Anyone that’s in the business will know that there are some common functional elements that you end up having to build with javascript: accordions, tabs, faders, sliders, lightboxes, filters, etc. Many of these items can bleed over into non-report sites, such as intranets or even public-facing sites.

Now some of those are fairly straight forward: an accordion is just a simple animate of a content section, repeat per title; tabs? Same deal. So you might be pretty inclined to just write the script adhoc on a project to project basis, copy and pasting it as you go. We were doing that at my work when I started on, but I found that we kept on having to add something, remove something, add hooks at certain points etc. In some cases we used someone else’s plugin to do these things, but we ran into some issues when it came to having to tweak the plugin for our needs.

As I was hired on as the senior front-ender, I was given the task of trying to help simplify things in our working process. This required me to dive right into plugin development, because one spot we were spending a lot of time was reinventing the wheel project to project. Even more time was spent debugging random plugins, or lashing them together.

As my place of employment works with jQuery, I wanted to develop something that could be maintained in-house, and would be a good starting point for repeating functionality. I ended up developing a jQuery plugin template, which I am sharing today.

Now, while I can’t feature the plugins I’ve made for my work here on my site (I’m pretty sure my they’d be less than impressed with that), I feel it’s fairly safe to distribute this template (boiler plate?) to the internets. It’s a compilation of a couple tutorials, as well as my own exploration into javascript. I’d be more than happy to give credit where it’s due, but I cannot remember where the heck I got some of the snippets I integrated. If anyone reading this happens to know, leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to give said credit.

Below you will find my jQuery plugin template code in it’s entirety. I’m open to suggestions on how to improve it, so feel free to comment.

/*
*
    Name:      my.blank.plugin.js
    Purpose:   Shell to use for jQuery plugins
*/
(function ($) {
    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR PLUGIN
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin = function (options, i) {
        // This handles multiple elements (like a class selector)
        if (this.length > 1) {
            var a = new Array();
            this.each(
                function (i) {
                    a.push($(this).myPlugin(options, i));
                });
            return a;
        }
        var opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);

        /* PUBLIC FUNCTIONS */

        /* reInit is a flag that you can pass in case you don't
           want to remove everything during the destroy phase. */
        this.Destroy = function (reInit) {
            var container = this;
            var reInit = (reInit != undefined) ? reInit : false;
            $(container).removeData("myPlugin");
            // this removes the flag so we can re-initialize
        };

        this.Update = function (options) {
            opts = null;
            opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);
            this.Destroy(true);
            return this.Create();
        };

        /* iteration will give you the index of the item
           in the selection. If not part of a loop, I'm
           prett sure this will be null. You've been warned. */
        this.Create = function (iteration) {

            // this stops double initialization
            if ($(container).data("myPlugin") == true)
                return this;

            // call a function before you do anything
            if (opts.beforeCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.beforeCreateFunction))
                opts.beforeCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

             // reference to the object you're manipulating. To jQuery it, use $(container).
            var container = this;
            /* Failing that, you could just use 'this' without the var declaration,
               but if you are doing a lot of child looping, you'll be glad to have
               a reference to the target object. Also, performance improvements! */

            ////////////////////
            // DO STUFF HERE
            ////////////////////

            // Set a flag to show that this element has been plugin'd
            $(container).data("myPlugin", true);

            // call a function after you've initialized your plugin
            if (opts.afterCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.afterCreateFunction))
                opts.afterCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

            /* Make sure to return, otherwise you can't store the element in a varaible,
               which means you can't use any of the plubic functions (you may not need
               them, but it's still good practice.) */
            return this;
        };

        /* Example of a public function, this can be used if you store
           this object in a variable.

           e.g. var foo = $("#target").myPlugin();
                foo.PublicFunction();
        */

        this.PublicFunction = function () {
            // do something
            myPrivatefunction();
        };

        /* PRIVATE FUNCTIONS */

        /* These aren't accessibly externally, and so can only
           be called from within the enclosure code. */

        function myPrivatefunction() { };

        /* arguably, you could wrap your private (or public)
        functions in an array such as the following: */

        // Private helper functions
        helper = {
            firstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            secondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        //Public helper functions
        this.Helper = {
            FirstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            SecondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        /* Personally, I don't see the point of doing this for
           anything OTHER than helper functions, I could, and
           probably am, wrong here... or at least ignorant. */

        // Finally
        return this.Create(i);
    };

    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR DEFAULTS WITH THE SAME NAME
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin.defaults = {
        foo: "bar",
        something: "else",

        // Remember: these are function _references_ not function calls
        beforeCreateFunction: null,
        afterCreateFunction: null
    };
})(jQuery);

I’ve tried to comment the hell out of the code, so that it’s as straight-forward as possible. I assume that anyone that uses this will strip out the comments, as well as any of the functionality that isn’t required.

Please feel free to use this, but If you’d be so kind as to give me credit, that’d be swell. I can’t force you, but we’re all friends out here, aren’t we?

Anyways, I was a developer at a smaller web development company that was run more through fear and unreasonable expectations than through proper management savvy. This place also had a habit of paying its female employees lower than the males, despite experience and obvious credentials. I don’t want to draw any correlation here, but I’m sure your mind can work something out on its own.

