What is the point of it all?

My boss needed a new report for our system that should be run fairly often. As can be expected, he wanted it to be fully automated.

After the (usual) "no I actually wanted this" and "you know the first thing we had that you deleted, well I did actually want that" I finally created a report that can be generated by clicking two buttons (one on the website (which generates a text file) and another in an excel spreadsheet that does everything else)

Now, for some obscure reason, I am the only person who is qualified to press those two buttons (even after various attemts to train other people as well).

I got called back to work the other night to run the report!!

I'm sure that this must have happened to loads of other people as well (I am busy writing another report that should be fully automated), which makes me wonder: is there a point to it all?

p.s. If you ever need anyone to click a button, ask me. I am the expert.

Pressing buttons is fun!

Welcome to the world of IT!

I know. I agree... Wait a minute... What buttons are you talking abt

Jcaputo, double posting is illegal. I am going to have to ask an administrator to ban you. Well, you could just ban yourself... J/K

lol. don't think admins can ban each other, otherwise JC would ban the others and take over forever

Generating an automated report, strange shifts in requirements, clueless boss- Silian, you just described my job for the last couple weeks, lol

Hehe. I know EXACTLY what you're going through. If my boss tells me to change something, I make SURE I get it in email, then I save the old version to my HD before making the change.

One time, he said "no, that's not what I said!" so I brought up his email. Then he said, "Well, that's not what I meant." Even though there's no way his email could have been interpreted any other way.

To make things worse, my boss is an ex-programmer and he enjoys editing my code so it works the way he would have programmed it, even though it doesn't change the functionality. After a couple "fix this because it's broken now"s from him, I started saving my finished works to my HD as well, so I could just recompile them to fix whatever he changed.

Welcome to IT. Here's your padded cubical so you don't hurt yourself.

damn all these stories i hear from you guys makes me want to quit programming and get a job at McDonald's.....wait, ****! then i'll have to hear
customer -"..but i wanted PICKLES with that"
me- "..but you said no PICKLES"
customer "..that's not what i meant!"
**** i guess there's no escaping it, LOL

In my company it is standard practice to ignore the applications that the users want to work on apps my boss and his boss think will "have an impact on the company".

We develop the application based on specs that are as hard as a feather bed, derived from my boss's and his boss's opinions for the given hour and then spend the week after go live writing the new/changing the old reports so that someone will use it.

I have been with my company for less than 5 years and the only thing that has changed is that I get less and less stable requirements.

Well it could be worse, I could not have a job.

Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself too. I thought if I kept saying it, I'd eventually believe it.

I guess that everyone has these types of problems. I guess the only reason it's worse for developers is because we believe we should be on the top of the food chain, while in reality, we are very near the bottom.


Gosh. You guys can ban people??? Well, it does actually make sense. I'll try to be nice, I promise.

heh don't worry, we only ban spammers, trolls and rude or aggressive/harrasing people.

Where I moderate I encounter a lot of these people - i think my ban count is about 5 and I've only been gong a few weeks

mind you, there are a few others here who need banning

Hey I saw that post mentioning me before u edited it....