in reply to Greediness, or Paranoia?

I do feel your pain. Are you saying you don't expect management to change their behaviour? If so, as long as your program is at least as good as the current one, they may not give a darn how good it is. That being the case, perhaps you should consider points like these:

  • How much easier would your program make your day to get through?
  • How much would you like to be able to modify the program thats in use? You will be able to if you use yours.
  • By putting your program into production, you gain experience you can put on your resume
  • And maybe, just maybe, you'll get that recognition you're looking for.

    It may be that the only group your program benefits are you, and your coworkers.. but maybe thats good enough. Recognition doesn't always come easy in the workplace. However, the good 'ol Peanuts characters have some excellent advice for us all:

    I've kept that quote in my email signature for awhile, you've reminded me to add it to my signature here :-)

    Not everyone has the opportunity to put a program of theirs into use at their workplace. It can be a really good feeling to see your own code hard at work, even if you don't get a raise for it. Good luck!

    -Eric


    --
    Lucy: "What happens if you practice the piano for 20 years and then end up not being rich and famous?"
    Schroeder: "The joy is in the playing."

    • Replies are listed 'Best First'.
    Re: Re: Greediness, or Paranoia?
    by insensate (Hermit) on May 13, 2002 at 22:38 UTC
      "The joy is in the playing."

      This is beautiful and certainly applicable beyond this thread. I would imagine that the sizeable majority of programmers that find themselves wrapped up in the monestary have a genuine love of programming. A week doesn't pass during which the dreary routine of my job is brightened by the opportunity to apply my programming skills to help a co-worker with a manual task that would be incredibly tedious if left unautomated.
      Ask yourself why you're spending time writing code that wasn't required of you... is it to really help some clueless benefactor or is it simply for the joy of coding in and of itself. I love the book "The Fountainhead":
      "My work done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am...Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity."
      Learning to program for it's intrinsic rewards will obliterate any dependence and misgiving inherent in worrying what others will make of it.
      -Jason
    		[reply]
    Re: Re: Greediness, or Paranoia?
    by defyance (Curate) on May 13, 2002 at 21:20 UTC
      True, the feeling of knowing that someone else is making great use of your creation is an incredible feeling. I love that, and that alone was one of the reasons I wanted to create this. The problem is having a manager that doesn't seem to share your views on what is helpful, and worries about how I went about creating the programs, she sees coding as "HACKING". If she only knew what went into making a unix machine run, she wouldn't feel that way.

      -- Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of defyance.
    		[reply]
        You work in technical support and built a new tool without management's permission. You used company time to do something other than your job. You included a hidden game designed to allow you and others to misuse company resources. And you wonder why you are having personal issues with your manager who doesn't trust you? You're not a criminal. You're simply unemployable.
    		[reply]
          Ahh, but Anonymous Monk Did I say that I did it wouthout permission? Did, I say I did ALL of the code was written on my companies time? Did I say that my manager doesn't trust my work, or mearly that she doesn't understand whats going on in the code? Did I confirm that I was actually going to put this code in the release if it was going to be released at all. If you would have taken the time to pay attention, you would have found that you don't have enough facts to back up what your saying here, you may want to pull your foot out of your mouth, you are starting to drool....

          -- Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of defyance.
    		[reply]

    In Section Meditations