Keeping the Cray-Cray at Bay: Mon/Tue
Tuesday, 24 July 2018, 6pm
Whew, this week's been a tough one. It hasn't been the all-out mad dash that some weeks in the past have been, though it has constantly threatened madness. And it's only Tuesday! Thankfully I've been able to keep the cray-cray at bay.
Work this week has been dominated by a proof of concept (POC) exercise with a prospective customer. Originally this POC was going to start last Monday but stuff happened and it got postponed a week. Then I had to spend all of last week re-planning it just to get approval at the proverbial eleventh hour just to start it this Monday. So just getting this project ready to kick off was a bit crazy-making.
Monday afternoon we kicked off the POC. I'm thankful the customer wasn't ready Monday as that gave me time to finish dotting the Is and crossing the Ts with my management. Having to start at 9am would have been crazy. Thankfully the customer proposed starting at 1:30pm. But then things bordered on crazy anyway as we started installing our software.
It turns out our product's install process still has a few rough edges. And our documentation on these troublesome steps falls somewhere between scattered and nonexistent. Both surprised me because the product variant we're using here has been on the market for 3+ years. You'd think they'd have these issues worked out by now.
By the end of the day, 4 hours later, we'd installed successfully on 5 machines in the clsuter but still had a few not started. That was slower progress than I anticipated. A consultant with more hands-on install experience who shouldered with me said it was par for the course. Ugh.
Tuesday morning I worked solo with the customer (the consultant who paired with me Monday had another project to do) to finish up the install. We ran into problems left, right, and center. Fortunately another colleague was able to come through for me via chat app with some helpful tips. Otherwise as I was sitting there in the client's conference room wrangling with multiple simultaneous problems it was an effort not to scream out loud.
Tuesday early afternoon I took a break from the POC. I had some time carved out on my calendar to present at another customer meeting at 2pm, and I treated myself to a long lunch break before that to decompress and keep the cray-cray at bay. Over lunch I got a text from Hawk about her great new job offer. That really helped lift my spirits for the rest of the day.
Tuesday afternoon I circled back with the POC customer for a few hours of remote work. I think he/they prefer web screen-share meeting over f2f meetings. Usually I prefer f2f meetings for work like this for the vastly superior channels of communication, but after the bruising I'd taken at the hands of my own product earlier in the day I was happy to hide behind a screen. Plus, it was the customer's choice anyway. By 5:30pm we'd finished up the install work and I'd led the customer through a few functional use cases that show off the product's capabilities.
I'm winding down from work now. I'm happy that I've "kept the cray-cray at bay" the past few days, though the crazy-making POC isn't over yet. Tomorrow there's a big, challenging task we have to dig into. But for the rest of tonight it's celebration time with Hawk and friends for her great new job offer.
Whew, this week's been a tough one. It hasn't been the all-out mad dash that some weeks in the past have been, though it has constantly threatened madness. And it's only Tuesday! Thankfully I've been able to keep the cray-cray at bay.
Work this week has been dominated by a proof of concept (POC) exercise with a prospective customer. Originally this POC was going to start last Monday but stuff happened and it got postponed a week. Then I had to spend all of last week re-planning it just to get approval at the proverbial eleventh hour just to start it this Monday. So just getting this project ready to kick off was a bit crazy-making.
Monday afternoon we kicked off the POC. I'm thankful the customer wasn't ready Monday as that gave me time to finish dotting the Is and crossing the Ts with my management. Having to start at 9am would have been crazy. Thankfully the customer proposed starting at 1:30pm. But then things bordered on crazy anyway as we started installing our software.
It turns out our product's install process still has a few rough edges. And our documentation on these troublesome steps falls somewhere between scattered and nonexistent. Both surprised me because the product variant we're using here has been on the market for 3+ years. You'd think they'd have these issues worked out by now.
By the end of the day, 4 hours later, we'd installed successfully on 5 machines in the clsuter but still had a few not started. That was slower progress than I anticipated. A consultant with more hands-on install experience who shouldered with me said it was par for the course. Ugh.
Tuesday morning I worked solo with the customer (the consultant who paired with me Monday had another project to do) to finish up the install. We ran into problems left, right, and center. Fortunately another colleague was able to come through for me via chat app with some helpful tips. Otherwise as I was sitting there in the client's conference room wrangling with multiple simultaneous problems it was an effort not to scream out loud.
Tuesday early afternoon I took a break from the POC. I had some time carved out on my calendar to present at another customer meeting at 2pm, and I treated myself to a long lunch break before that to decompress and keep the cray-cray at bay. Over lunch I got a text from Hawk about her great new job offer. That really helped lift my spirits for the rest of the day.
Tuesday afternoon I circled back with the POC customer for a few hours of remote work. I think he/they prefer web screen-share meeting over f2f meetings. Usually I prefer f2f meetings for work like this for the vastly superior channels of communication, but after the bruising I'd taken at the hands of my own product earlier in the day I was happy to hide behind a screen. Plus, it was the customer's choice anyway. By 5:30pm we'd finished up the install work and I'd led the customer through a few functional use cases that show off the product's capabilities.
I'm winding down from work now. I'm happy that I've "kept the cray-cray at bay" the past few days, though the crazy-making POC isn't over yet. Tomorrow there's a big, challenging task we have to dig into. But for the rest of tonight it's celebration time with Hawk and friends for her great new job offer.