Before we get into the story, I should point out that in work environments, I tend to be fairly outspoken, and chatty. This doesn’t seem to hinder my work or the work of those around me. This is just how i work; I am a surprisingly social creature at my workplace. People tend to know what I think about what I’m working on, situations at work, and most topics that get discussed around me. Its a good working model for me. Sadly this model didn’t work so well with management at my old job.

The Story

So it was annual review time. A week prior to our expected meetings with our manager I, like everyone else, was given a sheet for a self-analysis review. We were to outline our strengths, weaknesses, goals etc. It was all very open-ended. Well, I thought it was, apparently there was a correct way to fill it out, and I had just missed something. There was a section at the end for goals I wanted to achieve; personally, professionally, etc. I had no real problem coming up with some answers for the professional section, but I was reluctant to list any personal goals. I came up with some answers, submitted my paperwork, and continued on working.

A week later my meeting with management arrives. I step into his uniform, unadorned, clinically sterile office. This was a man about efficiency; he didn’t take bullshit, he felt he didn’t deal in it (this is suspect) and was generally quite boring; well boring except for the fact he could dead lift 300 pounds. Seriously, he worked out like Arnold. He was, however as anal as the boss from The Incredibles. That whole scene with him lining up the pencils on his desk calendar?

That’s a real thing.

He sits me down and we stare at each other in silence for roughly a minute; him with a frown, me with what was probably a bored look on my face. I couldn’t help it; this was not something i wanted to be doing considering the timelines they liked to throw at me. Frankly I had more important things to do with my time than what I considered a formality. Had I known what was to come, I’d have been a bit more on my A game.

He opened with the easy compliments, and then went after my behavior (and his distaste for it), and then said “but the real problem i have today is with your goals.”

“My goals?” I responded. “what about my goals?”

“Well Corey, when i set a goal, i give myself a clear timeframe in which to achieve it by. Say I wanted to read a book, I’d set a goal that I will read that book by March 21, 2007. Your goals,” he says as he motions to my self-analysis paper, “are too vague. You’ll never really achieve them with goals like that. You didn’t even write that many down. You can’t tell me you don’t have goals.”

I tried to hide a smile. My reasoning for vague goals is that I had absolutely no intention of sharing any of my legitimate goals, work, personal, or other to them. I didn’t like working there, and i didn’t like how it was run, and to be honest i didn’t really like them. So yes, my goals were vague and not really defined, which was by design. Apparently my manager took notice of this, and than took the completely wrong impression from it.

Now, not noticing my smirk or utterly unfazed by it, he went on: “we really want you to get some more focus Corey, so here’s what were going to do: we’re going to split your raise for now. You’ll get half now, and we’ll have another chat in a little while and see about that second half.”

Yes, apparently the best way to motivate me into having better goals was to punish my financially.

“Uh, okay.” I responded, not because I was offended (though I should have been), but because their tactic honestly confused me. Did they honestly think this was going to make me more motivated? Apparently so, but they wanted to give me that extra push: ”Something else i want you to do Corey… There’s a movie id like you to watch. Its all about setting goals and keeping focused, despite what comes your way. That’s something else you need to work on: focus.”

As an aside, let it be known that by this point my projects where the only ones that managed to hit any sort of timelines, and I had worked 50 hour work days to make sure i hit those deadlines. Lack of focus my left gingery testicle.

At this point I was honestly trying not to laugh. A movie. Seriously? You’ve just robbed me of half my wage increase, and now you want me to go watch a movie?

“It’s called Rudy. Its a fantastic film, I really think you’ll get a lot out of it. Have you seen it before?” he said, smiling at me in what I assume was his best fatherly smile.

“Nope” said I, still totally blind-sided by the situation, “can’t say that I have.”

“You go home and watch it tonight, then come talk to me tomorrow. I really think you’ll learn a lot.”

“Y..yeah, sure” I muttered. I sat there for a moment longer, before the awkwardness of the moment hit the ’14 year old male doing a presentation in front of his class for sex ed.’ level of uncomfortableness.

I went back to my desk and sat down, and explained to my neighbor (one of the female employees who had similar opinions to my own about the company) and explained what had just gone down in our managers office.. She laughed when I mentioned the video, but refused to tell me what I was in for.

I know why now, and my revenge on her will be devastating.

Before we get to the review…

I am sure a great many number of people love Rudy. It really is a soul-stirrer. Underprivileged guy makes his way into school despite all odds, studies hard, makes it onto the team, and in the end he finally get to achieve his life-long dream of playing for … Whatever the hell football team he adored. I obviously paid close attention.

My problem was probably the fact that I went in watching this movie, I was cynical due to the context in which I was told to watch it; that is, I only got half my raise because of vague goals and an apparent lack of focus. You are going to have to forgive me a bit for my inability to appreciate what may very well be a decent movie. I don’t think any suggested movie can really be appreciated in a similar situation.

Anyways, lets see what I took from Rudy, given the context.

My curt, somewhat biased review of the movie ‘Rudy’

A slow, small, un-athletic teenager from a lower middle class family has a dream of playing for a college football team. He makes sure everyone knows about this dream, and refuses to listen to their pointing out the obvious; namely that he is slow, short, and poor. He starts working at the steel mill with his father, where he continues to tell everyone about his goal in life. Everyone laughs. Rudy is resentful and becomes more determined to prove them wrong.

