Long Day
Started the day off with the alarm not going off. Luckily something woke Al up, and she woke me up, and we managed to start our day only 15-30 minutes behind. This started the whole day on the wrong foot. In fact, were it not for bribes to my user groups in the form of half-loaves of banana coconut chocolate chip bread, I think today might have gone very poorly indeed.
Upon arrival at work, an iced mocha helped jump start my brain, and then I was off to the paces. I spent the next 45 min frantically testing code changes made by my developer that morning so that I could demo them (and other previous changes) in my weekly meeting with one of my user groups. I was actually 5 minutes late because I was waiting for a test file to finish running.
While the files were running, I ran over to a different user group (not actually mine, they're someone else's group, but since I know more about the software package they are implementing than anyone else at the university, I am quasi-attached to them for the next 3-4 months) to check up and use the sftp script I customized for their use to load something into their test environment (used to be my users test environment) and ask their permission to do some demo work in there. My users, as can well be imagined, are just ever so pleased that their test/dev box has been hijacked. Can say I'm any happier about it.
Then it was time for the meeting. We spent 30 minutes updating each other on various projects and action items, and an hour demoing the latest developments in two different programs. I was supposed to go over and get sign-off on an updated spec, but my boss has had me running around on so many other things that I still haven't finished my updates since the last meeting, so that didn't happen. I rescheduled for a quick follow up meeting later in the afternoon.
At this point, I was famished, so I grabbed Al (since I was in downtown campus, I could do that) and headed off for Einsteins Bagels and Jamba juice. Only they had closed both place and replaced them with poor facsimiles thereof: freshens and 5th Ave Bagels.
After that disappointing lunch, I spent a few minutes making personal phone calls concerning potential over-charges and program changes on various bills (some overdue because I still hadn't gotten to them). During this, I actually managed to figure out some of our recent problems with outstanding bill balances and late charges and whatnot, so next months bills should make a heck of a lot more sense.
Of course,necessary as the bills are to my personal life, I really should have been working on that damn specification document, since shortly after I finished, my boss called me and asked me to go talk to my loaner user group and check with the consultant about the results from my demo earlier and the solution I wanted to implement across the testing environments. I suggested communicating this via email, but was over-ruled. So I ran over to their area. They were, of course, on lunch break. So I stopped by a third user community, this one actually belonging to me, to check in and drop off the remaining banana bread. They appreciated it and invited me to a bbq in central campus at 5:30. I tried suggesting that I didn't belong at a graduate bbq, but since I was "their analyst" apparently that meant I deserved to be there. So I agreed to make an appearance.
At this point, I stopped by the group I was supposed to meet with to tell them the spec wasn't going to be finished on time. They didn't really care, as they have other work to do, and hopefully my boss won't chew me a new one since it was at her bequest that I was pulled away from that work.
On my way back to my pc, I stopped by the borrowed group, only to learn that they had been back, and were now off to the training room cross campus. Followed them there only to discover the room had been double booked, and that they had taken the party to an unknown locale. At this point, I went back to my desk, to discover that the issue I had been running around trying to get resolved had been taken care of over email. I decided to step out of the dilbert cartoon I had suddenly found myself in, and get back to writing my specification, despite my sudden lack of motivation. Of course, it was at this point that I began to get emails and phone calls from my boss and various project PMs asking for updates (either written or to networked spreadsheets). By the time I got done with that, I had enough time to call my boss and confirm that I was going to be at the other campus tomorrow and convince her (under guise of doing additional testing/ assisting of the borrowed user group and demoing the new fixed functionality) to send me back on Friday so that I could deal with the specification then.
At this point, having run out of steam, I just fussed online until it was time for the bbq. I went, made my social hellos, commented on the number of Undergrads at a graduate bbq, was introduced to the dean of graduate affairs, who I still had enough energy to make laugh, said my goodbyes, was introduced to a cute male education graduate (in what I think were women's khakis and a sky blue top) who I think was flirting with me (I would have flirted back but I was pretty much done at that point).
On the way home, I got tempted by the fruit of the farmers market. They had raspberries picked this morning. Then to home.
The metro was making me nauseous, so I couldn't enjoy the delicious smells of Al's stuffed mushrooms. In fact, when combined with the smell of the asparagus soup she was making, it just made me feel worse. A yogurt helped settle it (I was pretty sure the fact that I hadn't eaten since noon and it was almost 8 {the bbq only had burgers and vegedogs} was part of the problem. I was right). At that point, I was able to enjoy, if not entirely relish, the mushrooms. Asparagus soup = not right.
After dinner, I spent most of the rest of the evening helping fuzzysputnik write thank you letters for the interview he had on Tuesday. Al was nice enough to prep me a foot soak since all the walking had left me with a very sore foot. (mental note, buy insert for shoes, the support is now officially dead). During this process, I ate my raspberries.
