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Pity it wasn't for cash back.
Work. Sucked. I got sidelined to work on something I hadn't scheduled for (but should have: my own fault, so now I get to try to make up the time it took). To add injury to insult (yeah, I know, but you'll see why), something I thought should take 2 hours took closer to 6. Most of them spent tracking down a wee bug that took, oh, 5 minutes to fix. >.< NOT a happy camper.
I mean, yes, it worked. But this is The Project That Ate My Day. My day did not need that.
Although...maybe it was a blessing in disguise. If I'd finished it when I thought, then I would have had no reason to not be in the 1:30 conference call. Which lasted till 4:00 or 4:30 anyways, and which really didn't need me. I would have been an extra body (which they wanted there), making decisions, but any input I could give could be given by R. (my former supervisor, deep technical knowledge of the system), N. (the trainer/tester/documentation specialist for the system), and Y. (my current supervisor). Maybe I could have contributed (N. left the meeting once to ask me a 2-second question), but not much. And it would have cemented me even more in the "manager" role in some people's eyes.
That's really the last thing I want. If Y. can steal my thunder and end up the manager, while I go back to being a really good programmer, I will be very, very, very happy. I ended up with the bloody role because I couldn't bear to see things going undone, that were going undone for crying out loud! I'll probably always be a tech lead - and I probably always should. Except for R., I know the guts of the system better than anyone, and as long as I work on it steadily, that is not likely to change.
But I really don't want to be a manager. If I can get back to tech lead/product specialist sorta status, I will be very, very, very happy. I am happy to be a team lead if you want, work out who does best on what bug. I'm still honing my skills at that, but I'll do it. I'm very happy to do design work, including time estimates for sales. I'm very happy to do coding work (as long as it isn't grunt stuff with no design, which basically none of mine is). But please spare me the managerial-interface to the projects-tell them dates and being the person who gets hung when it fails-beat sales off with a stick when they insist we must do something that they've been told no on.
And frankly, I wouldn't want to do all the things I'm doing now. Keep the design work on me, please; I love it. For that reason, I'd like to keep taking the sales proposals as well. They actually spark white-light moments, now and then. Which means my available coding time will not approach 100%. I'd like to keep it at maybe 50%, though. But please, please, spare me the full managerial role. *whimper* What I like least of all about where I've been, least, least, least of all, and it's over, is having to schedule my own time without being able to get any real help. I mean - saying what I can do, yes. What I want to do, yes.
But I no longer have to say, we have these six items, this is the most important...and then get fried by whoever disagrees.
Oh, that sounds like heaven.
Today was my fault, and today I have to bear. But I'm ahead on this week's task, so I think - if I can put in a few after-work hours, especially, but maybe without - I can bring it in despite this. And I really did finish the thing from today, so I can call it done. I wouldn't if it were for base, but the thing's a blasted kludge. Done is done. Have at it. Maybe I'll set up its own project on my drive, or something, but that'd be it. And that is relaxing administrivia.
I did get other stuff done today, though not much; and one of them was realizing how stupid I'd been in making the design of something more complex than it had to be. The beautiful thing is, every bit of processing thus far written for it is in the right place and is good. Except for one line, which will have to be replaced. Reworking it isn't ugly; we didn't dig ourselves a hole. But we came very close. This time I went out 2-3 implication layers to make sure that we weren't just digging a super-sized neato hole this time, but we don't seem to be. It is the right design, it just needed a field added and a kick in the pants. So P. is adding fields and functionality, building it out to what we need. All before it was ever near a client site, so they'll see it when it comes in and is behaving itself.
My lunch was late, and very tough, chicken. The baked potato was good, and at least it spent the time it evolved into lateness at the deli, and so was still hot, all of it. Well, except the green salad. I would not have been amused, had that been hot. They gave it to me for free, because it took about an hour to show up after I ordered it...and they threw in two peanut-butter cookies, as well, that I hadn't asked for (but they know I like those - easiest type of cookie to tempt me with, of the ones they sometimes have). I dunno. I'd rather have had non-tough chicken on time, but...it fed me, my stomach didn't absorb my backbone before the food arrived, and I felt much better after reading it.
But tonight I remembered (unlike yesterday, when I first meant to do this) to go to the grocery store and get this week's groceries. I have bread again. Which means I can take in a blasted sandwich if I want.
