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My Project, Their Project
Jul. 27th, 2005 11:56 pmThere's not anything major going on here. It's been a struggle this week with work, still trying to sort out writing instructions for a procedure that we're asking our customers to perform and send to us. Not only am I having to change our company's internal jargon, but also a vendor's jargon into layman's terms. A big part of the problem is that I'm being pushed a lot by the outgoing Lisa to finish this before she leaves, and since she hopes to play golf tomorrow, she really has no time.
The problem with my understanding this procedure is, I wasn't in on the meetings for this until last week. No one thought I was needed for this project until they needed the writer. Of course, I'm stubborn, so I'm not one who likes to call for help, but I'm having to do it more on this project than normal just to get up to speed. Another one of the problems is that I'm struggling with the words for what we are doing to these people's accounts, since we're just messing around with the reccordkeeping, and not the actual investments. It's a weird retirement thing that in the end means nothing because we still ask them to do their own recordkeeping and send that to the IRS.
The other thing that's keeping me busy is that my database rolled out the past week and I'm still trying to find the time to write all of the procedures for it. I say that it's mine because before for our client web tool we kept all their user information in a 26 cell spreadsheet that would eventually have over 3,000 lines of information. I suggested two years ago that there should be a database that would hold the information and be completely searchable and relatable between the users and the retirement plans they serve.
I designed the database's requirements and development needs and placed and project request in to do it. Originally I was going to do it in Microsoft Access, especially so I could learn how, and at the time I had the time and freedom to do it (this was before Lisa was my boss). Just before I was to start, out IT group decided to halt all use of Access on our computers, and suddenly I would have to get IT to write it.
It took IT more than a year to put it onto their project list, and then once it was there, it only took a few weeks for their contractor to get it done in Visual Basic. I wish I knew Visual Basic. He was very happy that I had already written all the needs and all of the tables and relationships, so there was very little work to do there for him. Still, he could do something I couldn't, and that was load in all of the spreadsheet data into the new database, saving us a lot of time.
So now I'm busy changing ten different procedures, everything from how to make entries to the database to how to send an email to a web user. We have to document every procedure, and many of them are pages long.
The thing is, this is another place where I'm very stubborn, doing these things myself and not really sharing in these duties - probably to my detriment where things could be done quicker if I let others in. Still, sometimes I'm just happy to make sure the job is done my way. Maybe it's my way of making sure my job is safe, too. Holding back is easy to do on both ends, I suppose.
The problem with my understanding this procedure is, I wasn't in on the meetings for this until last week. No one thought I was needed for this project until they needed the writer. Of course, I'm stubborn, so I'm not one who likes to call for help, but I'm having to do it more on this project than normal just to get up to speed. Another one of the problems is that I'm struggling with the words for what we are doing to these people's accounts, since we're just messing around with the reccordkeeping, and not the actual investments. It's a weird retirement thing that in the end means nothing because we still ask them to do their own recordkeeping and send that to the IRS.
The other thing that's keeping me busy is that my database rolled out the past week and I'm still trying to find the time to write all of the procedures for it. I say that it's mine because before for our client web tool we kept all their user information in a 26 cell spreadsheet that would eventually have over 3,000 lines of information. I suggested two years ago that there should be a database that would hold the information and be completely searchable and relatable between the users and the retirement plans they serve.
I designed the database's requirements and development needs and placed and project request in to do it. Originally I was going to do it in Microsoft Access, especially so I could learn how, and at the time I had the time and freedom to do it (this was before Lisa was my boss). Just before I was to start, out IT group decided to halt all use of Access on our computers, and suddenly I would have to get IT to write it.
It took IT more than a year to put it onto their project list, and then once it was there, it only took a few weeks for their contractor to get it done in Visual Basic. I wish I knew Visual Basic. He was very happy that I had already written all the needs and all of the tables and relationships, so there was very little work to do there for him. Still, he could do something I couldn't, and that was load in all of the spreadsheet data into the new database, saving us a lot of time.
So now I'm busy changing ten different procedures, everything from how to make entries to the database to how to send an email to a web user. We have to document every procedure, and many of them are pages long.
The thing is, this is another place where I'm very stubborn, doing these things myself and not really sharing in these duties - probably to my detriment where things could be done quicker if I let others in. Still, sometimes I'm just happy to make sure the job is done my way. Maybe it's my way of making sure my job is safe, too. Holding back is easy to do on both ends, I suppose.
