I just took the current survey from A List Apart, the online web design and development blog. The results last year showed that I fit right into the normal demographic for a web developer. I also found it amazing that almost 10% of the people who filled out the survey had more than 10 jobs! Who has that amount of time on their hands?
Today is my first day as Programmer in the Research and Development department at Just Search. I had my new desk delivered yesterday and spent some of the afternoon moving over to the R&D office. It’s a nice new desk, and I got a several things that I need to work on, including installing MoreGourpWare so that we can keep track of our projects.
James (my manager) is a Mac enthusiast and he has already started to convert me by putting a Mac Mini on my desk. This will eventually be a testing platform, but I don’t really know what to do with it at the moment. It doesn’t look THAT good really. I don’t know what the fuss is about…
My role at work in the JustSearch Research and Development department requires me to have a new job title. But what? Apparently I can name my own! So here is my top 5(ish) choices (in no particular order):
I’m yet to decide, but if you had the opportunity of giving yourself your own job title, what would you choose?
My first day of working with JustSearch was today. Everything seemed to go quite well; although there is lots to take in. The team seem like a nice bunch of guys, so one of my fears is unrealised there.
I’ve been really stressed about the job for the past few days. For the past two of three nights I have been having nightmares about it. For example, I would turn up to work and someone who knew a lot more web development would get sacked for not knowing enough. Or numerous crazy things would happen when I tried to get to work in the morning and I would turn up late.
I left work today feeling really stressed as well, I was given the task of validating a site, and I couldn’t even remember what a div tag was. However, on the way home I realised that I was starting to get the hang of things and I think I should have a better day of it tomorrow. I was warned that there is quite a bit to learn, and they ain’t kidding!
One thing that annoyed me today was that the internet kept turning off periodically. As you can imagine, a web company without an internet connection is like a horse with no legs!
I do have the feeling like I am going to enjoy myself in this role, I’m just really stressed as I have risked everything to come here and work for this company. However, I have a good work ethic, I’m quite a tallented programmer and I just need to pick up a few tricks of the trade as it were.
I didn’t get the job at the National Library, but the odd thing is that no one got the job. They decided that they wouldn’t hire anyone at all. Talking to the girl in the personel department I got the idea that I would have got the job if I had spoken Welsh. Teriffic! It was clear that I had all of the technical knowledge to do well in the job, but my lack Welsh skills let me down.
She did mention that there was a position comming up in September for another tyle of role in the same department. However, I think this will be unsuitable for me as it was basically contact work. Having a family I can’t risk the inconsistency of contract work. I mean, although it would be great to work in that role, I don’t know what I would do when it was over.
The fact that it is so difficult to get a job around here if you don’t talk Welsh realy annoys me. Every job advert around says “Welsh is desirable”, but I would have thought that my web development ability would be more important. The 2001 Welsh speakers census found that just 36% of the population of Ceredigion are able to speak Welsh, and 100% can speak English. So why is it so important that IT positions always have Welsh as a desirable attribute?
I went for a job interview yesterday for the job of Web Assistant (Digital Delivery) in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. As far as I can tell it all went very well. At one point one of the panel members put some HTML code, and the associated style information in front of me and told me to draw a picture of the web page. After 5 minutes I had finished, and when she showed me what the page really looks like I was spot on! I’m sure that impressed them. I also had a little chat with the network head about AJAX and what I had done with that. There was lots of furious scribbling as I was talking.
They said that they would let me know this morning. So I’m now sat in work waiting for a phone call. So my heart skips a beat every time the phone rings!
It would be a fantastic opportunity to move into web development. Not only that, it’s a fantastic opportunity to move away from training people who absolutely don’t want to be trained, which is what I really don’t want to be stuck doing for the rest of my career.
