December 2004 – These Dirty Colors

I have turned in my notice…

By jason | December 22, 2004

Well, I finally did it. Last Thursday, I gave my notice to Hobby Lobby. As one might expect, my boss wasn’t too excited about it, but he said he wasn’t too surprised. He’s known that I’ve not been too happy for a while. Part of my discontent was the adoption of .Net. The rest (and maybe the majority) was the installation of Peoplesoft Enterprise 1 (also known as PSE1, JD Edwards One World 8.9, and probably something else as soon as Oracle finished its acquisition of Peoplesoft).

Hobby Lobby made both of these decisions, as it felt that they were the best decisions for the company, which I can understand. Obviously, I disagree with the selection of .Net as the development platform. Peoplesoft, though, I supported and recommended (though it’s not like the whole decision hinged my opinion. They did, though, ask for it, so I gave it). I was led to believe by the salesmen, though, that we would interact with the system, as developers, via a Java API. However, as one might expect from salesmen, that picture wasn’t quite accurate. Not only will we not be using the API, there is no API. All interaction is done by reading from or writing to "Z" files and running programs. Not that the absence of a Java API would matter, though, as we won’t be using Java.

I spent some time doing development in both environments to see if I could enjoy my job. To be honest, though I am opposed to .Net for reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere, I could probably be happy enough doing C#. PSE1 development, however is a bunch of click here, double click there, type in a variable name on this line, drag this over here. Ick. The only way to see everything the program is doing is to print the "code." I just did not enjoy that (beyond learning it. Once the new wore off…)

So, I’m off to another company here in the metro. It’s a bittersweet decision. I’ve made some good friends here at Hobby Lobby over the past 3 1/2 years. It will be hard to say good-bye to them (though I’ll only be a few miles away from them and I go to church one of them). I wasn’t enjoying myself though, and that made me miserable at work, and the quality of my work suffered. That’s not good for them or me, so it’s probably best for everyone that I move on. Only time can tell if I’ve made the right choice. Right now, it feels right, and I expect that it will be…

Jesus and the Democrat

By jason | December 1, 2004

A little political/religious joke. Enjoy! 🙂

A Republican in a wheelchair entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The Republican looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?"

The waitress nodded "yes," so the Republican requested that she give Jesus a cup of coffee on him.

The next patron to come in was a Libertarian with a hunched back. He shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress for a cup of hot tea. He also glanced across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus over there?"

The waitress nodded, so the Libertarian asked her to give Jesus a cup of hot tea, "My treat."

The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Democrat on crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down and hollered, "Hey there, honey! How’s about gettin’ me a cold glass of Miller Light!" He, too, looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that God’s boy over there?"

The waitress once more nodded, so the Democrat directed her to give Jesus a cold glass of beer. "On my bill," he said.

As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Republican, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Republican felt the strength come back into his legs, got up, and danced a jig out the door.

Jesus also passed by the Libertarian, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Libertarian felt his back straightening up, and he raised his hands, praised the Lord and did a series of back flips out the door.

Then Jesus walked towards the Democrat. The Democrat jumped up and yelled, "Don’t touch me! I’m collecting disability!"