At this point, I am just exhausted. I apologize for the textual explosion, but I am not in a condition to better sort, organize, or filter this, and I needed to get it off my chest. Feel free to ignore everything under the cut, it is there for your protection.
Upon arrival at work, an iced mocha helped jump start my brain, and then I was off to the paces. I spent the next 45 min frantically testing code changes made by my developer that morning so that I could demo them (and other previous changes) in my weekly meeting with one of my user groups. I was actually 5 minutes late because I was waiting for a test file to finish running.
While the files were running, I ran over to a different user group (not actually mine, they're someone else's group, but since I know more about the software package they are implementing than anyone else at the university, I am quasi-attached to them for the next 3-4 months) to check up and use the sftp script I customized for their use to load something into their test environment (used to be my users test environment) and ask their permission to do some demo work in there. My users, as can well be imagined, are just ever so pleased that their test/dev box has been hijacked. Can say I'm any happier about it.
Then it was time for the meeting. We spent 30 minutes updating each other on various projects and action items, and an hour demoing the latest developments in two different programs. I was supposed to go over and get sign-off on an updated spec, but my boss has had me running around on so many other things that I still haven't finished my updates since the last meeting, so that didn't happen. I rescheduled for a quick follow up meeting later in the afternoon.
At this point, I was famished, so I grabbed Al (since I was in downtown campus, I could do that) and headed off for Einsteins Bagels and Jamba juice. Only they had closed both place and replaced them with poor facsimiles thereof: freshens and 5th Ave Bagels.
After that disappointing lunch, I spent a few minutes making personal phone calls concerning potential over-charges and program changes on various bills (some overdue because I still hadn't gotten to them). During this, I actually managed to figure out some of our recent problems with outstanding bill balances and late charges and whatnot, so next months bills should make a heck of a lot more sense.
Of course,necessary as the bills are to my personal life, I really should have been working on that damn specification document, since shortly after I finished, my boss called me and asked me to go talk to my loaner user group and check with the consultant about the results from my demo earlier and the solution I wanted to implement across the testing environments. I suggested communicating this via email, but was over-ruled. So I ran over to their area. They were, of course, on lunch break. So I stopped by a third user community, this one actually belonging to me, to check in and drop off the remaining banana bread. They appreciated it and invited me to a bbq in central campus at 5:30. I tried suggesting that I didn't belong at a graduate bbq, but since I was "their analyst" apparently that meant I deserved to be there. So I agreed to make an appearance.
At this point, I stopped by the group I was supposed to meet with to tell them the spec wasn't going to be finished on time. They didn't really care, as they have other work to do, and hopefully my boss won't chew me a new one since it was at her bequest that I was pulled away from that work.
On my way back to my pc, I stopped by the borrowed group, only to learn that they had been back, and were now off to the training room cross campus. Followed them there only to discover the room had been double booked, and that they had taken the party to an unknown locale. At this point, I went back to my desk, to discover that the issue I had been running around trying to get resolved had been taken care of over email. I decided to step out of the dilbert cartoon I had suddenly found myself in, and get back to writing my specification, despite my sudden lack of motivation. Of course, it was at this point that I began to get emails and phone calls from my boss and various project PMs asking for updates (either written or to networked spreadsheets). By the time I got done with that, I had enough time to call my boss and confirm that I was going to be at the other campus tomorrow and convince her (under guise of doing additional testing/ assisting of the borrowed user group and demoing the new fixed functionality) to send me back on Friday so that I could deal with the specification then.
At this point, having run out of steam, I just fussed online until it was time for the bbq. I went, made my social hellos, commented on the number of Undergrads at a graduate bbq, was introduced to the dean of graduate affairs, who I still had enough energy to make laugh, said my goodbyes, was introduced to a cute male education graduate (in what I think were women's khakis and a sky blue top) who I think was flirting with me (I would have flirted back but I was pretty much done at that point).
On the way home, I got tempted by the fruit of the farmers market. They had raspberries picked this morning. Then to home.
The metro was making me nauseous, so I couldn't enjoy the delicious smells of Al's stuffed mushrooms. In fact, when combined with the smell of the asparagus soup she was making, it just made me feel worse. A yogurt helped settle it (I was pretty sure the fact that I hadn't eaten since noon and it was almost 8 {the bbq only had burgers and vegedogs} was part of the problem. I was right). At that point, I was able to enjoy, if not entirely relish, the mushrooms. Asparagus soup = not right.
After dinner, I spent most of the rest of the evening helping fuzzysputnik write thank you letters for the interview he had on Tuesday. Al was nice enough to prep me a foot soak since all the walking had left me with a very sore foot. (mental note, buy insert for shoes, the support is now officially dead). During this process, I ate my raspberries.
At this point, I am just exhausted. I apologize for the textual explosion, but I am not in a condition to better sort, organize, or filter this, and I needed to get it off my chest. Feel free to ignore everything under the cut, it is there for your protection.