So, I have not made any interesting posts because I have been working insane hours all this week. They are keeping me in there from 8:30 in the morning until ten at night. I do not get a lunch break either, but to make up for that they are ordering my lunches daily to keep me fed. I eat at my desk while I work.
My company switched over to a new website, one we had an outside company create. The people who created it used an obnoxiously bloated piece of pre-made code called ‘zen cart’. The thing is a monstrosity, and is all code. Its supposed to have neat features such as a control panel for the products and what not, but it just does not fit in the way we sell stuff. As a result I have been writing fixes for the code. Since I am normally an ASP and .NET programmer and this code is all in PHP, I have had to adapt quickly to a new language. So I stayed glued to the screen and then stumble out at ten PM, blinking and dazed with a numb ass. They want me to get as many fixes done as possible before I leave for vacation on Friday and I will be out for a week.
The unexpected hours is doubly frustrating because I was planning on getting my house in order and picking up a few things for my trip, however now when I get home I have about an hour before my brain does a complete shutdown.
I still need to do some laundry, do some shopping (including some books and dvd’s for my ride up) I guess I am going to be doing most of that tomorrow night.
Friday is a half-day and then I hit the road. I’ll probably be unconscious for half of the drive up.
2026 Update
Dialing to Feb 5, 2008, for the sordid saga of a .NET programmer beaten senseless by PHP.
Eighteen years and one geological era later, that "pre-made code" is a relic, but let's be honest: the modern web traded Zen Cart for twenty browser tabs of headless CMS, AI-generated components, and a subscription for every font. At least your monstrosity was all in one place. The lunch thing has evolved, too—corporations used to order you a sandwich as a consolation prize; now your job-slash-identity is the sandwich and also the app that delivers it and the review you leave afterwards. And "blinking and dazed with a numb ass"? That description fits my average Tuesday in 2026, except the screen is smaller and the numbness is existential. You didn't even get a lunch break, yet you were expected to absorb PHP overnight and then drive after a half-day. That's not a work-life balance; that's a human bone thrown to a deadline. Your house-getting-in-order plan died before it started, which remains the purest 2008 tech-worker ritual.
“2008 Ed, did anyone at the company glance at that pre-made cart and realize it didn't fit before you were volunteered to spend your nights rewriting PHP, and did the laundry ever get done?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that’s a damn good question and I wish I had a good answer. Nobody at the company glanced at that zen cart monstrosity and realized anything, because that would have required somebody to actually think before buying it. They just saw “shopping cart” and figured it would magically match our weird way of selling stuff. So yeah, I got volunteered, because I’m the one who can read PHP without crying into my keyboard. Not that I knew PHP before this week. I’m still adapting, and my brain feels like it’s full of fog and stale coffee. And laundry? No. The laundry did not get done. I have a pile of clothes that’s starting its own civilization. I’m pretty sure I’ll be digging through it Friday morning, sniffing things and hoping for the best. So no, nobody saw it coming, and the laundry is still mocking me. Take that, zen cart.