Rudy heads off to the college and weasels his way into campus life by begging a preacher to sponsor him and then living off of the charity of the groundskeeper. I will give him credit: he is resourceful. He basically lives in the shed in the football stadium.

Fast forward through a montage of Rudy studying hard, applying for the main school and getting rejected every semesters’ end until we have Rudy’s first big (and obvious) break: he gets into the big school. He does, of course continue to study hard, because hell, why not.

So now that Rudy has made it to college, he starts begging to get onto the team. He is obviously denied. It takes more than grades to get onto the team. You need things like skill, strength, and to be roughly 7 inches taller. No matter, obvious job requirements matter not to Rudy. He keeps pestering until he gets onto the maintenance crew for the team and starts befriending the team members. After months of this, he manages to get onto the reserve team. Once again this is due the charity of those in better positions.

Game season starts, and of course he is begging to get onto the team. He’s got moxy! Once again the coach points out that he is too small, slow, and unskilled to ever make it onto the team. Moxy or not, he’s just not a decent fit into a line-up of skilled players. He is almost literally the short, fat kid in the red rover line.

Que another montage. This one involves loads of training, more befriending, and i think there is some sort of half-baked romance in there too. I’m pretty sure his training revolves around a tackle or some such thing. My memory in this is mercifully vague.

About 40 minutes of sappy, endearing crap happens now. It’s just one long ‘everyone against Rudy’s dream’ train, and you are stuck watching it crash and burn. I think he gets to kiss a girl, and there was probably a bar fight. I know that at some point in here, he ends up being super-friends with the main football lineup.

Game day; literally the climax of the film.

It’s the last game of the season.

Rudy hasn’t managed to get onto the main team yet. He is crushed. Luckily, all of the guys on the team love Rudy so damned much by this point in the film, that they threaten to turn in their jerseys to the coach if he doesn’t put Rudy on the team. Once again the coach says no, calling their bluff because Rudy is too small, slow, and unskilled to be an effective team member. Never mind that he montaged his way to probably successful tackle or whatever.

The team follows through, and start to hand over their jerseys until the coach caves and puts Rudy on the team. Success for our poor little beta male! Note that this is the third major example of depending on others to get him where he needs to be. Other than being lovable and studying like a med student on meth, Rudy hasn’t really done that much.

Rudy has made it onto the field, but the coach hasn’t played him; nothing but bench for poor, small Rudy. That is until the team starts chanting “Rudy” or something, and the crowd picks up on this and runs with it. This is supposed to be the emotional build-up that make grown men suddenly have something in their eye. The sap-o-metre is dialed up to 11 for the end of this movie.

There are 4 seconds (I could be wrong here, but I am pretty sure there were less than 10 seconds left) left on the clock. The final play. Team Rudy is up 7-24 (once again this is a guess but there was at lest a 2 down difference). The coach cracks under the pressure of the crowd and puts Rudy in. The coach is a bit of a bitch for peer pressure.

The whistle blows, and rudy performs his singular tackle, enabling him to fulfill his life-long dream at the age of 23 or so, and be carried off the field by his team mates. Fade to black. or Sepia… or… something.

What I learned from being forced to watch ‘Rudy’

By the end of the movie, I was angry. I was also bored, but mostly I was angry. Here’s what I took away from that movie was this:

• It doesn’t matter whether you can or can’t do the job; work hard and suck up and you can make it on the kindness of others.
• Your life-long goal is actually very short0sighted, and after you achieve it, you wont have anything to look forward to. You peaked at 23. Also, your life goal is kind of weak.
• Nothing you contribute to the team actually matters, nor will it actually make a difference or change the outcome of anything you are involved in.
• You are stupid.

So what my manager was telling me (in my eyes) was that I was stupid, got by on the sympathies and kindnesses of others, that nothing I do actually matters, nor do I contribute anything to the team other than some sort of mascot status. Oh, and my goals are shallow and unimportant. I don’t even know if focus was really brought up in the film.

I made sure to tell my manager this the next day. I did make sure to outline that i knew what he expected me to take from it, but I wanted him to know that he should be very careful about what he suggests people to watch. He didn’t seem too pleased with the fact that I basically shat all over his most favouritist movie. I did however manage to leave him utterly speechless.

What happened after this second chat really is a testament to a lack of employee understanding, and what happens when you use 1950s management styles in the new world. That is, a style of management that induces a fear of losing your job if you don’t work harder, as opposed to a method where support your employees.

The day I told my manager my about my take on Rudy was also the day I had signed the jobs death certificate in my head. I stopped talking to people, I stopped being a social person, and worst of all I stopped caring. My work became sloppier and I just didn’t care. Why should I? They already explained that I wasn’t that important, held back half of my raise, and didn’t like how I worked anyways. Oh, and apparently lacked focus, despite evidence to the contrary.

They saw my new, depressingly altered work style and actually attributed it to me focusing more on my work. It was actually quite the opposite; I didn’t care, but they couldn’t tell because they never actually bothered to talk to me about anything.

