Things about the new job that rock

In case you are interested in what is happening in my life, or are the least bit curious about jobs in a post-CuraScript world, I have collected a few features of my new employment that have particularly impressed me over my first three days. Some of these include:

- Databases without 800+ tables!

While learning about the structure of the 8 SQL Server databases I will be working with, my instructor mentioned that one of them is "very big". I stopped him; did very big mean, say, 850 or so tables, some of which contained no data at all, some of which weren't used by the applications, some of which were duplicated 5-6 times unnecessarily, say containing values like STATES?

No, no - maybe 50 tables, he said. That's a big database.

- No CROSS_REFERENCE table!

While studying with the same lead developer, he was mentioning a table that performed some mapping functionality, translating one internal value to an external one for many transactions. I managed to squeeze out, 'Sort of like a cross-reference table?' without openly exploding into laughter.

- Low-key, personable folks

I arrived late my first day - 8:12am, and I had hoped to arrive by 8am. But it was no biggie - my boss didn't get in till 8:30 or so himself. When he did get in, due to some snafu with paperwork, there wasn't much I could do - a tour, meet some co-workers, fill out all my HR forms - then I was sent home, with a full day's pay. How sweet is THAT?!

All my co-workers are very down to earth, southern guys - joking about politics, stopping to chat about a football pool or the baseball playoffs, and taking up the last hour or so of a Friday afternoon with Sarah Silverman videos on YouTube. No one is at each others throat for positions, no one just sits in their office out of reach hatching evil master plans, and everyone really likes working there. Weird.

- I have a real desk!

It's a small thing, I know - but it seems that my desk was meant for a person to actually work at. It's a simple desk, but it's decent size - a corner model, and both sides of it have two drawers - a small upper, and much larger lower drawer. There are overhead lockers - two of them - for plenty of room to store books or whatever. No more cramming into a cubicle - I can put my feet up now!! Another person can sit behind me to view what I am doing, and we're both COMFORTABLE! WOW!

I was also set up with dual monitors on my first day - not 'laptop screen and monitor', but full dual-screenage. :)

- Coffee Machine!

Okay - I am no coffee drinker - but this machine is SWEET! Free of charge, of course. It has about 24 drawers on the left, each with a different variety of beverage - gourmet coffee, hot cocoa, tea, etc. You pull out the drawer you choose, and a little dispense packet is in there. You put the packet into the machine, and it makes your drink for you. Then it cleans itself and disposes of the packet. WOW.

- COMMUNICATION!!

I had issues at my old job with communication - I had a director that I talked to once in my life, and who seemed very intent on not directly interacting with me over an 8-10 month period (to be fair, I may have a plague). Also, 40-50 employees were segregated into teams, and large-scale decisions were not communicated down effectively once they were made. There was no communication or discussion at all UNTIL they were made, without your input. Decisions and enhancements being made by one team were not communicated to other teams well or often, with some notable exceptions.

I'm sure it is unfair to compare this with a much smaller, more tight-knit team like the one I work with now. But I feel like I can talk to anyone - one on one. The guys I work with are taking the time to spend a few hours with me now, to make sure I learn things the right way, and really iron out any confusions. They're not sending me off to the training that the call center folks get, to waste my time and 'occupy me' for a few days. I was included on conference calls with vendors, and a potential client, on my third day. By 3:00 on Friday I was addressing some system issues and taking steps to correct them.

- No outsourcing!

I haven't had much experience with outsourcing - I just know it gets people scared about losing their job, and it can probably be frustrating with language barriers and off-site, off-hours employees. It turns out that my new company bought several California companies in the last year - one of whom was outsourcing its development to cut costs. "We stopped that," my new boss said. They cut off the outsourcing, and hired developers here in the US instead.

I am not sure about the global marketplace and the economic repercussions of this, but I would have to think that its positive. At my old job, I had the feeling that if they could pay someone less than me to screw up a few things or do my job poorly, not only would they hire that person, but they would promote them above me 2 or 3 times.

