Purple Kangaroo, Programmer.
*scratches head*
From Office Manager to Programmer in a few short weeks. How did that happen? The end of the Office Manager job is a funny story, but I ain't up to telling it now. I think it's hysterical that I'm currently employed as a Programmer. You read that correctly: Programmer. Lingo Programmer, to be specific, but before my UNIX-programming geeks start their derisive snorts, I'd like to point out that it's messing with variables and doing things with POST fields.
I'm not really sure what a POST field is, either. I'm guessing it's got something to do with getting the Director file to talk to the database. I'm being paid as much as Otto was, last I heard, but it's just a quick job. They'll use me again if they like my code. But putting "them" into my cell phone made my hands tremble. There's just one fun company, (which happens to be the same as the one big animation/interactivity company) in all of Rhode Island. And I'm contracted to a subdivision of them right now. Eeeeeep!
Here's to me plunking my foot- wearing a clown-sized shoe- in that door. Even if the job isn't my area of expertise, exactly. I'm just some kid who took a course in Director many years ago. In the course, I had fun dabbling lightly in Lingo, the first programming language since Logo that I've enjoyed using.
Nobody needed me to touch Director, so I've let those skills rust a bit . . . and here I am, delving deeply into code fifty times more complicated than anything I've ever written.
Eeep, I say. Eeeeeeep.
But I remember ectropy's story, and I breathe a little easier. Ectropy, when I met her, was the newest programmer in her little company. She felt awkward and out-of-place: she told me she'd taken a few programming courses in school, years earlier, but felt extremely underskilled for the requirements of her job. She sounded like she felt the Sword of Damocles over her all the time, that at any minute they'd make her into a Tech Writer or fire her for her lack of programming skillz. It's been three or four years since then, and, as far as I can tell from her lj, she's still in the same company, still working as a programmer.
The lesson to me, is: Just Try. Buy a book and try. If you can fake it well enough, you'll fill in the gaps in your own knowledge before your employer can notice that there are any.
I'm going to curl up with my new Director book and learn a bit about POST data fields and variables and such before I dive back into this strangleweed patch.
I'm hoping that, if this guy decides he needs to use me again, he lets me do some Director animation next time. That's fun.
I'm underslept to almost the point of illness, but I'm hoping the reading will lull me into a nap. If I get the three things he wants done today finished by early evening, I'm going to see about making a new character for the Providence LARP and going to Fetish Night with zantiphia.
caligoayre, or anyone else, want to come out to Hell tonight? I'm 70% sure that I'm going.
From Office Manager to Programmer in a few short weeks. How did that happen? The end of the Office Manager job is a funny story, but I ain't up to telling it now. I think it's hysterical that I'm currently employed as a Programmer. You read that correctly: Programmer. Lingo Programmer, to be specific, but before my UNIX-programming geeks start their derisive snorts, I'd like to point out that it's messing with variables and doing things with POST fields.
I'm not really sure what a POST field is, either. I'm guessing it's got something to do with getting the Director file to talk to the database. I'm being paid as much as Otto was, last I heard, but it's just a quick job. They'll use me again if they like my code. But putting "them" into my cell phone made my hands tremble. There's just one fun company, (which happens to be the same as the one big animation/interactivity company) in all of Rhode Island. And I'm contracted to a subdivision of them right now. Eeeeeep!
Here's to me plunking my foot- wearing a clown-sized shoe- in that door. Even if the job isn't my area of expertise, exactly. I'm just some kid who took a course in Director many years ago. In the course, I had fun dabbling lightly in Lingo, the first programming language since Logo that I've enjoyed using.
Nobody needed me to touch Director, so I've let those skills rust a bit . . . and here I am, delving deeply into code fifty times more complicated than anything I've ever written.
Eeep, I say. Eeeeeeep.
But I remember ectropy's story, and I breathe a little easier. Ectropy, when I met her, was the newest programmer in her little company. She felt awkward and out-of-place: she told me she'd taken a few programming courses in school, years earlier, but felt extremely underskilled for the requirements of her job. She sounded like she felt the Sword of Damocles over her all the time, that at any minute they'd make her into a Tech Writer or fire her for her lack of programming skillz. It's been three or four years since then, and, as far as I can tell from her lj, she's still in the same company, still working as a programmer.
The lesson to me, is: Just Try. Buy a book and try. If you can fake it well enough, you'll fill in the gaps in your own knowledge before your employer can notice that there are any.
I'm going to curl up with my new Director book and learn a bit about POST data fields and variables and such before I dive back into this strangleweed patch.
I'm hoping that, if this guy decides he needs to use me again, he lets me do some Director animation next time. That's fun.
I'm underslept to almost the point of illness, but I'm hoping the reading will lull me into a nap. If I get the three things he wants done today finished by early evening, I'm going to see about making a new character for the Providence LARP and going to Fetish Night with zantiphia.
caligoayre, or anyone else, want to come out to Hell tonight? I'm 70% sure that I'm going.