The end result

Watching Rudy (and the attitude shift that happened after) did drive me to make a rather specific goal: I applied to college for Graphic Design. Right in the height of my “fuck this place I am leaving and I don’t care” phase, they gave me the rest of my raise because I seemed to have a lot more focus. That night, I went home and applied for graphic design school.

That gave me a rather solid deadline in which to achieve a couple more specific goals; pay off my new car, save up as much as possible for school (made easier by the rest of my raise), and quit the job that had robbed me in more ways than my raise.

I guess they were right about the focus, but wrong about the subject.

The lesson?

There are many lessons to take away from here: Don’t make people watch Rudy, don’t withhold raises for terrible reasons; don’t make your life goal to play for a college football team; don’t be afraid to quit your horrible, horrible job; the list goes on and on.

The most important one is actually for the manager: don’t run your shop through fear and doublespeak. Instead of punishing someone for not fitting into your mould, see what they are contributing, and find a way to augment that to the benefit of the company.

Also, don’t be a dick.

P.S. If you’re wondering why this is called Rudy 2, I can field that one. There was at one point a one line blog post on this website that stated ‘Rudy, rudy, rudy, rudaayyyy.’ That’s it. The reason was that I was still working at my former job and feared they’d find my actual thoughts on the subject and sodomize me. It was also a hat tip to the then popular song ‘Ruby’ by the Kaiser Chiefs. Some time down’ the road, I deleted this post due to its utter irrelevance.

I hope you’ve found religion, because I’m going to start doing this more often. What does this mean? This means that Corey is finally getting off his lazy god-damned-ass and is going to start writing words in sequence again.

Now if you put these sequenced words together, you will find that they make sentences. These sentences, when grouped into logical sections well, they become paragraphs. If I can actually manage to put enough of these words onto a page, you could actually become entertained by what may be considered an editorial, a review, or a terrifying essay about clowns that live within your closet, just waiting.

What was I talking about?

Right, connecting words like Dr. Frankenstein. Science!

Anyways, lets move right on to the obligatory ‘whats new with me’ section.

So first off, I’m still alive and still living in London. The weather has become somewhat colder and it’s humorous to see the Londonites becoming terrified by the impending snow. I mean good lord, they could get a whole couple of cm. The world is coming to an end, one snow flake at a time. I, however, am handling the weather fine because as you know: I’m not a total little bitch. Update: It has been snowing all day, and my co-workers are all a cringe.

I’m still working as a front end developer for the rather snazzy Radley Yeldar. Actually, I may have not actually mentioned that in my old post. I’m too lazy to actually read my last post, so just to set the record straight; I do that now, and have been for at least 6 months.

Anywho, I’ll be the first to admit that working as a developer after leaving a job that effectively burned me right out and going to school for a couple years to become a graphic designer may seem, well, counter-intuitive. I’d agree, but given that most of my work is a: cutting up designs; b: doing a metric fuck-tonne of Javascript and jQuery stuff; and c: learning from designers far far far better than me; are all good skill-sets that I need to be subjected to learning more of.

Oh, and It’s not soul-crushing like my last job (there’s an upcoming post on that, trust me on that). I mean I actually get to go home on time (with two nights exception where I had to go home at 11 pm).

As another side-bonus, I’ve become fairly good at jQuery development. I can now develop plugins and such for the more commonly needed effects. I’ll keep you posted if/when they are released to the public. Because of this, I’ll probably end up writing some of my own and posting them here (or on github, or both!) for the world to enjoy. This isn’t a tech blog, but I’m sure some code snippets will creep their way in.

Working this job has reminded me how much fun you can actually have programming. Granted I’ll never really get too far back into the back-end stuff – we’ve got some very talented guys at RY that cover that – but learning about HTML5, jQuery, getting right into web semantics, and CSS3 is sadly exciting to me. Heck, the project I am currently working on (which I cannot talk about quite yet)  has some badass javascript to create some pretty swell user interaction. It’s taken me the better part of a friggin’ week to get it working right, but I’m really happy with how it’s turning out. When it goes live, I’ll be sure to brag about it post a link here.

I am still with Theresa, so anyone who had bets on that, pay up. Also, you guys are dicks. You shouldn’t be betting on things like that. Jesus.

Theresa has a full-time job teaching children. How she handles 3 and 4 year old children I will never know. I would probably have been arrested for mass geno..infans… toddlercide? I’d be a horrible teacher, lets leave it at that. Some of the stories she tells me blow my mind. Sometimes I can’t grasp the fact that 3 year olds can be as smart as she makes them out to me. This leads me to the realization that I have no idea about the learning speed of children. I just assume they’re stupid until the age of about 26 or so.

Oh, I’ve been participating in Movember, which I don’t really see much point in posting here since it’s the end of the month, and I probably won’t get a dime out of you. Regardless, feel free to have a look at my profile page and enjoy faces of the ‘stache. A quick disclaimer: some of them will probably upset you. My face has that power.

Now as for general website stuff.

