bmabray's Journal: Workin' Hard or Hardly Workin'?

Last time, I promised a story about work. But first, a little background...

For those who don't know, I am a programmer for a company whose primary business is handling billing for telecom companies. Our biggest client is our sister company -- their wish is our command.

The team I am on works on what is known as the Customer Care Module (CCM). This software is what everyone uses to add/change/delete customer data. It's a Windows program (written in Visual C++), and it's primary interface is a whole bunch of tabs (21, currently). Each tab contains different information about the customer -- billing, address, etc.

On Wednesday, we were informed that our sister company wants a complete re-design of the CCM. New user interface, some new features, everything different. It's understandable -- it's not the prettiest program ever, and it can be confusing. Oh, and could we also write it in Java, make it accessible via the Web, and have it all done by July 1?

Fortunately, we were able to talk them out of the Web thing. It would be cool, and something that might should be done someday, but by July 1? Not going to happen, my friend. Moving what is already there to a new user interface is one thing -- rewriting the whole system, when none of us are Java programmers, is quite another.

When it's done, it should be very nice -- I think our users will be happy. For those familiar with Microsoft's Visual Studio, it's going to have an interface similar to that. It should also be pretty profitable for our company -- special requests like this cost extra, even for family. :-)

And it should be a fun project. Fixing bugs isn't nearly as fun as creating new stuff. Part of my job on this will be tying the new CCM into some new software our company bought for tracking customer problems. I like that I'll have my own project within the project.

Hopefully, we'll also have time to put an MP3 player into it... :-)