PHP anyone?

I'm a moderator on an on-line HTML game server, despite having little to no understanding of the coding language. The previous developer created an impressive array of moderator GUI pages for modifying some variables but he's pretty much out of the picture now.

Now the underlying code is a customized version of a public domain game engine written in PHP. Where oh where should I begin in getting off my duff and learning PHP in a way that I can squeeze between insane work hours and necessary household upkeep?

PHP Made E-Z? Thinner Modules in 30 Days? Spaghetti Code the Atkins Way?

Vacation? Time Off? What are these concepts of which you speak?

I reserved a very long time ago a week and a half off right about now to go to WorldCon. I'd researched the quarterly cycles of my business and this would have been a great week to be gone. Key milestones for the Holday sales lifecycle already locked in and the rest would be simple run-rate business for my apprentice to handle in my absence.

No, Virginia, there is no justice in the Business World. The milestones were slipped, and base supply data provided to me was deficient to an absurd degree. Normally 99% support levels bring with them an irreducible number of escalations which can at least be explained to the laypeople in sales. This time it was 60%. I can't fake that by any stretch.

So I worked all day Saturday and half of Sunday proving that we only had 60% no matter how they sliced it. Monday was spent defending my 60% analysis (no support from the gits who hucked that dead cat over the fence to me) and agreeing that all my weekend work was valid but could not be published to the rest of the company for being so politically unacceptable. Wednesday and Thursday will be spent on grinding over a new dead cat of data analyzing and reporting on it. Friday will be spent defending my work again and then publishing to all and sundry what should have been done a month ago.

If the servers can be persuaded to give me decent bandwidth, I may be able to finish publishing Friday night. Otherwise it's back to kicking the server status link every 30 minutes until my end data is processed.

I am reminded of the old saw about working for free doing something you love, or being paid to watch your work burned before your eyes every night.