24 minutes.
GeneralMy commute home yesterday took 24 goddamn minutes.
Which, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't seem like a lot of time.
But given that my morning commutes are generally fifteen minutes...
That's a fuckin' eternity.
And before anyone out there says "nInE mInUtEs IsN't ThAt LoNg, cAlM dOwN"...
Listen here, you little shit.
Go plank for nine minutes.
I'll wait.
But also, it was the strangest thing: everyone—and I mean everyone—was moving so damn slow. Add to that the fact that the weather felt like a goddamn CPU cooling fan exhausting the bad stuff from a case...
Well...
It just made me feel like the simulation couldn't adequately cool down and was running super sluggish.
Meh. Anyway.
Yesterday was... surreal.
The entire thing was mostly just building up to what I'd expected to be the shitty crescendo of an application demo for boss man.
And I say "shitty crescendo" despite the fact that I have full confidence in the developer attached to the project.
Past trends indicate—and this was the fourth demo attempt—that boss man can and will find something wrong.
But in this case...
He didn't.
He had questions, sure, but...
He was mellow.
Ended it with a shrug and an, "Okay, cool. Great job."
Broh what the fuck.
Not complaining.
Not remotely complaining.
But it started to give off seriously familiar CPO initiation vibes. Because during that process, the group is set up from the start to fail, as part of some kind of fucking twisted, herpy derpy learning process.
Now don't get me wrong: I completely understand that failure can be a great teacher.
Shit, the Kobayashi Maru is a test where failure is the actual point. And in that context, it makes sense.
I think the main thing that helped out was that the developer lead was there, and gave a very helpful suggestion:
"You said this is the fourth time you've done this? Just show him what you fixed, then."
Bruh.
Now granted, the advice seems obvious.
But.
Past demo efforts, boss man made it clear to "treat this as if I'd never seen this before".
Meh.
Demo done, one more to go.
And this next one, I'm not remotely confident about. The attached developer isn't great, and I'm not sure if it's because there's a skill issue, a personal issue, some combination of the two, or... something else?
But he's not quick.
Argumentative about direction.
That second part, I could possibly see as a benefit. Since different perspectives can yield a greater product and all that jazz.
However, when the client says "paint it blue", you don't paint it white because you feel a blue house is silly.
(Which it is.)
You paint it fuckin' blue.
Quick non sequitur: Wow. Chugach got a multimillion dollar contract to do work on San Diego Naval Base. Alaskan company doing work in California is... I dunno, that's strange to me.
Demos aside, week is almost over, and I'm thankful for that.
Although... opening up my inbox this morning planted a nice, steaming surprise on my lap.
(Mama bear, if you still actively read this, consider it my feedback. I'll not say anything in the workplace; I'll just sit down, shut up, and color.)
Back at the start of the year, the folks in my row were given an assignment by our lead.
Document these two applications, you've got until May. Go forth.
So we did. Work was completed within a couple weeks for the first one, and I think still ongoing for the second one (but to be fair, focus on the assignment has definitely waned since the first project was done).
Following on from that, we were assigned user guide creation. We were the target audience, and they were (to my understanding) to be used for quick reference by anyone that was either new, or just hadn't had enough exposure to the thing.
Work was complete in fairly short order.
Eventually, those user guides were aggregated into fewer slide decks and put up on our training portal.
Numerous issues arose from that, but the end result is this:
Start all over. With new, refined guidance.
So.
I'm mostly fine with this.
Definitely happy for better guidance. Common thing I like to use is, "I'll draw you a boat, but it's on you for not specifying anything more than 'a boat'."
Here are my issues with it. Counterpoints where understandable.
- The user guides are all done in PowerPoint. I hate PowerPoint. It can be used to great effect (shout out to NCIS), but generally that's not the case. My personal preference is a well-crafted Word document with hyperlinks throughout, since user guides are akin to instruction manuals, which... generally aren't flash cards. [Counterpoint: These are being uploaded to the training portal which uses PowerPoints.]
- Bonus issue to the first issue: PowerPoints very rarely look good. Especially when they're done in the Government sector. They're all generally the same, following a gross blue and gold bar at the top and/or bottom, and then a lot of white space. [Counterpoint: "Yes, Shaw. They look same because it's called a standard." [Counter-counterpoint: The standard sucks. Reinvent the wheel.]]
- I don't recall such a tight deadline the first time around. Could just be my foggy, whiskey-soaked memory, but I felt the first effort was more of a "when it's done, it's done". I still hustled to get it done, but the freedom of more time was satisfying.
- This last one is particularly problematic: consistent (enough) writing styles.
Gonna jump outta the bullets for that last one.
People are different.
Their clothes are different, personalities are different, voices are different.
And those voices? Generally, they carry over into your writing; sometimes to particularly amusing effect. I've met countless folks over the decades whose first language isn't English.
And those same unique traits to their take on English?
It carries over into their emails.
Legitimately not remotely bothered by it. I embrace it.
It's adorable.
And more importantly—in that context—it is them.
Now, I'm sure I've read books over the years that were written by teams of people. And I'm sure in those cases, any idiosyncrasies in the writing were dismissed as "Ope, guessd the editor missed that one."
But those books?
I didn't know those people.
I didn't know their voices.
However, I do know this team.
And their voices.
Given a pile of documents, I could prolly figure out which things were written by which person with confident accuracy. And that's including my own work.
"Yeah, but you already knew which work was yours because you did it."
Shhhhhhh... shhh...
Sh.
As a reminder: foggy, whiskey-soaked memory. I don't remember what I did last week with any real clarity, let alone months ago.
For the record: my voice is chaotic. When among those I'm comfortable with, it runs the gamut from stoic to full-blown neurotic.
When among those I'm not comfortable with... I generally turn into a robot. Hell, one of my past CO's told me that my writing was "sterile, like being at the doctor's office".
Man.
I miss that lady. Hope she's doing great.
Mama bear did give out that refined guidance, and she included possible angles of attack for how to get it done.
And none of them are wholly acceptable to me, lol.
To be clear: I'm not saying she's wrong.
I'm saying that my fucked up smoothbrain won't let me... share.
So I guess...
I'll do everything?
It's not by any stretch of the void a difficult task, nor would it take more than a day to get it done.
Translated and shortened requirements:
- Make it consistent and
- Tailor it for children
Not like, literal children, but...
General... knowledge... level?
Anyhoo.
It's Juneteenth.
Which means there should be very few—if any—non-contractors in the building.
Which makes me super happy.
Equivalent of working on the weekend without actually sacrificing one of those holiest of days.
...Except you, Sunday. Fuck you. You know what you did.
Gonna go ahead and get started on the assignment.
A wee bit excited about it, but also slightly anxious.
Last time I tried to set off and do something on my own, it got summarily shut down.
...More or less.
Fuck it, though.
CHARGE.
(Also: Steve got upset he wasn't being mentioned much, so... shout out to Steve.)