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Friday, April 10, 2009

Stored Procedure Manic

Since I joined a new company as web application developer, I was amazed on the amount of stored procedure usage in multiple MSSQL databases to support a single system. There is one database which had the largest number of overall stored procedure created. Over 2000 ++ scripts with total size of 11 MB. The best of all there is no single manual or documentation available to map the stored procedure to the application itself. And no programmer to refer to. Damn. This is going to be a mental strain to any system noob. I'm almost reaching the limit for just in 5 days.

When the management set a dateline to complete a task, it is understandable that the result must be achieved no matter what. To be surprised, one day, during the assignment period, the MD directly ask my data enhancer senior colleague what is the progress and what is the result should be achieved that day. He took a long pause not knowing what, when & how to answer the question. I tried to help by explaining the current situation. The MD get upset and ask us the detail action plan and present to him in 30 minutes.

The objective is clear but when the time is too short I had to use every resources that I had, which is time. I spent 72 hours straight to just understand the flow. But to reprogram the whole module it might take 1 or 2 more months. Which is not an option. The logical way to solve it is to contact the previous programmer and ask which script could solve the issue. But for some reason that is not an option too. So I'm stuck and back too nothing. I have no choice but to dig the 2000++ stored procedure script to find the actual script that could solve everything. Luckily I found it after spending another 24 hours digging the script. Sigh. This could be one of the Worse Than Failure (WTF) story in my IT profession life.

I know I've been paid to do the job but 24 hours a day for straight two weeks to make sure the job is done? Come on I'm not 25 anymore. At this point I'm not sure this is the right job for me. I wonder how long I would last in that company.