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I wrote this to Dick off-list. I've read other replies and I offer this
perspective/opinion:
You know . . . that's an interesting perspective. At job #2, the company was
having problems. We'd sit around the lunch table and wait for the mail to
see if there was a check from one of our clients that could help make
payroll. In order to generate revenue, they shifted me from TWing to data
entry. Data entry was a way for the company to generate revenue. Rather than
trimming me off the payroll <and it had come down to me or one other
employee being let go>, they kept me and found something else for me to do.
At the time, my wife and I were expecting our 2nd child and the idea that
this company might not survive was very real. I started searching and ended
up in the cubicle where I sit. (I've been here 5.5 years.) As things played
out, the company was bought out by a competitor, the office I was in was
closed. After I resigned, the woman that hired me and the lone programmer in
the office both resigned. There were two left. My assumption is that they
found something else. I haven't heard from either of them since I left. At
the time, I didn't like this change a bit. I didn't want to do data entry
because as I was using our own app to do this data entry, I kept finding
little things that I thought would be useful to the users so I wanted to
take a 1/2 hour and document what I had learned. I was reminded, though,
that there were no pending documentation deliverables by my boss and it was
strongly suggested to me to do what needed to be done <data entry, not
documentation>. My boss sympathized with me, but there were deadlines to be
met. A 1/2 hour/day equaled 2.5 hours which could be the difference between
hitting a deadline on-time or a bit early so that the next DE project could
start.
So what this all means is thank you for posting. I just got a new insight to
the situation that was present in summer, 1998.
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