More to the point, I have apples and other things to nibble on; frozen dinners for the average night when I'm too lazy to cook (had a few of those left, but it was getting moderately dire), more bottles of Sierra Mist (the 24-ounce size is just right - small enough that I'll finish it before it goes flat, and being a bottle, I can reseal it), and...Ghiradelli chocolate squares.
Yes. Yes, yes yes. I didn't know any place around here that carried those, until I found Cost Plus had them, just a month ago. But it's a bit of a drive. Cheaper than flying to San Francisco or bribing a friend there to ship them, yes (cost of shipping alone being a nuisance), but still a bit of a drive. Fred Meyer's now has them too! Including the dark chocolate w/mint filling that is my favoritest. At reasonable prices (better than the San Francisco airport - unsurprisingly - and stop laughing; when I visit friends, we don't generally make it to the chocolate shop, though sometimes we do)....
So I now have another pound of their chocolates, and am quite a happy Laura about that. I was already cheerful and singing to myself before I saw those. Then at the checkout stand, I let a man go ahead of me. (I arrived a couple seconds before he did, had not yet started unloading. I had a cartful. He had a single mirror. Ummm. No, I'm not making him wait, and there was only one open register at that exit!) He was grateful.
On the drive home, I was singing my own words to random tunes. That's something I won't do if there's anyone else in the car, no matter how cheery I am, but it's fairly rare even if I am alone in the car. I'm a bit selfconscious about both my words and my singing voice, so that's not surprising, but a good enough mood will accomplish almost anything.
Okay, so today was, overall, good. It was so easy to focus on the massive stress that was my workday.
One of my friends posted something to the effect that you can't do more than 5 things at a time, earlier today. I took it to heart then, and it improved an hour or so of the day before I got lost in bug-frustrations.
But it's very, very true. And too much lately, that's what I have been doing. My work comes home with me, goes back to work with me. And there's usually anywhere from three to ten items going on there alone.
No wonder I feel like I'm losing my focus. I kept large chunks of freaking at bay during parts of today by simply refusing to think about the issues that had been tabled. They were not welcome in my brain.
So then again, maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this. And I've got good chocolate.
Work. Sucked. I got sidelined to work on something I hadn't scheduled for (but should have: my own fault, so now I get to try to make up the time it took). To add injury to insult (yeah, I know, but you'll see why), something I thought should take 2 hours took closer to 6. Most of them spent tracking down a wee bug that took, oh, 5 minutes to fix. >.< NOT a happy camper.
I mean, yes, it worked. But this is The Project That Ate My Day. My day did not need that.
Although...maybe it was a blessing in disguise. If I'd finished it when I thought, then I would have had no reason to not be in the 1:30 conference call. Which lasted till 4:00 or 4:30 anyways, and which really didn't need me. I would have been an extra body (which they wanted there), making decisions, but any input I could give could be given by R. (my former supervisor, deep technical knowledge of the system), N. (the trainer/tester/documentation specialist for the system), and Y. (my current supervisor). Maybe I could have contributed (N. left the meeting once to ask me a 2-second question), but not much. And it would have cemented me even more in the "manager" role in some people's eyes.
That's really the last thing I want. If Y. can steal my thunder and end up the manager, while I go back to being a really good programmer, I will be very, very, very happy. I ended up with the bloody role because I couldn't bear to see things going undone, that were going undone for crying out loud! I'll probably always be a tech lead - and I probably always should. Except for R., I know the guts of the system better than anyone, and as long as I work on it steadily, that is not likely to change.
But I really don't want to be a manager. If I can get back to tech lead/product specialist sorta status, I will be very, very, very happy. I am happy to be a team lead if you want, work out who does best on what bug. I'm still honing my skills at that, but I'll do it. I'm very happy to do design work, including time estimates for sales. I'm very happy to do coding work (as long as it isn't grunt stuff with no design, which basically none of mine is). But please spare me the managerial-interface to the projects-tell them dates and being the person who gets hung when it fails-beat sales off with a stick when they insist we must do something that they've been told no on.