Now you may have noticed that all pretty much all of the images are broken on the website. This was caused by a server move and something not being installed in the php build. I’ll get that sorted soon. You may also have noticed that the Twitter feed is.. well frozen. This has to do with how twitter’s changed auth, and plugin is being a bit of a shit about it. I’m not overly worried, because of the next point:  There is a site re-design in the machinations.

It was supposed to happen in September, but many things (work, life, being one of the laziest bastards I know, etc) have hampered this. Now that I am forcing myself to get my ass in gear, I’m not even happy with the design I was cooking up (please not this was design 3 that you’ll never ever see).

Basically what I’m saying is that I’m starting over on the design, but I shall be actively producing it, so it is my hope that by the new year I will have the new design up and running. This does mean that I have to learn a bit more about WP 3 but I’m not concerned. I’ll be basically rebuilding everything from the ground up, so wish me luck on that. It’s gonna be fun! Shut up, I know what fun means.Yes I do! Why are you being so hostile? We used to be buds. Is this because I haven’t posted for 6 months? No? You sure? Because that’s what it seems like to me.

Moving on.

I’m also working on a side-project or two that may or may not see the light of day. It’s sort of going to depend on if I and my project bud can get our shit together. Working with an 5 hour time difference is… difficult.

Also also, I’ve been reading, and playing more games. I swear I will bash out some review for them. First I have to get the images thing working again. Baby steps! Feel free to add me to Xbox Live. My Tag is ‘Jack Dutson’.

Until next time kids!

And remember: Only you can prevent forest fires.

Corey signing out.

Know your time lines and stick to them

This is pretty straightforward people. Know when you need to deliver things by (milestones, project builds, documents, etc) and make sure they’re delivered by that date/time. When things start slipping from the timeline, then it just compounds as one section runs into another. Believe me when I say that there is only so much overlap you can orchestrate before something breaks. Think Jenga.

On that same note, make sure that your time requirements are accurate. I cannot stress that enough. If you think something should only take you an hour, give yourself 2. If you end up ahead of schedule, great! You’ve just created buffer time for when something goes wrong. I’m not advocating giving yourself a week to do a day-long job, but be realistic with your time lines, not optimistic.

Don’t bother getting mad, you’ll only give yourself a hernia

I learned this about half way through the project, which is depressing because had I learned sooner I wouldn’t be as sick as I have been. Stressing out and getting upset by every mishap isn’t worth the energy expended to do so. The phrase “No use crying over spilled milk” has never wrung so true as it has for me during this time.

I realized that getting upset doesn’t do anyone any good, and only serves to fray already shot nerves. Realize that thing’s aren’t going according to plan, and plot out a logical course of action. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care that your project is 1 hour before a presentation to 100 important people and not working. Far from, actually. What I’m saying is that muttering your last rights in the corner as you rock back and forth in a fetal position isn’t going to do anyone any good.

Don’t play the blame game, but don’t let things slide either

This was a big one for me. Throughout the entire project, my mantra has been (and probably will always be for projects): “I don’t care why it was broken, so long as it’s fixed now.” What This means is that I don’t care who’s fault it may or may not be. I care that the project is continuing to move toward its goal now that the problem has been overcome.

If someone’s not pulling their weight, fix it. If someone made a mistake, tell them. People are responsible for their action or lack there of. That doesn’t mean you should go pinning the blame on people when something goes haywire. Explain the problem like an adult, and approach it like an adult. Saying “You didn’t do X so fix it now” isn’t going to get you the warm reception you’re expecting. People get defensive when you attack them head on, and this is how arguments over stupid topics start.

Think before you open your damned mouth

This one was/is hard for me. I have a habit of shooting my mouth off when I shouldn’t and I know it. This translates directly into how I work with others, and I have to make a conscious effort to think about what I’m saying and how I’m saying it. I’ve noted a couple times during this project that I’ve sounded like a complete dick. I don’t mean to, but because I worded things badly it makes me look like a jerkhole.

Before you click the send button, open your mouth, or pick up the pen, think. Figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Try and make sure you’re not being out-right offensive (unless that’s your goal) and be concise. Taking the extra five seconds can make the resulting exchange that much easier.

Write it down

There were so many times when steps in installation, documentation, development, and God knows where else were overlooked, ignored, or outright forgotten. If you happen to have the goldfish memory that I do, you will benefit from this. Writing things down at least gives you a paper-trail to work with. If you find yourself taking a lot of notes, give them a time stamp. Use different colours of pens and/r highlighters to signify different sections or notation types.

I’ve found that by the time I’ve taken to write down what I want to remember, it’s already locked in my head. The simple act of writing it down seems to solidify the memory so that the note I just took is now no longer required, as my brain has done its job.

Writing things down has the added bonus of allowing others to know what you know. If you’re not going to be around for a while, at least others have your notes to work from. Sure they could be utterly insane to anyone that isn’t you, but at least it’s something.

P.S. The same goes for commenting code.

Pay attention

Try and keep tabs on where everyone is in their time lines. If you need something from someone, make sure that when you need it, they haven’t swanned off to a meeting or vacation. There’s nothing worse then being ahead of the game, only to be brought back down or even pulled behind on your deliverables because Adam McMoron has decided to try and get Finance Girls number.

