WangNet

I blessed to be called by many recruiters, frequently, and most are odd jobs that were not right for me. Now I am looking down at a job in an area of development I am not totally jazzed about, but would be for larger stacks of cash. For the most part I am not hurting for money now, but it would be nice to be able to accelerate the process of increasing retirement and maybe get a house.

I really dig my current place.. super great folk.. very hands off.. they treat folk as adults.. strict minimal overtime... but I know that is not always true elsewhere. Do I roll the dice for money?

Pro tip - don't try and sell a product that has been in over six months of testing, buried from memory at the bottom of the ocean, and just had the plug pulled on it.

Seriously. Don't.

About a year ago I was gifted this hunk of rock and told to sculpt, shape, and polish it into a gem... and so I worked... and worked... and worked. Then it was called to be deployed, and I threw up my hands and advocated patience. This needs to be tested! Thus testing started... and continued.. and continued.. and was handed off.. then continued.. it continued for so long the original specs, intent, and functionality were becoming forgotten and being reported as bugs.

*sigh* Some days a dev's life is not easy. I put the project on super low simmer (I was told not not harass the tester) and was billing an hour or two a week.. for about six months.

Monday I heard the contract with the third party group was being re-upped, but this particular facet was being dropped. They braced for me to rail and howl, but oddly I was at peace with it. Make a crude raft, push it out into the current, and set the sucker a blaze.

Through interesting chain of events we received a query, a question, and little lark of an email asking where to find the demo log in so they could show a client and seal the deal on hawking this to a client.

I went from zero to rage in about as fast as I could close the email.

First - there was no log in for this product. It wouldn't have made sense.
Second - how the hell did this employee know this projected even existed? It was buried in time and ocean silt!
Third - It wasn't remotely close to be done tested - why the hell would you know its existence, but not the testing status?! You were trying to sell an untested product to a client!!!!!!?????? eeeek!
Fourth - where in Pete's name did you get this marketing material to hawk it? Unflattering pictures.

A quick series of desk side meetings and the hounds have been released to know who else was trying to hawk, sell, or push this roadkill on to clients before we all look silly.

May Mr. Gueermo slap them so hard.

BossMan swings by to have me load the latest test android file onto the Nexus 7.. then stops and asks me ("in general terms") 'how do I load up an app.. you know.. I guess I should probably learn how'.. ah.. what? Am I reading too far into this about being kicked to the curb tomorrow or is this some sort of hint?!

Eeesh.. I need more sleep and maybe dial back the per-cursor panic attacks.

After spending MORE time this weekend sketching out some ideas (*MY* ideas) for how to incorporate this acronym into my existing poster they were all, once again, rejected in favor of doing this banner things. Grrrr... I get it.. You really really really want to encourage me to believe a banner was my idea and my addition, but it's not. Treasure chests, engraved rocks, hot air balloons, etc were my idea.. and the instance of using _their_ idea is making me want to push back more against it.

*deep breath* let's not have a art-teeest temper tantrum... not today.. not at work.. about work.. to work.

So, newish guy gets ANOTHER recognition award. Sure.. he's working on folks fringe projects which makes them elated that there is progress.. sure he doesn't do a lot of maintenance.. sure he only has two or three apps in his silo (and not, say, 32 or so).

Mildly annoyed.

About time - this lingering update to a major app I wrote is finally going out.

Cold Mountain Dew - check.
Dark Mocha Almond Kashi bar - check.
Tunes cranked to disco - er.. check? (wait, was that a requirement?!)

I was in a meeting with BossDad, Bigger-er Division Boss, and this sales lady from another company. Standard webex and tons of bs buzzword bingo going on. As the webex was continuing it dawned on BossDad (and then us) that sales lady had 'glory hole' still showing in her google search bar from what ever she was doing befor the call. The whole time. An hour long call goes by. That about brought me to tears in laughter, but a few squeezed out with Bigger-er Boss decided to look that up on his phone. The look of shock and 'ewwwwww' was priceless.

Always.. always... clear your screen before doing a webex.

After last night's invitation for being an honest to God Catholic church sanctioned Godfather I was pretty jazzed this morning.. well.. that was until big boss asked me if I had plans for lunch while boss dad was hovering behind him.. oh.. the alleged story was "we do this once a month with a member of the department".. pffsst.. yeah, right! Probz a'boot to totes get fired.

I cautiously lock my pc, grab my wallet, and head out with them. To, oddly, California Taco. A solid place.. shot the shit about boyscouts, video games, what I am working on, etc.. a bit better of a conversation than say when boss mom and boss dad took me out and I was super duper paranoid.

Either way a decent day so far!

I was running late to work with the rain (it causes people to not drive well.. like snow.. but less forgivable).

As it is I rushed my morning routines of logs, flat out ignored the giant email backup from being off Friday, and was all sorts of chipper-as-fuck in the meeting. I even got to throw out the 'with great power comes great responsibility' out when I mentioned that I bundled up my push notification calls (and SMS ability) for folks to use.

After that I was starting in on deep log reviews, and it happened.. again and again.. and again. Whistle's phone kept blurting out "Bazinga" at irregular intervals. This shit has been going on for weeks... and finally.. today.. with all the bosses at The Conference it is awesomely silent in the office... except for 'bazinga!' going off.

I figured I better stop this growing tide of rage and just silent the guy's phone because, clearly, he wouldn't have it going off if he was in the cube. I go over there and loe-and-behold he's in his cube. I grit my teeth, make a small polite joke about how that ringer is causing me to go insane, and if he would please silent it. I mean a visual cue is hard for what ever it is alerting him to?

It seems he did take my advice and either changed the ring tone or just made it silent.. a wise choice this morning.

See - childish me would have made sure the phone had an 'accident'.. polite and adult me was able to realize there was a growing issue, took action, and did not result in property or person damage. Thumbs up to me.

Client's user sends response survey indicating: "Not getting email notices, everyone else is. Not happy".

I look into it and see my app indeed sent *FOUR* emails to the user _AND_ her admin.. I replied to our contact to explain that and figured it was an issue of junk mail filtering.

Our point of contact responds today with: "Traveler says they were getting the emails, but not as fast as the travelers around her were".

We looked into more on our side and we couldn't find anyone else, from that client, who would have been traveling with this user.. We let the PoC know this.

Point of contact sends back: "User was referencing other passengers in the terminal".

Derp.