Remarks: This blog includes some computer programming jargons, but just minor. The purpose of this blog is for me to share my journal and experience of this whole freelance thing, the good and bad of this experience and what I should learn from this experience.
On February 2007, I got myself into a freelance project. This one month period was indeed an intense and painful moment and felt frustrated many times and also much grumbling. And also comes with both bad (technical problems and people problems) and good (financial blessings and learning).
The problems, struggles, pain
One of the early problem is to install SQL Server 2000 database. First I need to download the evaluation version and then install it, but it doesn’t work. The difficult part is it didn’t give me an error message. After some time struggling with this, we found out that the culprit is my Kerio firewall. Thanks to James Gan who helped me out that Sunday. I own you! By the way, I began to hate Kerio. It didn’t prompt me anything like Zone Alarm and didn’t show any statistic like Zone Alarm also. Maybe I didn’t know how to use it. Anyway, I got rid of it and install back Zone Alarm.
Next hurdle will this this software. I need to use this software/tool to develop this software. And learning this tool is such a painful moment to me. There is just so much to learn in so little time. The documentation is so so MUCH to read! But, I appreciate a friend in this company who willing to teach me patiently. In fact, I think if not because of his help, to teach me this software and also help debug those programming problem, I will surely cannot finish this software on time 100%.
Last but not least, say no to illegal software which is stealing. And God does provide a way out (1 Corinthian 10: 13).
The Blessings
With so much of pain, struggling and frustration, I managed to see the good side of all this whole thing. Actually, I was being paid to learn. Without this project, I will never learn so much, this software and those programming skills and techniques. Now, I have more confidence to use this tool if given a project in the future though this first experience has created some phobia to me.
The pay for this project is high for me, and it is a blessing to me, though by this time I still have not receive the payment from them yet. I hope they will pay up within 1-2 weeks time from now.
What I should have learnt from this experience?
Find out more details of this project, as much and as thorough as possible. Example:
Am I rebuilding this project all over again?
Is there any existing working project file?
How big is the databases? How many table? (From here, I can know roughly how big or complex is the system.
Find out what software is needed to develop this software?
Is there any existing documentation as reference?
Other things to bear in mind:
I also need to allow buffer of ‘there are things that they didn’t let me know. Another word expect some suprises from them. If I expect suprises will happen, I wouldn’t get too reactive towards them. Because of this, I should also increase my pay to cater these surprises.’
Another thing to learn is assertiveness. This is a good situation to apply assertiveness, the express myself out without being too angry about it.
Not to quick to make decision. I shouldn’t make the decision on the spot. I should take longer time to think and consider it. Otherwise, my decision can be based on pressures and give in at the end. And know that once i agreed, that’s it. Die die, I gotta finish it up