If you’re in charge of people, make sure that they aren’t playing minesweeper or Facebooking their best friend thrice-removed. I know it sounds stupid, but if you give people a week to do something, they’ll find a way to make it last a week. I’m not saying you need to have armed guards holding their families hostage to make sure they’re working efficiently, but make sure you know what’s going on. Schedule end-of-day meetings, or set up mandatory emails stating what they’ve been doing. If you want to get really stingy, find a time-logging program that you and your underlings can use.

Despite popular belief, assuming only makes an ass of you

It’s not their fault when you assumed something. Assumptions are guesses based on half-information and the ethers. If you have to assume something, there hasn’t been enough communication. If you find yourself saying things like “He’s supposed to be doing it” or “It should be here monday” you are assuming. Words like ‘should’ and ‘supposed’ are bad news.

You can avoid assuming by simply confirming what you think. If you think the package will be here on Monday, call the postal service. If you think that someone is supposed to be doing a job, ask them. The bottom line here is that assuming will end up biting you in the ass. Sometimes you assume right, but I assure you that most of the time you will assume very wrong.

Learn from your mistakes, lest you repeat them

During this project, there was a night that I was at work for 40 hours. Why? simply put: the shit got fucked up. I cannot and will not go into the details as to what happened or why, but suffice it to say that bad time-management, assumptions and flat out bad luck found most of the team working well into the next day. It sucked but we managed.

One month later, it happened again.

What the hell happened? Different problems, but many of the same root causes. Assumptions were made, time was mis-managed, and we weren’t paying attention where we should have. As a result the work that was scheduled for 9 AM didn’t begin until 9 PM. There’s no excuse for this, and I won’t make one. I know where the flaws are now, and I’ll be Goddamned if I’m going to let it happen again.

That’s all for now. I’m sure when the project is totally finished, I’ll do a postmortem and regale you with even more fun tidbits that you can use (or ignore, though that would be silly.)

Photo credit: Stock.xchng – Jonathan Natiuk

Another helpful tidbit: if you are tired enough, you can actually sleep on a cement floor! I proved this by passing out in our conference room for nearly two hours. I say passed out because it wasn’t sleep in any sense. I actually felt worse when I was roused. Ah well, such is my work-life.

Onto the random paragraphs that summarize my life in the past little while!

I’ve been obsessed with the newest season of Sam & Max by Telltale Games. This season (with the exception of one episode) blows the first season out of the water. I’m not saying that the first season is bad, far from in actuality, but this seasons writing and direction are much tighter than the last season, and I’m rather looking forward to the last installment. I pray that they continue making more seasons.

There’s a new Dentyne commercial out that I’m in love with, and thanks to a little investigation Theresa and I found the band that made the song. Ben’s Brother is the culprit, and after listening to their myspace page, I went and tracked down their 2007 album: “Beta Male Fairytales”. It turns out that though ‘Stuttering’ will be a super hit single, the rest of their music is pretty much top-end awesome. I’ve officially become a fanboy of them and pray that they visit Canada at some point in the future. I’ll make sure to do a review of the album this week. For those looking for a copy of the track (which cannot be downloaded from the bands MySpace page there is another MySpace page that features the download. How long it’ll be up I don’t know so I suggest getting it while it’s ‘hot’.

So a new Panic! At The Disco album came out. Considering how hyped up the first CD was, I’m a little shocked that this went so under the radar. I’ll admit I liked them when I first heard of them (I was visitor 63 on their MySpace way back in the day.. and I still have their original 3 track releases). Then they got huge and over-played. Then they disappeared. I was expecting them to burn hot and then fizzle out after the first album. Then I heard about “Pretty. Odd.” two days before the release date. I got my hands on a copy recently and I’ve gotta say that it’s a drastic departure from their last album. “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” was all about being bouncy and energetic and borderline insane. “Fairly Odd” is toned down and dare I say, a more matured sound than before. I don’t know whether I like it or not. I’ll try and review their newest album this week as well.

I was recently recommended an artist called Matt McIntosh on Last.Fm and I have to say that I’m at least a little impressed. Very haunting, toned down, with a weird-hollow voiced sound to it. I’ll try and review this one when I get the chance. Apparently he’s made a lot of music in the past.

Last thing to note, I’ve been getting more into Twitter, though I’m not entirely sure why.

Until next time folks.

So kiss me again
Cause only you can stop this stut-stut-stut-stuttering
Kiss me again
And ease my su-su su-su su-su s-su-s-suffering

Ben’s Brother – Stuttering

Corey signing off

Scope creep was rampant to a scale that I have not experienced since, and that’s saying something. I’ve had projects where I’ve been up for over 40 hours straight working because of scope creep, and I can assure that none of them fell anywhere near what I was supposed to do for this company. On top of that, every section had to have their own way of doing things, and I had to try and figure out how to fit it all together in one neat, little package.

Though the result is obvious already, I’ll press on. I swear I have a point to make with all of this.

I’d like to say that I worked as hard as I possibly could have, and that it all turned out great. I can’t, obviously, but I’d like to. Once the realization that the project could not possibly be done by someone with my abilities, i started to freak-out, which translated into slacking off. Like I stated previously, scope creep was everywhere, but it was not the only problem. The other major problem was a complete and utter fail at the effort estimates by both my employers and myself. Who knew that it took more than 4 months for anyone to make a CMS? Apparently we didn’t.

