Month: August 2006

How would you describe your job to a complete stranger?

I’ve often wondered – and struggled – to come up with a good answer myself. Here at PowerServe we’re all multi-taskers. One moment I’m a Designer, another I’m a Creative Director, another I am a Project Manager of sorts. We all wear many hats, and that’s one of the cool things about PowerServe: you encounter new things every day.

• I’m a web designer.
• I’m a graphic designer.
• I design.
• I make things pretty to look at and easy to use.
• I help businesses improve their business.
• I get paid to play.
• I help others to grow as designers and coders.
• I meticulously write valid markup.

I think my favorite would have to be “I get paid to play.” Jobs aren’t supposed to be fun, right? It wouldn’t be called “work” otherwise. So I feel rather blessed to have a job where I feel like everytime I’m creating a site for a client in Photoshop, or messing with code in Dreamweaver, I’m playing.

A recent conversation I had with a friend and former coworker gave me better insight on how to describe what it is that I – and others in my profession – do. It’s easy to tell someone you design websites or business cards. Most people get that. But many people trivialize our profession because the tools to make websites or business cards or whatever are available to anyone, regardless of their level of skill. Would you trust the maintenance or repair of your car to just anybody? Of course not. You might save a few dollars by going to Mechanic A, but if he doesn’t fix your car correctly, it could end up costing you more money to repair your car when you bring it to Mechanic B. Hindsight is 20-20. I get that.

Website design and development is like working on a car. A really beautiful car that is ugly under the hood isn’t going to be winning the Indy 500 anytime soon. An ugly that runs like a charm is going to do well. How else do you expect sites like CraigsList to prosper?

Anyway, I digress. How would you describe your job?

I posted this on the PowerServe blog and figured I’d mention it here as well. We’re looking to bring another programmer aboard. Here’s a brief summary on what we’re looking for. More details can be found at: jobs.powerserve.net.

We’re looking for another full-time programmer/analyst. Must have one to three years of experience developing web-based, database-drive systems using ASP and SQL Server. B.S. in Computer Science (or related field) preferred. Strong problem-solving and organizational skill srequired. Must be proficient in ASP, VBScript and JavaScript. Must have experience with SQL Server, MySQL, and MS Access. ASP.Net, COM/DCOM, ADO, XML, Crystal Reports, a plus. PowerServe offers competitve salaries and benefits. For immediate consideration, please email your resume to Jeff Partl. For additional on this position, please visit: jobs.powerserve.net.

At this time we are not considering candidates for sponsorship or relocation; candidates must be both local and eligible to work in the United States.

Salary commensurate with experience and skill level.

Please Note: Resumes will only be considered if sent via email. Walk-ins and phone calls not accepted. Thanks.

Please Note: Resumes will only be considered if sent via email. Walk-ins and phone calls not accepted. Thanks.

Man, I had a busy night last night. PowerServe will be moving into a new building in a week and a half, and we’ve been doing some painting before we move all our stuff in.

I was at our new office last night until 9:30pm putting the finishing touches on the room. We opted to go with 4 shades of blue in the Creative Services office. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but it’s come together nicely. We’ve got some lime green as an accent color, and semi-gloss white for the trim. The fun thing about painting – especially when you do something a little different like we’re doing – is seeing it all come together at the end.

It was important for me and the rest of the creative team to create an environment that was unique to our new offices. I think we’ve succeeded. In the next couple of days, I will try to add some pictures of the finished project onto Flickr. There is still some detail work to be done, including the addition of some green “designs” that tie all of the walls (and the PowerServe brand colors) all together, but that will be done soon enough.

We’re excited about the move. We’re moving into a building really close to where we’re at now. The new space will provide us with more room, more flexibility, and most importantly – room for growth. I’ve loved the office we’ve been in since I started working here over two years ago, but it no longer meets our needs like it once did.

Things are going to be in limbo on the site for a little while. I’ll continue posting when I can, but I am not sure how quickly I will be able to incorporate the new design I am working on into WordPress. Your patience is appreciated. In the meantime, I may switch to the Chaotic Soul WP theme by Bryan Veloso, but I’m not sure.

Site Stability Issues

From time to time, my site has been getting MySQL errors. I finally figured out what was causing my site to have so many issues as of late. It had to due with low disk space on the primary drive on the server. My site is hosted on a seperate drive on the server, but the MySQL database was on the main drive. We cleaned up the drive a bit, deleted a bunch of old log files – and presto, no more problems. I wish all problems were that easy to fix…