Stick it out, or bail out? (Was: Professional advice)

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Kimberly Wilson asked for "professional advice" on sticking with a
rough job:

<<I misunderstood the nature of the system I would be documenting;
it's also probable that the client overestimated my knowledge of the
industry in question (manufacturing, inventory control, financial
tracking, etc.).>>

The real issue may be whether you can learn enough from your SMEs to
come up to speed relatively soon. Whether the system is GUI-based or
command line-based shouldn't really affect the difficulty of the
work; what's important is whether you can quickly learn to
understand the end-user's approach to the software and pick a
solution that meets that approach. More on this later in my response.

<<In any case, I hate this job. I have no desire to continue working
on mainframe systems, and I am completely out of my depth regarding
the financial/manufacturing knowledge.>>

The first point is more of a problem, since there's no good reason to
spend your life doing something you detest. However, ask yourself one
very tough question: do you really hate the work, or do you just hate
feeling out of your depth? There's nothing like feeling helpless to
make you hate a situation. For example, I get this "eek! run away! I
can't hack this!" reaction every time my current software changes
interfaces, but once I force myself past that emotional response, I
find I can usually get up to speed reasonably soon and start enjoying
life again. The second problem will depend on whether you have
accessible, helpful SMEs to help you through the job. If you do, then
the problem is short-term and solvable; if you don't, you may not be
able to survive in that situation. Finance and manufacturing aren't
rocket science, so you should be able to learn enough to squeak by
with the help of the SMEs or a bit of extracurricular reading.
Besides, if the end-user is similarly inexperienced, then you've got
an excellent chance to act as a user advocate and document things so
the user will learn to cope the same way you did.

<<How can I gracefully back out of the contract, while preserving the
reputation of me and my employer? How long should I "give it a try"
until I make my final decision?>>

If you've asked yourself the above questions and your conclusion is
that you really can't perform the job competently, then approach your
client and explain the situation. Tell them you feel that you
won't be able to give them quality work, but that you're happy to
keep plugging away until they can bring in a replacement. You
probably won't get repeat work on that particular system, but you
will make a much more favorable impression than simply quitting or
staying and producing inferior work; neither of the latter solutions
is really acceptable, and you may earn considerable respect for
acknowledging your limitations and making sure that you don't harm
your clients as a result of trying to exceed your skills.

Touch decision. Good luck!
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it."--Author unknown

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