In the deep end you go!
Today I found myself in an interesting situation. We had a meeting
scheduled at work to talk with upper management, and the development team
regarding a bit of a hiccup we'd discovered in the current system. It's to
do with when a player is actually able to play on our site, and basically,
due to the dodgy way it works, we had a situation where a player would find
themself able to play for a given amount of time, but should they not play
in this time period, the ability to play could disappear. Obviously this
situation isn't ideal, especially as the player has no way of knowing when
or if he is actually playing during one of these "windows"
So anyway, as I'm the one who discovered the problem, (or rather,
highlighted it. It's an inherent part of the way the system works, so
technically not a problem), I had to be in on the meeting. It was set for
2pm, so I was going to have lunch, jump in to the meeting, let the tech guys
hack things out, and then answer the odd question or two thrown my way about
it.
Little did I know what was to come... I find myself called in at 1 or so,
about 5 minutes before I was planning on leaving for my lunch. They want to
do the meeting now. So in I dutifully go. Then when I arrive, Ken (the
boss) says "I'm going to get Ray to give a presentation on the problem and
summarise it. Go for it Ray".
Luckily for me, I actually knew this damned thing inside out having spent
hours working on it trying to see if the problem really was as bad as it
seemed. So I found myself trying to explain to the boss why the system
sucks, in front of the tech guys who designed the system and are trying to
defend it. Somehow though, I actually did it. I forced acknowledgement of
why the system can't work they way it does, what problems it presents to the
customers, how it can effect their ability to play etc, and then we actually
got around to trying to get a system that works.
Amazing stuff considering I was chucked in the deep end :)
scheduled at work to talk with upper management, and the development team
regarding a bit of a hiccup we'd discovered in the current system. It's to
do with when a player is actually able to play on our site, and basically,
due to the dodgy way it works, we had a situation where a player would find
themself able to play for a given amount of time, but should they not play
in this time period, the ability to play could disappear. Obviously this
situation isn't ideal, especially as the player has no way of knowing when
or if he is actually playing during one of these "windows"
So anyway, as I'm the one who discovered the problem, (or rather,
highlighted it. It's an inherent part of the way the system works, so
technically not a problem), I had to be in on the meeting. It was set for
2pm, so I was going to have lunch, jump in to the meeting, let the tech guys
hack things out, and then answer the odd question or two thrown my way about
it.
Little did I know what was to come... I find myself called in at 1 or so,
about 5 minutes before I was planning on leaving for my lunch. They want to
do the meeting now. So in I dutifully go. Then when I arrive, Ken (the
boss) says "I'm going to get Ray to give a presentation on the problem and
summarise it. Go for it Ray".
Luckily for me, I actually knew this damned thing inside out having spent
hours working on it trying to see if the problem really was as bad as it
seemed. So I found myself trying to explain to the boss why the system
sucks, in front of the tech guys who designed the system and are trying to
defend it. Somehow though, I actually did it. I forced acknowledgement of
why the system can't work they way it does, what problems it presents to the
customers, how it can effect their ability to play etc, and then we actually
got around to trying to get a system that works.
Amazing stuff considering I was chucked in the deep end :)