This is my last freelance project before I start my new six-figure job.

The bad news is I'm doing this one for free, and data cleanup sucks ass.

The good news is that doing it might help cleanup Congress.

Well, I always keep my data people well dusted and shined.

Data cleanup sucks ass!

God, it does, doesn't it? Especially when you have to poke around crappy websites because what's there is totally bollocks.

People change their minds, database structures don't. That's why SQL isn't a natural language. I used to get all excised about data consistency, until I began to understand that people were often "coding" themselves (or at least their ideas about how things were 'supposed' to work) into the weirdness permitted by too lax validation. If you want it consistent, give 'em no choice about it, at input. They'll probably hate you, but what does it matter? They're only temporarily assigned carbon units, and at least you'll have consistent data, if you get any at all. And your queries will not fail, and surely even temporarily assigned carbon units can see the tremendous value in that.

Well, I'm comparing one master list (that uses several fields inconsistently) to numerous other lists, all of which each have their own format, trying to find a one-to-one match between master list rows and each row of each of the other lists.

I feel for you, orthogonality, but I can't quite reach you. Probably something you're doing for those free spirited pinkos, right? 'Cause they are just the kind to use a name field in godless ways.

Now, you've got to ask yourself, as a database professional, are these the people you want to be in charge of the really big government databases on which all our lives already depend? 'Cause if there are about 2 more changes of plan over at the IRS, the FAA, and the Social Security administration, planes are gonna fall out of the sky, and I'm going to be personally hosed so bad that suicide might be the only fix.

I love it if it's dirty and I can use regexes to clean it.

I use lemon Pledge.

You're sick DonF.
Sick because you love it and double sick because you use regex.

This is my last freelance project before I start my new six-figure job.

I have a six-figure job too!

Oh. I thought you meant cents.