Teasing Out The Day

Well, let us see what sort of insight I can tease out of the day.

It was a typical Monday in Cloud Cuckoo Land.  Here is one small tribute to the insanity - because of the Thanksgiving Holiday, we have Thursday off. (I am working Friday, but most people are not.) In the first three days of the week, Monday through Wednesday, I would normally be slated to work three nine hour days, for a total of twenty seven work hours. I have twenty one hours of meetings scheduled, not counting incidental and unscheduled meetings.  Consequently, in three days, not counting the over time that I working (today I worked twelve hours), I have six hours to actually accomplish anythings.

UAT continues to move at a high pace, though I am already behind the eight-ball there.  One of the things I need to go is review all of the bugs that have been reported and forward them to the appropriate group for resolution.  Of course, given the amount of time involved, I have not been able to do that. I was hoping to do it this evening, but I ended up spending the time doing a variety of the things I couldn't due during the day due to interruptions and meetings.

Now, on top of the UAT, it looks like I am going to catch another segment of UAT, for another block of the project that some other group screwed up.  I tell you, I am getting tired of being the go to guy for failed program rescues.  I try not to let the sheer insanity of it overwhelm me, but sometimes I really feel like I am the lone voice of reason.

I will share with you something amusing that happened to me the other week.  I was in a meeting with a manager and the manager, by oblique reference, without ever coming out and actually saying it, strongly hinted that I should temper the opinions I deliver and only deliver positive news and if the news was negative, spin it in a positive light. I actually laughed.

I am a fundamentally honest person, and what I mean by that is this - about twenty years ago I made one of those personal vows and that was this - I would always speak the truth to my leaders as best I understood it.  I would not shave, slant, or other color my inputs.  I firmly believe that the truth will set you free - and in the case of business, the truth is what makes one person or group successful and another unsuccessful.I think a huge part of the reason this project is in so much trouble is because various people at various stages, on a continual basis, have not spoke the truth.  This is compounded by the Director, who does not want to hear the truth and generally doesn't seem to care.

It's a challenging environment and I am thankful every day for that stress counseling I went through a few years ago - those skills and techniques have been invaluable.  So, I would strongly urge anyone who is considering stress counseling to go - it is well worth your time and the techniques that you learn are very valuable.

Work, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and The Cloud Atlas

It was a long day at the office, with some pretty serious stress peaks in the early morning. The thing that sent my levels climbing was being pulled into a schedule meeting.  In an project, managing a schedule is a full time job. To that end, we have a master scheduler.

The problem with our current project is...he is not very good. In my current role, on this project, I do not have schedule control responsibilities (though, I have been pulled in a couple of times to write part of the schedule, but that is another stress point). Because our scheduler is not very good, he has to have everyone present in the meeting, for when he runs into things about the schedule he doesn't understand - which is all the time. Prior to departing for vacation my boss had provided schedule updates and estimates for the two meetings I got called into today.

So, basically, all I did was say "as was provided". A pretty much pointless waste of two hours.  The rest of the day though, I plowed through writing a new set of requirements.  Here is the challenge that I ran into - I have a portion of the project that is current in the test cycle - and yet, at the end of last week they added what translated to 150+ new line items for the requirements document.  Too crazy.

I would give you a nice entry about my personal life but I didn't have one today.  I worked about eleven hours, came home, ate a simple dinner, took a short nap, then got up and watched the presidential debate, while answering the occasional email on my corporate Blackberry. I do have one bit of feedback - I think presidential candidates should be wired with Tasers and when they fail to answer the question asked, they should be shocked.  In about three minutes both of the candidates would have been laying on the floor, twitching. A pure evening in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Fortunately, I plan on recapturing some good hours this evening by reading "The Cloud Atlas", which I started on Sunday and I am already enjoying.