And frankly, I wouldn't want to do all the things I'm doing now. Keep the design work on me, please; I love it. For that reason, I'd like to keep taking the sales proposals as well. They actually spark white-light moments, now and then. Which means my available coding time will not approach 100%. I'd like to keep it at maybe 50%, though. But please, please, spare me the full managerial role. *whimper* What I like least of all about where I've been, least, least, least of all, and it's over, is having to schedule my own time without being able to get any real help. I mean - saying what I can do, yes. What I want to do, yes.
But I no longer have to say, we have these six items, this is the most important...and then get fried by whoever disagrees.
Oh, that sounds like heaven.
Today was my fault, and today I have to bear. But I'm ahead on this week's task, so I think - if I can put in a few after-work hours, especially, but maybe without - I can bring it in despite this. And I really did finish the thing from today, so I can call it done. I wouldn't if it were for base, but the thing's a blasted kludge. Done is done. Have at it. Maybe I'll set up its own project on my drive, or something, but that'd be it. And that is relaxing administrivia.
I did get other stuff done today, though not much; and one of them was realizing how stupid I'd been in making the design of something more complex than it had to be. The beautiful thing is, every bit of processing thus far written for it is in the right place and is good. Except for one line, which will have to be replaced. Reworking it isn't ugly; we didn't dig ourselves a hole. But we came very close. This time I went out 2-3 implication layers to make sure that we weren't just digging a super-sized neato hole this time, but we don't seem to be. It is the right design, it just needed a field added and a kick in the pants. So P. is adding fields and functionality, building it out to what we need. All before it was ever near a client site, so they'll see it when it comes in and is behaving itself.
My lunch was late, and very tough, chicken. The baked potato was good, and at least it spent the time it evolved into lateness at the deli, and so was still hot, all of it. Well, except the green salad. I would not have been amused, had that been hot. They gave it to me for free, because it took about an hour to show up after I ordered it...and they threw in two peanut-butter cookies, as well, that I hadn't asked for (but they know I like those - easiest type of cookie to tempt me with, of the ones they sometimes have). I dunno. I'd rather have had non-tough chicken on time, but...it fed me, my stomach didn't absorb my backbone before the food arrived, and I felt much better after reading it.
But tonight I remembered (unlike yesterday, when I first meant to do this) to go to the grocery store and get this week's groceries. I have bread again. Which means I can take in a blasted sandwich if I want.
More to the point, I have apples and other things to nibble on; frozen dinners for the average night when I'm too lazy to cook (had a few of those left, but it was getting moderately dire), more bottles of Sierra Mist (the 24-ounce size is just right - small enough that I'll finish it before it goes flat, and being a bottle, I can reseal it), and...Ghiradelli chocolate squares.
Yes. Yes, yes yes. I didn't know any place around here that carried those, until I found Cost Plus had them, just a month ago. But it's a bit of a drive. Cheaper than flying to San Francisco or bribing a friend there to ship them, yes (cost of shipping alone being a nuisance), but still a bit of a drive. Fred Meyer's now has them too! Including the dark chocolate w/mint filling that is my favoritest. At reasonable prices (better than the San Francisco airport - unsurprisingly - and stop laughing; when I visit friends, we don't generally make it to the chocolate shop, though sometimes we do)....
So I now have another pound of their chocolates, and am quite a happy Laura about that. I was already cheerful and singing to myself before I saw those. Then at the checkout stand, I let a man go ahead of me. (I arrived a couple seconds before he did, had not yet started unloading. I had a cartful. He had a single mirror. Ummm. No, I'm not making him wait, and there was only one open register at that exit!) He was grateful.
On the drive home, I was singing my own words to random tunes. That's something I won't do if there's anyone else in the car, no matter how cheery I am, but it's fairly rare even if I am alone in the car. I'm a bit selfconscious about both my words and my singing voice, so that's not surprising, but a good enough mood will accomplish almost anything.
Okay, so today was, overall, good. It was so easy to focus on the massive stress that was my workday.
One of my friends posted something to the effect that you can't do more than 5 things at a time, earlier today. I took it to heart then, and it improved an hour or so of the day before I got lost in bug-frustrations.
But it's very, very true. And too much lately, that's what I have been doing. My work comes home with me, goes back to work with me. And there's usually anywhere from three to ten items going on there alone.
No wonder I feel like I'm losing my focus. I kept large chunks of freaking at bay during parts of today by simply refusing to think about the issues that had been tabled. They were not welcome in my brain.
So then again, maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this. And I've got good chocolate.