This one time, I had a job. While there the boss asked if I could create something to speed up their internal order system which at the time was all written by hand, using a pen and paper.With a little knowledge of Microsoft Access I created a simple form and printable report. It worked.
Then he asked if I could link it somehow to their current customer database, to save writing out the customer name and address. I couldn't do that, but I could create a customer database in Access and import their old data into that.Next he asked I could make the customer database work the same as the old one, same layout and that. So I did. Then if I could make it so they could create quotes and purchase orders.
Shortly after this I left the company and set up Redstudio, but still occasionally I was asked to go in and make additions here and there. Eventually he decided he wanted it to email the purchase orders and acknowledgements to clients. I had no idea how to do that in Access, but I had just bought "PHP & MySQL for dummies" so I offered to rewrite the whole thing in PHP. Not only would it be able to send emails, but I could administer it from my own office. This may have been an error.
Having read only one book on the subject of php and mysql, the whole thing was a massive case of trial and error and lifting code from other sources. As a result there is no commenting where there should be, I had no idea what i was writing anyway. I also only really knew of the "IF" statement at this stage, which pretty much powers the whole thing. There is such an intricate and complex mass of intertwined IF statements I think I may have accidentally created a very basic living organism.
Out of nowhere, with no input from anyone, it'll start doing completely random things. Around 2 years ago the original company was taken over, so I had to go through and change the addresses and logos.. on every page because I hadn't put in a handy reference file with that info on. I deleted the old logo. There is no trace of the old logo anywhere.
Today they contacted me, they'd sent a purchase order email out, as they do every day, with their logo at the top, and the client had replied to that email, but somehow the logo had reverted to the logo of the company 2 years previous. What's that all about then?