- No Fluff personnel!

I was looking around for the BAs, or PMs, or manager of BAs and PMs, or people with meaningless certifications and little glass proclamations of 'skills'. There are none. NONE.

One person uses the title of ''project manager", and he is also a senior developer. That means there is no aisle full of employees that have never coded in their lives - perhaps never even used the system at all - writing requirements for it and attempting to direct change. That also means that the project manager actually manages projects - determining how to effect a solution, and helping to direct and implement that solution. He is not spending his time drawing in green bubbles on a powerpoint slide, or hovering over actual working folks' shoulders and asking the status on something he doesn't understand.

This is not perfect, to be fair; one developer even mentioned that, while he was new and working on his first project, the lack of an analyst or detailed requirements caused him to leave off some functionality or implement some things incorrectly. But overall, the people there WORK. They don't check their email constantly, write letters to their nieces about blasphemy, play solitaire, or spend their days on the phone BS'ing another department in the same building. If there is a problem, they can all help.

- No QA cycle, release cycle, or limitations from working with PRODUCTION code!!

I was called over to observe the process of adding a new payer to the system for EDI processing. The developer brought up the table in SQL Server, and began typing the new column values that he received from the payer. I thought it must be a test system - a DEV instance, the playground for developers I was used to. Not so. The changes he made were committed, and went right out to production once he refreshed the cache. No sign-offs. No month waiting period. No understaffed, undersupported QA department to explain the changes to, and then hand-hold for weeks, limiting your productivity. Type, click, done.

I swear I almost cried.

- "we can buy you a copy of that license, no problem"

One guy I was sitting with had a taskbar on both monitors he was using; so I asked him about it. "Oh, that's UltraMon.exe," he says. It's a free download for 30 days, so he tells me to download it and try it out. And if I do like it? "We'll buy you a license for it."

WHAT? Sure, it's only $40 - but I'm used to not getting licenses for things I NEED, to do my JOB. Getting licenses purchased for little extra bits of software, that maybe making life a little easier, and make my computer look more rockstar-ish? Oh my god.

Of course, the development crew helped to make sure I got every bit of software I would need on my computer - SQL Server tools, VSS, the whole .NET suite - and they even took the time to setup any remote connections I would need, to all the servers in the company. No waiting for a ticket to fall through the cracks, no waiting for months to log into applications ro see code...I was viewing actual production XML my second day, and code from our applications on my third.

- error alerts!!

So one of my first functions is to keep an eye on the gateway - see when processes fail, either internally or externally. Sound a lot like what I used to have to do for some certain pharma clients, and certain 'unreliable' applications at my old job. So I am prepared to go rooting around through FTP sides or folders on some server to find problems. Right?

Wrong. It turns out, any system that has a failure or any sort of issue is reported, automatically, in 15 minute increments. So watching for system failures is as simple as getting an email. Amazing.

- training!!

My third day, I get an automated email inviting me to 'Code Camp' at a nearby university. After experiencing No Fluff Just Stuff, I assume it is in the same vein - maybe some authors and industry experts, perhaps talking about things not directly related to my job or area of expertise, but still useful. And probably very expensive, right?

Actually, it involves some speakers from Universities, and the rest are from Microsoft. Microsoft. Hmm...that sounds familiar. Maybe because we use SQL Server, program in .NET and use VSS...yes, I could see Microsoft speakers being useful.

Oh, and three sessions are LAB sessions - whihch means hands-on, personalized training from industry experts. For the newest technology, in relation to what I am learning today in my job.

Oh, and it's free.

Anyway, in summary, this is not to brag; I still miss the folks I worked with, and even the environment and industry I knew so well.  But I was really, really scared that going somewhere else would just show me that other places have the same exact problems, or perhaps they screw up their business in entirely different ways.  I am hopeful that things will continue to work out well up here.  Wish me luck!