Thursday, January 8, 2009

I think I'm depressed.

So, I've been working at The Company for almost two months now (ok, next week is two months). I'm finally starting to settle in.

Shortly after starting, we got new PCs. With snazzy 19" dual widescreen monitors. Awesome setup, if I do say so myself. So, with this idea of a new PC, I didn't start setting up things on my old PC.

After a fiasco of missing cables and missing software and such, we FINALLY got our new machines set up for the first of the year. I'm starting to finally set up my machine with the software and stuff I'm accustomed to. Then it hit me.

I'm not a developer anymore.

It's weird.

Yes, I started building a database. But it's no different than building an Excel template. Data is being sent by users, not from another system. I'm not doing cool integrations between systems. Right now, it appears I'm a glorified end user.

And being this "glorified end user", I don't need all the cool software I'm accustomed to. I'm not editing scripts, so I don't need the likes of TextPad or PFE32. I'm not logging into UNIX servers to run scripts, so I don't need puTTY (I still have it, but for another reason). I'm not running a ton of scripts to rebuild cubes, load data, and run calculations to validate.

It's almost depressing.

Now, that's not to say I won't be doing at least SOME of these things. It's just going to be on a smaller scale. I probably won't be editing system scripts, but I can create mini scripts that will do things I'm allowed to do (probably not going to be a lot, but I digress). I will be able to rebuild and load data -- but it will probably be done using a button automation instead of doing it myself. As a developer, my hands were tied one way. As a glorified end-user, my hands are tied another way.

As someone once said, "when life gives you lemons, cut them up and use them in adult beverages." I'm going to try to do that. It's going to be great to learn all these aspects of what end users do that I haven't had the opportunity of when working in development ("learn new things"). I'm going to expand my horizons with things I'm not accustomed to ("try new things"). And I'm going keep an open mind about the position ("experience new things").

I feel like I should be depressed because it's not what I love doing, but I figure I can do more of the stuff I love doing outside of work because it'll be more fun when I CAN do it!