Phil Barker Web Developer, Petrol Head & Wannabe Photographer

Web development.. the wrong way

For most of my career as a web developer, I have been re-writing web systems that already exist for various companies.
Most of those web systems have some sort of in-company processes assigned to them, such as order processing, despatching, etc…

I like to view re-developing existing systems as a point of change for the better, where existing processes within a company can be analysed and optimised. That way the company can save some money, and everyone can be a little bit happier in there job.

However I always find that other staff within companies are reluctant to change, they know how they currently work and they want to stick to that, even when the current processes within the company are slow, laborious and in places just plain wrong.

I don’t understand why other people find it so hard to step back, look at what they’re doing, and see where they can save time and stress with just a few changes!
This is the most frustrating part of my life, I find it very hard to motivate myself to model web applications around company processes that I can see are wrong.

In order to save myself from a heart-attack mid way through my 30′s I’m not sure if I need to find a way to stop caring about improving the companies I work at, or whether I should try to migrate my job away from writing apps into some kind of business processes analyst?

For now I’ll stick to drinking JD every night until I stop caring