Work

Here I am at work right. I've just been asked to create 'sanitized,' and 'normalized' copies of our current test databases for the sake of backups and testing. Like most of my tasks so far, its a task that is way above my head. Most of my tasks so far have been. I've had to ask my co-workers for help in figuring out how to do most of the things I have to do. I've also relied quite a bit on Google to help me find the info I need. I feel sometimes that my presence in this company is more of a burden than a help. I'm not capable of nearly as many tasks as my co-workers and I have to lean on them a lot for help. Of course, I'm not paid nearly as much as them either.

Hmm. It seems that every one of my assignments is meant as a learning experience. "Here, do this and get familier with the database." "Here, do that and get familier with the webapp." I don't actually help much, but I learn a lot about the technology, a whole lot. In fact, if I'm still here after a year, I may be almost caught up with the rest of the company in how everything works. This may be the reasoning behind the assignements I get. "The more he learns the more useful he will be." Unfortuneately I'll only be here for another month or so. All this experience they're giving me had better pay off soon or they'll have waisted a lot of time on one intern.

Another thing (related) that concerns me is how they always compair me to the old intern from the last few years. It's usually in relation to something he knew but I don't know. He knew Perl. I don't know Perl. He knew NSIS. I don't know NSIS. He knew Oracle. I don't know Oracle. It's not like I'm unskilled, I know C, C++, Java, UNIX, MySQL, Ant, and CVS, but, asside from Java and CVS, they don't use any of these things in the office. CVS, I learned more about here than I knew previously.

My skills grow by the day however. I'm able to be more helpful with everything I learn. I suppose I shouldn't expect my abilities to match the professionals anyway with almost no formal education in any of this. But I still wish I could do more to pull my own weight. This is a cool job and I like doing it but if I can't be productive at it, (ie., not using up more resources than I'm worth by not knowing how to perform the tasks I'm assigned,) how can I justify my presence here? I can't. And, more importantly, the company can't either, and jeapordizes my ability to get retain the same job. I just hope that the only reason I have this job (or that they're taking a teaching approach rather than a using approach,) is because my dad knows my boss. That would really suck. I mean, beyond all reason, that would be a huge letdown.

Though, maybe if they let me come over Christmas break, I'll be more able to help right off the bat with all this knowledge I've accumulated over the summer. Come next summer I'll up there with the big boys more helpfull than ever. But that depends on me coming back, which in turn, depends on my doing my job. Which reminds me, I have a task that is well over my head to complete I really ought to get to it.

God Bless.