To add to this, I was younger, way less experienced, lazier, and my work ethic was roughly at the sub-par level. Throw in the fact that I had just started dating someone, and you get a bad collection of attributes to add to the already meaty mix of failure. I can admit to the fact that I did not work as had as I could have, and though that did contribute to the problem, even working at my best it was still a futile attempt. I’m not trying to lessen my blame or guilt here (I do feel it, believe me) I’m just explaining the situation.

Lets move forward in time to now. More specifically to last night. I was curious to see how they were doing. I logged onto the site in Firefox, and my eyes started to bleed. Then all of those repressed memories came flooding back, and I recalled how I just couldn’t get the damned thing to render in FF. Granted, FF was only in its 1.0 stage and had issues, but it all basically comes down to my lack of experience that lead to the horror that I was looking at. “My God, they’re using it,” I said to myself “they’re actually using it!” I looked around, and dear God they were still updating it too. So even after I did a piss-poor job with it all, they were actually using it.

It started eating me up inside. I couldn’t let that just sit there. I had the knowledge, the power, and the will to at least try and rectify the situation. I’ve gained so much experience over the last three years that I should be able to fix what I had done to the site in no time at all. I wouldn’t try making a CMS but damn it, I could fix that markup.

That’s when I realized how far I’d actually come since then. It’s only been three years (less, technically) and my experience is so much more superior to what it was then that my mind actually crapped itself a little. As I looked at that website, I realized I could remake the imagery and the markup in a couple days tops. It took me weeks back then. Even the way I did the CMS – such as it was – seems far simpler now then it ever did then. Hell, i remember spending days trying to figure out how the hell to do a recursive function to create the menu, as I hadn’t been taught them by this point. I eat recursive functions for breakfast now, though they all basically taste the same.

I’ll wait for the laughter to die down before I continue. If you didn’t laugh, you’re not a programmer or you don’t appreciate nerd humor. That’s your problem, not mine.

What I’m getting at here is that every once in a while you need to be reminded with just how far you’ve come. It’s sort of like looking at your grade 2 math homework, and laughing at how simple it is now. It’s like re-reading the first book you ever read, just to see how much easier it is now. Take a step back and look at what you do now. Look back a couple years and look at what you did then, and revel in how far you’ve come. Be proud of what you can do now, even if it doesn’t seem like enough for what you need to do.

You’ve got your goals, and that’s important. It’s also important to look at your progress to those goals to get that boost of confidence.

Oh, and for the record: I’m remaking the website imagery and markup, and I’m planning to email it to them. They can do with it what they wish, but at least I’ll feel better. As it turns out, I’m about a 3rd done, and it’s taken me about 3 hours of effort thus far. 3 hours versus multiple weeks.

I’m proud of what I can do now.

I’ve been somewhat busy over the past little while what with work and all. I’ve finally started my job at The Revolution Night Club in Waterloo. I thought that my working from 10 to 3 in the morning would beat me up way more then it actually has. As long as I get a nap in before going to work, I’m fine. Besides, It allows me to wake up at 12 in the afternoon, which is some sort of accomplishment for me.

Since this is one of my few pointless personal posts, I figure I may as well talk about what it is that I do there. I have the glamorous job of bussing. “What is bussing?” you ask? A busser is that sucker that walks around picking up empty, abandoned, or otherwise useless husks that are the plastic cups, glasses, and bottles which once housed booze. A busser is, for lack of a better term, a janitor. We clean up the drinks, spills, and when it happens, vomit that occurs throughout the night. It’s not a great job, but I actually don’t mind it. I found I can tune out the thug music stunningly well, and I’m apparently good at my job. I don’t mind vomit, I’m good at moving through crowds of people, and my father-blessed work ethic makes me do my job well.

I have learned some things from the two shifts I have worked, and I feel the need to share some of these things. To make things convenient, here is a list:

