I’ve been tending to write lots of short updates on Facebook instead of long posts here. So here’s a few updates.
My shoulder hasn’t been improving with physiotherapy, although I have regained my range of motion. Friday, Saturday and Sunday it was so sore I couldn’t even do my physio exercises. Worse still, on Saturday it was both shoulders that hurt. The therapist and I did some stuff on Tuesday to see if we could figure out which of my exercises is doing it, but I suspect it’s none of them – although driving for an hour and 45 minutes seems to make it worse. Oh well, I see the doctor in the first week of January – maybe I can get on the surgery list fast.
A few days ago, my project manager Nikola asked me when I was coming in to work. He didn’t say why, but I figured I knew it was one of two things. It turned out to be the good one of the two – he asked me if I would like to become a permanent employee. As a contract programmer, the permanent offer can either be awful or it can be awesome. On the plus side, permanent employment can have benefits, paid time off, sick leave, 401(k), and a sense of belonging. With Vicki wanting to retire in a few short years, a job with benefits will probably be a good thing. On the other hand, a permanent offer can mean lower wages, no paid over time, pathetically short vacation time allowance (US companies think nothing of offering a 50 year old senior developer 2 weeks paid vacation, or even worse, 15 days “time bank – which means you only get your full vacation if you manage to not get sick or you drag yourself into work and spread germs), putting up with sometimes annoying corporate rules (although that doesn’t appear to be too bad with this company) and if you don’t accept it, they drop your contract. So I’m waiting to see the offer with mixed emotions.
On the other hand, today I was a bug fixing *machine*. I had a ton of bugs assigned to me, some because the guys who normally take care of those areas weren’t around. And today I knocked off 5 of them, which is pretty amazing when you consider that I spent at least an hour filling in the various stuff that’s required to progress the bugs through the horribly inefficient bug reporting system. (I’ve suggested FogBugz, or at least Bugzilla and Jira.)
The drive home kind of sucked – freezing rain/sleet which didn’t stay on the windshield, but which did accumulate on the windshield wipers requiring me to stop a couple of times to clear them off. At least the roads were well sanded and slurried.
Wikipedia says (around here) full payment during sickness is mandatory for employess since 1794 by law – no joke.
And you have a least 24 fully paid days holiday by law, usually you have 30 days by contract. There is _zero_ “time bank”, not in the public sector and not in the private sector.
You often need the full 30 days, a collegue often worked from home after 10pm, when wife and children sleep with his crappy win98-pc, who fell off company inventory 6 years ago. Once in 3 years, I had to call in a 50+ year old women on sunday to press a few buttons, and sunday is important around here even if churches are becoming more empty.
> horribly inefficient bug reporting system. (I’ve suggested FogBugz, or at least Bugzilla and Jira.)
I failed to implement CVS at my (still) “current” employer, I’m trying not to think about contracts that “may” make it a requirement. Well, 8 days left on their payroll, so I probably won’t find out if bites them in the backside or not. Got a few weeks of staying at home fully paid and a few weeks severance pay, so I’m not very angry. When an Internet company failed nearly 10 years ago, I got the same deal.