I’ve been at my new job for 2 months now. The honeymoon period is just about over. Despite the 75% reduction in commute time and distance that had me swooning, I should have known that more 9-to-5 fodder would be forthcoming.

Once again, I’ve been asked to work overtime on a project that is mismanaged, overbudget and behind schedule. If there’s anything that motivates me to be free from 9 to 5, it is intrusion into MY time. All the rah-rah speeches about commitment and being a team player just doesn’t ring with me. If anything, it makes me sullen and disgruntled. You pay me for 40 hours, I do the 40 hours. That’s it. That’s the deal. Even if I’m paid for overtime, I don’t want it. I have better things to do.

But alas, being a new guy, I must agree to this. I haven’t built up my reputation and clout here yet. You might remember at my old job, I refused to work overtime. I ascertained correctly that my reputation and proven value will allow me to do so without repercusions, but I don’t have that luxury here yet.

So even as I toil away my evenings and weekends for The Man, I return home at night to work on my projects. I’ve been primarily concentrating on my wedding favors website. Despite my neglect, orders have been picking up the past few weeks. So in the past few days, I added a ton of new products and improved the product images. For each product, I previously uploaded just one large image that was used for the thumbnails as well. As you may know, resizing a large image to a thumbnail-size image within a browser produces ugly slow-loading thumbnails. I figured there was a gap in my Zencart knowledge. After doing some research, there was; it isn’t immediately obvious, but Zencart does allow me to upload a thumbnail, a medium-size image and a large image, and it knows how to use the appropriate one in the right places. So after revamping the images and increasing the product selection, the website looks a lot more professional now.