Work has been pretty great so far, 2 weeks in and still surviving. One major thing that has been a bit of a twist is the dress code change; suit and tie is quite a bit different than jeans and a polo. Though, I have been skimping on the tie as much as possible, I am a rebel. The work environment is good though, everyone seems pretty welcoming, even though I am the “temp” -which is apparently a term that does not bode well with me, but I am what I am at this point, I guess.
So I have been working and improving on the existing code for the site and I am going to just go ahead and say it… osCommerce has to be the worst thing I have ever developed on top of, not to mentioned how hacked together the whole system is, i.e. talking to the back-end ERP system. At the end of the day, it is functioning, but it is basically at its limit for what it can do without spending hours of development time to add new features. Basically, I can see why they want to ditch this shit and move to a more proprietary platform.
I am at a bit of an impasse with the work at times because after a couple days of looking at the code I realized working with osCommerce has no plus side for me. I do not learn anything and I sometimes want to kick my own teeth out. Maybe I should place some blame on the former developers as well, some of the hacks they put in place are just irritating. But, my goal is to fix this pile of shit while they transition and I will take my down time and do more prototyping with C# so that in a few months I may be an asset for them in regards to the new system.
On a non-work related note, I have been pretty much relaxing after work, it’s draining, I told you. I started watching 24 again from the first season, it is enjoyable. Something exciting and cool is that my brother and I picked up a new site from Flippa yesterday, we are in the escrow process, currently waiting for the transfer on the server to us, already have the domains. This has been a quick and smooth transaction thus far and I am very pleased with the process and the seller.
We are ready to revamp the site and take it to the next level, we are hoping that at a minimum to keep the existing income but obviously if we can increase it, that is ideal. The current income does not cover all the server expenses so the possibility of a loss exists. I am working with my current provider to possibly transition the site to their system, where the current income level would make it a wash.
Time to crunch the numbers and figure out the best plan of attack!