1. Pay attention to your drinks people. It’s a waste of money to buy a drink, only to drink 3 sips of it and abandon it for any reason. You know as well as I do that you won’t drink it when you come back, and all you’ve managed to do is waste perfectly good alcohol, and your cash.
2. Drunk people are generally nice. I always thought that the Rev was a den of assholes who are itching for a fight. Not true, as it turns out. People are, for the most part, nice the more alcohol they consume.
3. The difference between the 19+ night and the 21+ night is staggering. On the 19+ night, no one is allowed to have bottles, the girls dress like tramps, and the guys are all trying to impress. Apparently aging two years does wonders for maturity levels. So much so that people can drink from bottles, dress more respectably, and dance on stages.
4. People never go when there is no cover. The Rev is free until 10:30 pm. Why is it that people don’t show up until 12 am then? What a waste of money people. it’s 6 bucks to get into the club after 10:30, so why not just go early and relax while there is a lull in the person count. It’ll help you get more drinks faster as well.
5. Girls dress like tramps, and it’s not impressing anyone. If you’re using your curves (or a lack therein) to attract a mate, trust me when I say that they’ll probably be lacking any redeemable qualities. Please don’t disrespect yourself by dressing like a hooker. If you do, you’re not allowed to get mad when guys stare at your jiggly bits. Have some self-respect.
6. People don’t really start to drink until nearly 1 am. Then it gets fucking crazy.
7. A lot of people can’t dance. I’m not saying they shouldn’t, because dancing is fun and who cares what anyone else thinks. Though if you are trying to impress the opposite sex (or the same if thats your bag) you have to learn at the very least how to not look like an epileptic monkey on the dance floor.
8. Girls like to scream/cheer at the most random shit.
9. Remixes are preferred to the originals.
10. Only white folk seem to like Techno. I don’t want to generalize here, but that what I’ve seen thus far.
11. 3 out of 100 people know how to dance to Techno. Considering our Techno room only holds like, 150 people, thats not a good ratio.
12. Girls thank you for taking away empty drinks. Guys nod.
13. Never try and pick up at a 19+ night. You don’t want what’s being served. If you really want to pick up, go to the 21+ or 25+ nights. Everyone is more relaxed and easy-going.
14. Don’t go to bars or clubs by yourself. It’s fucking depressing to look at. If you do go alone, at least mingle with people. Don’t sit at a booth by yourself. You can sit at home in your underwear and drink if you want to feel depressed. You really don’t need to see everyone else being happy to get you to that low.
15. I love ear plugs.
16. To hell with everyone who said steel-toed shoes were a bad idea. Drunk people are clumsy, and I’ve had my foot stepped on a lot considering I’ve worked two shifts.

On top of all that, working this job also has the added bonus of working out some muscle groups that never get taxed. So by working this job, I should technically end up in better physical shape.

In other, not Rev related news, I’ve almost finished reading Wicked, and my review should be posted some time this week, assuming I have the time to finish it. It’s a good book so far, though I won’t give away my thoughts just yet. I’m also going to try and finish Mario: Thousand Year Door. I have a horrible habit of getting through games to about the 80% mark, and then just dropping it. I’ve done that to at least three games that I can think of off the top of my head. I’m also going to try and get some more writing in. By my figuring (which involves a very complex equation that factors work, laziness, and drive) I should be finished my “book” by the year 2016.

Oh and before I forget, I got the chance to see Van Halen in concert on Thursday. Free tickets given to me by a co-worker. I’ve never listened to Van Halen actively, so this was basically a crash course in their music. It’s pretty good, if not a tad shallow. Everything was from the 1984 album or before. What really made the concert for me were the two solos within the show. The drum solo had me smiling throughout the whole thing, and the guitar solo left me stunned into silence. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in my feelings as the entire stadium (and there were a lot of people) was utterly silent throughout the guitar. I’m happy I got to see it, though I’m a little sad we missed The Tragically Hip.

That should wrap things up for now.

I think we’re alone here you and I
I think we’re alone left wondering why
I think we’re alone here you and I
I think we’re alone in the universe tonight

David Usher – Alone in the Universe

Corey signing off.

I have however been busy with life, being lazy with updating this, and other lame excuses that I cannot fathom at the moment.

I’m not going to bother with all that because quite honestly I was just lazy and had no drive to update this site. No real reason, but I’m back to take another stab at it.

The reason for this is two fold:

1. Theresa (who I am still with thankfully) is back in school, so I once again have too much time on my hands.
2. I’ve been feeling somewhat depressed lately, and though I wont get into specific reasons as to why, I am wondering if doing this blog will help me with/through it.

Worry not faithful readers (all zero of you), I’m not suicidal or emo or any of that kief, I am simply feeling a little down.

I may as well get back into the swing of things with what I have been doing for the past… lets say… week. Yes, a week sounds good.

Alright, so I recently finished watching House: Season Three which was, as usual, amazing. I love that show dearly and I am overly sure that I will own all the box sets as they come out. On the up side I have finally caught up to the current running season, so I can actually have a reason to watch TV again. Granted it’s only for an hour every Sunday but whatever.

I recently picked up the new DS: Special edition that comes with Brain Age 2. It cost me a little bit, but I’m glad I finally have one and when I get the extra scratch I’m going to get my hands on the Opera Browser and possibly some home brewed programs like the WiFi Phone app I’ve been linked to. I don’t know where the link is at the moment, but if I find it, I’ll post it. I’ve wanted a DS for a while, and a special edition was just the excuse happenstance I needed to make the purchase.

I also recently crash-coursed my friend in both Venture Brothers: Season 2 and Clone High. He’s a big guy, so it’s funny to see him rendered helpless as he struggles for breath between fits of laughter. Sure he tries to kill me after, but it’s always so worth it.

Second lastly, I got a job Friday and Saturday nights working at The Revolution night club doing I don’t know what yet. My friend Danny pointed out that I am “fucking crazy” for doing so, and he’s probably not that wrong. I hate the place and the music, but it’s a guaranteed job, and I wanna pay of my car. Shrug, who knows what interesting stories may come from it all. More on this as it develops.

Lastly, I’m swinging in and out of writing, so we’ll see what develops with that.

Like romantic roadkill,
M heart is all splattered.
And your ego got fatter,
And I hope that you’re flattered.

You broke this down.

The best thing that you never had.

Butch Walker – Best Thing that You Never Had.