Do you like poker, son?

You are absolutely right and a fool. You should never work on something without compensation but you did. You decided to work on your time, non billable, for a company that has hired you on a hourly wage, or perhaps salary. If it's salary, game over. If it's hourly wage you should have clocked your hours.

The best way to look at this is implicit buy in. Implicitly as their employee they are hiring you to do your job in the best interest of the company. They have not signed a detailed contract with you or had a Request for Policy process on what you may write for them as software.

If you decide to change the game you better be ready to walk away. You might win, but it will come at a high cost because you have them over a barrel.

In the end if you want more for what you foolishly already did on your own time then you need to make a win-win argument with them. You will not win by getting yourself reclassified as a developer. But you can negotiate for a pay rise, a title, or some other perk to complete this project in good faith since you put in the extra time.

In the future, do not exceed your mandate (as you see it) without speaking with your supervisor for extra compensation for you see as extra work or above and beyond. Or just suck it up.

You should already be working out a plan for advancement, more pay, and better benefits, because you can be assured as IT they (management) is constantly working to reduce your pay, not need you, and let you go if at all possible. Learning to speak Hindi or Mandarin will not save you.

Good luck!

After reading some comments I have a few ideas. First you don't want an IT department, as the engineering section you want a sub group that focuses on IT. You are already technology management.

The biggest selling point for an IT group IMHO is technology management. In theory you can run without an IT group and the CEO could take on the CFO tasks but it works better when you have an IT group working on utilizing what you are purchasing in the best possible way much like a CFO handles finances. A group that is focused on planning, supporting and implementing an IT strategy rather than letting everyone spend top dollar on whatever they want. Are you publicly traded? If so to my memory there are requirements for IT by the SEC.

To extend the CEO/CFO analogy no one is allowed to justify their expenditures anyway they like, and no one group or individual should be able to use whatever technology they like at the station's expense. Even if someone buys it on their own dollar if it impacts the running of the station or the day to day they will want support. It's best to manage it.

What a good IT dept/group can give you is:

A) Fall back or options : If a server breaks or a hardware goes down they can have contingencies and replacements waiting to minimize downtime.
B) Planning: They can either reduce cost or make better use of what you are spending rather than having HP or Dell be your defacto IT Support.
C) Data management: Do you have backups? Do you have remote access? Do you allow work from home? Information is the new life blood of the contemporary business. Who is handling this precious resource?
D) Security - The Fear Card - do you really want internal memo's leaked because you never had a supportable security policy and someone to implement it?

If you really want to be a bastard recommend ITIL. That will tie up their resources for years but you'll have an IT group. ITIL is crack cocaine for management types.

You are already handling these functions it's just time to take it on and manage it.

You could always make the case for a promotion and be their interim CIO.

Sigh...

At this point he has no place in a normal classroom... *BUT* there is an example you can emulate. (Not eliminate...)

If I ever win the lottery the first thing I will do is hire a full time editor to review anything I write to be read by someone other than me...

At this point he has no place in a normal classroom... *BUT* there is an example you can eliminate.

When I was in highschool at West Anchorage High School they had an alternative high school called Stellar. They were too small for any sort of afterschool extra like band, choir, theater or sports so many of the students their would participate in West's programs.

Have him participate in a nearby school in the programs he wants but bypass the normal class room curriculum. Kinda like a playdate if you will but it will allow him to interact in a way he enjoys and not have to deal with the rudimentary education part.

One of my best teacher's used the following phrase: "The best thing we can teach you is the ways to navigate and find out how to educate yourself on what interests you."

This kid obviously has it. But he can participate with school kids his age in the other stuff and learn to socialize. Junior High / High School may work the best but I remember having sports, competition and band even at the elementary school level. As an extra bonus or workload if something he wants to do whether it be sports, theater, or band doesn't exist he can work to make it exist by organizing it.

You know I was debating cancelling Netflix since between Hulu and Boxee I can find most of what I want to watch but as soon as I got the email I cancelled.

After that stupid Latte' comment I'm never signing back up... Use Greencine, same pricing and a better choice of movies if you ask me. I can redbox whatever I want that netflix could provide. Greencine at least has some unique suggestions and offerings...

I think this is the beginning of Netflix's end... I will hack their surplus roku's in the future with a smile...

There was a time I used to have latte's in the morning but that's after two layoffs and being underwater in my mortgage.

Here's to you netflix. Looking forward to looking back on your silly red envelopes with fondness...

Most large companies, I've worked for Intel and HP, will search their network for know "issues". I remember one time the worm was severe enough if you're system wasn't patched they turned off the port and blocked the MAC address until you patched your system. This was after 72 hours of blocking port 80 traffic to slow the thing down.

Combine the above realities with DMCA takedown notices and I think it's time. Most ISPs have a 3 strikes you are out policy for violating DMCA and Copyright. The precedent is already set. There are many ways to detect bots and it's time to have the ISPs turn them down and make folks take appropriate steps to clean up their own systems.

I have had many instructors use this technique. They either have open book or 1 sheet of notes you can use. They open the door to "cheating" if you will but then they stack the deck. In cases of Math and Econ professors they have questions that run the gambit. Say 10% easy questions, 60% appropriate questions, 20% questions a really good student *MAY* be able to answer, and 10% uber or almost impossible questions. So what does this do?

Well it presents the student with a dilemma. If they have studied and are confident they will be able to answer the 60% competently and then you curve it. You will find those that needed to cheat got themselves stuck on the "unanswerable" questions because they didn't study the material enough to discern the questions in the time frame you provided. Tuning the time limit can take a few tries but you can figure it out in the first year of a new course, much like you usually have to.

Your safety valve is you are curving the results so it will sort it out for you as well. You can adjust the curve so it doesn't arbitrarily toss folks into the D category. You can also allow for extra credit. Cheaters are lazy and won't use the Extra Credit. If they do they are using the option to learn, which is a self rewarding fix and allows for other paths to learn.

So how does the above speak to cheating gadgetry? It hobbles them. A cheating student will find their "advantage" will fail them. You can randomize the questions for each class so a key won't do any good or they will over perform which is a red flag for a re-test with the 1 or 2 loaner equipment you have on hand rather than for the entire class.

Usually the performance gap between a cheating student and a non cheating student is large enough such tactics as above will psychologically "break them" and cause them to go into a failure situation. I've been there without cheating but when I've been overconfident on "open book" or "1 sheet of notes". Trust me. I am good but I was lucky to squeak out with a C. The lack of studying and preparation effectively limited my ability to score based on the questions. The open book / notes could have been used 2-3 times on a hard questions but without being pretty much ready to take the test I hosed myself. Without a firm understanding of the scope of the class this also made me fail math classes. I hated it at the time but to be honest it was an effective test. Math is understanding not just plugging in variables.

Hope this helps or gives some ideas. Technology is a just a new twist and obfuscation at best.