Now, this may come as a bit of a shock...

so you might want to sit down. I've come back to work after mat leave and.......(drum-roll please).....nothing has changed!

Oh, I apologise, some people have new 'titles', and there's a bit more paperwork but that's about it.

During the interim we moved offices too and now the coffee is attrocious. This is incredibly upsetting as those of you who work in IT will know. Decent coffee oils the wheels of the IT industry. Without it some people barely function - mind you, there are those who barely function with extra strength espresso and a gun to their heads.

I have to say that I am honestly pleased to be back. Never mind the muppets, at least I don't have to entertain a small child all day (lovely tho he is).

So far I am unstressed, but I'm sure that will change. In fact today I am quite happy as I've already thrown a spanner in the works for one persons pet 'project' - he wants everyone to follow his nicely defined 'convention', he produced ppt slides and everything. Only problem is is that the core product doesn't support it. Well, if they will give me actions at meetings then I will go and find these things out. He'll have another 'project' next week which will be equally meaningful and helpful to the business I'm sure.

De-mob happy

Today is my last day at work for some time and I am very happy about this. My baby is due in 4 weeks and I plan to do nothing except relax before then, maybe with a day a the spa, a spot of online shopping, sitting on the sofa with the cat watching black and white movies.....bliss.

What I will not be doing is worrying about which muppet has promised which impossible dream to which HAL supremo. I will not care that no-one has the slightest clue what is going on with any of the projects. I will not care about the witch-hunts and the finger-pointing. I will not miss sitting through endless conference calls and meetings and people's "slide packs" (who are these people with time to put together powerpoint presentations on the most trivial of things?). I will not miss filling in endless pointless spreadsheets that nobody reads.

I will be serene in the knowledge that management are wankers now and they will still be wankers when I get back. There's an outside chance things will go to the dogs whilst I'm away but the smart money is on nothing actually changing.

but most importantly, there will be more time for cake :-)

Busy

been a bit busy recently. Why? ah, well. Some people have been making rather rash promises to the big guns at HAL regarding what we can deliver and when. Turns out we can't actually deliver a speech, let alone deliver robust, functionally correct, tested, efficient software. Shame we're a software company then.

Some bright spark had the idea to put some responsibility for some of this (for responsibility read blame) on my team. If they'd waited a few weeks they'd have got away with it, but whilst I'm still here I'm not about to gift them a get-out-of-jail-free-and-save-your-arse card. There are some people who deserve such cards - but I don't work for any of them.

So, I've been busy. Busy pointing out half-arsed ideas and why they will fail. Busy writing down our responsibilities and procedures so that no-one can come along in a few months time and say "oh, but I thought Daisy's team were responsible for that". Busy doing paperwork - get this, the person in the far-away office who does the same thing as me has never actually designed any software in his life. He does, however, have time to produce 'slide packs' and spreadsheets, which he then expects us to have the time to read and fill in. Tosser.

This morning I had to sit through an hour and a half of people talking rubbish, going over the same stuff again and again. Listening to people say "I'm compiling a list of bugs that are affecting the quality of my team's work" when really what we want to hear is "we're upgrading to the latest version of the software which contains all the bug fixes in it". Don't compile a list, just get on with the sodding job!

I start my maternity leave in a few weeks and I feel confident that when I return nothing will have moved on, people in other departments would have taken all sorts of liberties, blame for everything will lie with my team and mangelment will generally make a complete dogs-breakfast of everything whilst I'm gone. I am trying to coach the rest of the team to say 'no' to people and to get things in writing etc but I fear that they'll get bullied into all sorts of nonsense whilst I'm gone. I thrive on saying no and upsetting people - everyone else is way too nice.

And then I'll have to clear it all up when I get back.

OR - they will all cope beautifully whilst I'm gone and I'll get back to discover that I am the root of all the problems.

I just want to do some proper work!

I've been promoted. Don't laugh, but I am now a team leader. (no extra money, mind, just a bunch of extra meetings - how is that rewarding?)

Thus my days now seem to be filled with conference calls and answering stuff on behalf of my boss. Which is all well and good (well, apart from the conference calls obviously) but it's getting me down. I spend all day saving the world but the difference is that now I'm not allowed to do proper project stuff. My boss says he doesn't want to 'overload' me but in reality it's the ordinary day-job stuff that keeps my sanity.

I'm happy to spend a few hours shouting at muppets and stating the bleeding obvious but after a while I just want to design some software - that is, after all , the reason I took this job.

I'm hoping that things will calm down soon. Manglement are in a bit of a blind panic at the moment. Since HAL took over, they are all trying to make themselves look good. Unfortunately this means coming up with half-arsed ideas that so obviously wont work it would make you weep.

I've decided to bunk off early tomorrow - see, sign of 'team leadership' that, I believe it's called planning ahead.

conference calls - what's the point?

My boss has a rubbish job. He's gone on holiday for 2 weeks and left me in charge of some stuff. Mostly this involves attending conference calls on his behalf.

Yesterday I was on a call with the Chief Technology Officer of the division no less. Poor sod, he was trying to get a straight answer out of Slippery-manager from the far-away-office. After an hour and a half I'm still not entirely sure we got an answer out of him. The question was quite simple, 'how long will it take to do this bit of work?'. The answer should be 'a couple of weeks'. I think in the end he came up with '3 to 4 weeks' but only after prevaricating for a blue-age about utter rubbish 'well, we have to spend weeks testing this random thing on the off chance that we might find a bug' and other nonsense.
Who's idea was this...'on the off change me might find a bug', what a load of rot. I'd never be able to get away with that sort of attitude. Imagine, "I'm not writing that document for you because there is a chance that you are too stupid to understand it". This may be true, but it's no way to run a business.

There's another meeting in a fortnight to discuss that fact that nothing has happened and we're no closer to any decisions being made. Fortunately the boss will be back by then and he can deal with it.

Management - definitely not worth the money.

Conversations I never thought I'd have

yesterday I had a conversation about a carpet. It seemed perfectly natural at the time. Phrases like "that new carpet smell" and "room sized remnant" were used without either party sniggering or holding their head in dispair.

This morning, the whole thing seems almost surreal. Is this really what growing up is all about, sensible conversations about interior furnishings?

We quietly ignore our growing domestication as we get older but it gets us all in the end I fear.

does anyone else get emails like these?

First I sit through an hour and a quarter of excruciating meeting listening to the famous "I'm not technical" manager fail time and again to grasp the easiest of concepts.

Then randomMuppet1 sends everyone an email asking for clarification as to what they need to do:

"perform tasks A, B and C"

Then they ask "so I need to perform tasks A, B and C right?"
I kid you not - why would anyone need to clarify the words "perform tasks A, B and C" with exactly the same wording?

So the response is "yes, as previously stated, peform tasks A, B and C"

and the reply from them is "can I please have confirmation from Daisy that this is ok?"

Christ on a bike, can't anyone do anything without my say-so? I'm only an engineer, it's not like I'm important management or anything.

"yes, go ahead and perform tasks A, B and C"

Then, after a short while, I receive an email "but if I over complicate matters by performing tasks x, y and z as well then this will totally bollox things up for everyone and yet I cannot see how not to do this?"

Just do tasks A, B and C. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. Do not deviate from the original plan. If you cannot manage this then you should go straight home instead and look for a new job.


I feel a bit sorry for these muppets, after all they have to deal with me sending them a preverbial slap round the ear via email everytime they try and do their jobs. If only we bothered to train people before letting them loose with the code.

Oh well, 'tis the weekend and there is a newly refurbished pub near my house with fantastic views and a nice beer garden.....if the rain holds off.