects when something doesnt work. Sometimes it's my fault, sometimes it isn't, but at no time during my tenure at Netstudy would a few hundred pages of documentation have helped me work faster or prevented an error from ocurring. Even so… we are going to be writing documentation. Why? Even now I don't really understand. But dammit, we are doing it because they fucking said so!

I keep wandering off topic. That's just my architecht INTP mindset in action. Alright, so Maria is making her presentation. I am trying my best to understand her logic and see the value that I haven't been able to see. I really was trying to be convinced. I wanted so badly to understand why this was a good idea and to be able to positively contribute to the conversation. It simply couldn't be done. The idea was just too foreign. Having ultimately succumbed to my inability to conform I had no choice but to question that which I was being fed. “Sorry, Maria, but can we just go back for minute? Why exactly are we doing this? How do you expect this to help?” Her answer was less than satisfying. No, that's an understatement. Her answer was borderline enraging. As it turns out, questioning Maria on this particular initiative (the one she had made come to champion) was tatamount to questioning her character. Her reply came as a defensive rant about how writing documentation would make me a better programmer. In her mind, I will be a much more productive coder if I first sit down and design a document outlining the problem and my approach to solving it. After all, that is how she has always worked and it has always helped her. I respect that. If that is how she best works… cool. Some people need to write things down. Some people need to write a 5 point outline before writing a persuasive essay. Some people need to write down example problems before understanding a difficult math concept. But certainly we all don't. For my part I don't need to do any of those things. When I write a paper, I create a rough plan in my head, then sit down and start typing. When I want to learn something new I read it or listen to someone explain it. The concept alone is usually enough for me to 'get it'. I never was good at taking notes in class because I found that I learned much much faster and better if I paid attention in class and worked it out in my head. That's what works for me. I can sit down and write code and have it work. I can write a story and have it make sense without first devising a story arc and completing a plot outline. Maria couldn't understand that. She couldn't understand that not all people think and work the same. Of course project outlines and code summaries will make me more productive!! After all, they make her more productive! I won't make mistakes if I spend 45 minutes planning a strategy before taking to the keyboard. How can I understand what needs to be done if I dont take the time to think about it before hand?!! Fuck, I get upset just remembering this afternoon. You can probably tell by the rambling nature of this entry.

Anyway, the meeting denegrated into a mass yelling by everyone in the room. Me explaining why this new initiative is probably a waste of time. Maria not understanding what I was saying. Roberto trying to agree with Maria's theory while agreeing with my sense of reality. Brian trying to appear in control by repeating and rephrasing our comments, while usually changing our meanings entirely (“Maria, I think what Jason is saying is… “). 90 minutes later I left the conference room visibly upset. I seriously considered, on more than one occasion during the next few hours, leaving the office and going for a drive.

Fuck everyone. It is a recurring theme in my life to have people not understand me. Most people dont understand how I think. They don't understand how I learn or reason. The can't understand or begin to imagine what is coursing through my mind at any particular moment. Usually I don't really care. Sometimes, though, I really wish there were people who understood me. I wish I could explain to people how I feel and how I work and have them at least pretend to understand. Instead I usually feel alone within my head. Alone in all the world; just me and my thoughts. Days like today certainly do not help the situation. On the flipside, days like today make me glad that I started a live journal. Though only a bitter sampling of my reflections, writing does a bit to ease my mind.

Whatever, a life without controversy would be boring. Even better, now it's the weekend.