[AccessD] OT but Access related...I've just got to share this

John,

If you want the other departments to come to you first, they need to
know what you can do for them.  Toot your own horn!  Maybe you can set
up an electronic newsletter letting others know what you in IT do and
what you have done recently.

Charles Wortz
Software Development Division
Texas Education Agency
1701 N. Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701-1494
512-463-9493
CWortz at tea.state.tx.us



-----Original Message-----
From: John Clark [mailto:John.Clark at niagaracounty.com] 
Sent: Thursday 2003 Mar 13 14:13
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] OT but Access related...I've just got to share this

I have been fighting a battle for the past three years or so. My boss,
who is a politician, doesn't hold my job in high regard...I could get
really deep into explaining this, but I'll leave it here for now.
Anyhow, when he got the job in 1998, we made a decision to go w/MS
Access...we had FoxPro for many years, but there were many programs that
needed rewrote, and we also looked at VB. We chose Access for many
reasons, such as it was already on many of the machines, and I had
already begun learning it. Also, it seemed very flexible...good for
small, quick jobs, but also had capabilities for much larger projects.

I am getting away from the subject, but I wanted to provide some
background. 

Over the past few years, we have found some programs in departments that
were written by programmer wanna-bees in those departments. When I
finally find these programs, I show my boss how pathetic they are...I
may not be a guru yet, but I think I write pretty decent
programs...especially compared to these pieces of shitaki mushrooms (got
that from watching Spy Kids w/my kids).

In 1999, I had to re-write a program for our Pistol Permits Office. I
could write the program fine, but they needed to keep track of every
single change that was ever made to an account, and keep a historical
account. I had no idea how to do this, and my boss contracted with an
outside agency to help me. This programmer was suppose to "help" me
write this so that I learned as we went. This was a mistake on my
behalf, but I had had no training at all back then, and I had no
connection to any lists like this one. I also felt a little better, when
this programmer said that this was the hardest program that he ever
worked on, and he "had written some point of sales programs, and done
work for the border patrol."

Since this time I've written several programs on my own, and I have
enjoyed a really good track record (i.e. not many calls after the fact),
which I probably just jinxed by mentioning this out loud. A couple of
months ago, I "accidentally" found out that our Risk Management
department had contracted outside for a new Claims Tracking program. I
had already written another small program for them, and as far as I
know, they were happy with it. Turns out the same programmer that helped
me came in to do it, and because he had known me, and wasn't aware that
this was a secret, he called me and talked w/me about this.

He finished this program, less than a month ago, and today one of our
technicians calls to have me help with a network mapping
problem...network admin is one of my other hats here. They weren't
getting a Y: drive mapping, so their new Access program wouldn't work. I
recognized this mapping as one that we have programmed in the logging
script...any body that had old FoxPro programs had a Y: drive mapping to
the location of the FoxPro files, and this included them.

It turns out that this "professional" programmer took it upon himself to
create a local mapping on these users machines...a big "No-no"...which
overwrites our network mappings. Our office is currently in the middle
of rolling out about 100 new PCs to those users who have older ones. As
you might be guessing, this PC was one of the ones replaced. She had no
idea of what mapping she had, so she couldn't warn us, and we weren't
notified, so we didn't know. The old Y: mapping for FoxPro is really not
needed any longer...by them at least...so I offered to simply remap them
via the login script. 

The tech returned to the office after lunch, and reported to me that,
"this guy did something with Windows files too!" Apparently, although I
can't think of what this would be, there were ties directly into the
Windows OS from this program (Registry maybe? I dunno). These new PCs
had Windows 2000 and Office 2000, and her old system had Windows 95 and
the program is A97. They loaded A97, but it still does not work. Now
they have to call this "professional" in...he'll be here tomorrow.

I really think that I am at a level that I can compete w/this guy, and
that they should have given me a chance. It is plain stupidity to not
communicate with the internal IT staff. Even though I don't like the
idea of them outsourcing, I have no personal problems with this guy. He
is a really nice guy, and I have always been nice to him. We have even
spoke a time or two on our own, since he had been in here.

Sorry for this OT, but I had to vent. You may not see my point here,
seeing as how many of you are independants, but at the very least please
tell me that you would communicate to avoid later problems. Or is it
standard to just get it, get paid, and leave the mess to the IT staff.

Take care!

John W Clark