Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

And not a second too soon – I think I used up ALL my self control yesterday, LOL.

Did not pick a fight with the director of engineering, even though I’m right and it IS a defect.

And when my team lead decided the best way to get around our capacity issues was to micromanage it… I did at least gently talk him down from “let’s have a meeting every day” to “how about I email you at the end of the day, I can let you know what I worked on and the plan for the next day.”

Though maybe he’ll finally understand why I say you can say something is going to take 6 hours because that’s all the time on your spreadsheet – it doesn’t mean that task will actually take 6 hours.

I mean, just yesterday, one thing he had 2 hours for – took 5 hours, another 1 hour – took 2 hours. And a feature budgeted for 7 hours, I’ve already done 8 hours found 4 bugs and I’m only halfway done.

We’ve gone round and round on time estimates and the fact that they’re consistently too low, but it goes in one ear and out the other, so I have kinda given up. But I’m also not gonna compromise the quality of my work so I can say “oh I did it in less time than was estimated!”

I also can’t help but wonder if he’s doing this to my US partner in crime as well or if I’m on some weird secret surveillance plan cause I won’t work on something for 10 hours and say it only took 5.

You’re not gonna quiet fire my ass just because I am realistic about my speed of work. All my shit gets done when it needs to get done, and that’s all that matters.

You have a great day and don’t pick any unnecessary fights. :-D

They’re still covering the Queen’s funeral this morning. Time to start moving on.

Meanwhile, Charlotte has heard “we won’t have another Queen in our lifetime” one time too many and is plotting her reign of terror to get to the throne.

And I know funerals aren’t fashion shows, but my god, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was IMPECCABLE. Harry absolutely married up.

And one last note on the funeral – if you’re gonna have a slew of young, very in shape, Royal Navy guys haul your coffin all over town, you should have them half naked and greased up, please.

On the domestic front, the President declared the pandemic over while also saying Covid is still a problem. My dude, if Covid is still a problem, THEN THE PANDEMIC ISN’T OVER. I swear, I am never gonna get to comfortably eat inside a restaurant again.

I mean, if saying it was over ended it, I could have ended this 921 days ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I am doing my best to live around Covid, but if you have to do a risk assessment every time you leave the house – it’s not over.

So, mask up, find a patio for lunch, be safe, and have a good day.

I hope it’s as lovely where you are as it is here. The world is still a hot mess, but at least we have a bit of sunshine and low humidity.

I had such a lovely day yesterday at Mount Vernon, not just the market fair, but wandering the gardens and having a rare-to-me-thanks-Covid sit down lunch. Maybe I need to start a new Saturday thing of “find a botanical garden and go wander and then find a lunch spot with patio seating.” At least until the weather turns to shit.

How dare fresh air and exercise be so good for me, LOL.

My big plans for today are to say I’m gonna get caught up on everything around the house and then…not.

You have a restful day.

I spent several hours today at Mount Vernon for their fall market fair, and spent a good long time taking a wander through the gardens. Got some nice soaps and fancy mustards and a nice “over the doorknob” basket for the basement door where I can put my brother’s mail. There was also a bakery tent and I got some goodies to take home – chocolate croissant and a prosciutto cheese croissant, and a couple potato leek tarts. I also got little bro a teeny 50ml bottle of George Washington’s rye whiskey.

And the Mount Vernon Inn had it’s patio open and there was no wait for seating, so I had myself a nice sit down lunch, and that was a real treat. If you’re ever there, I can highly recommend the short rib sliders.

All in all, a lovely way to spend a few hours and if Covid ever abates enough to be indoors without a mask again, totally going to one of the whiskey tastings.

Our piece of shit hateful bigoted fascist Governor is rolling back protections for transgender students.

I genuinely don’t know what the fuck is wrong with this man, but a big ol’ FUCK YOU to every media outlet that just treated him as the businessman in a vest – how goofy! – and never challenged him on anything, and another FUCK YOU to every jackass that voted for him, and a final FUCK YOU to Dems for running Terry McAulifffe.

The ACLU of Virginia is already all over it. and there will be a comment period starting September 26, and you can bet I’ll have some things to say about this. I am so fucking sick of the Republicans doing nothing but hurting people, and how much they LOVE doing it.

And then the whole thing with DeSantis and the asylum seekers he dumped in Martha’s Vineyard… The folks of MV did a wonderful job of making sure everyone was safe and fed and taken care of on zero notice. And because they dared to admit they didn’t have the resources to make it permanent, and the folks were then taken to Joint Base Cape Cod – the R’s are going, “See, they’re just as bad!” The fuck?

Don’t ever tell me the two parties are the same.

Another Friday! Well done!! And I don’t know about you, but the week totally whipped by for me.

Today’s fun is testing a new feature, which is gonna suck, cause I’m working off nothing but a design document, a 2 hour kickoff meeting that did not actually discuss the feature itself, and no dev demos. And it’s one of the most complicated screens I work with, and supposedly will only take me 2 days.

I did go 10 rounds yet again with the team lead on these estimates – part of it was a half hour budgeted for doing a post testing demo. I have told him until I am blue in the face that it takes longer than that, and he says he gets it, but… I told him he didn’t have to change the estimates, but to know, it will take longer.

The long and short of it with these features is that we’re trying to fit 20 pounds of shit into a 10 pound sack, timewise, and the time estimates are being done based on the time we have, not the time we actually need. You can say something will take 16 hours, but if that is just based on how much time you think is available, well, you see the problem.

I was told we can move some of the testing to the spring if needed, but I don’t see how kicking the can down the road helps, but that’s just me.

Oh, and on a hilarious note, I was asked if I wanted to volunteer in Q4 to help develop curriculum for our learning paths/professional development. Um, no. Beyond the fact that I have no time, and this should be HR/training doing this – my personal professional development has been “go where the work is, and learn by doing” so, not exactly my wheelhouse.

If you’re thinking that I’ve not taken my career development seriously over the last 30 years – you’d be right. For me, every step has just been another job, cause I gotta pay the bills. If the job doesn’t totally suck – that’s a bonus.

Well, time to go test the thing and figure out how long it’s REALLY gonna take.

You have a fantastic Friday!!

Woke my brother up at 5:50, woke me up at 6 right before my alarm, belly rubs and bunny kicks, and tear-assing around in general, then pretending like nothing happened. I’m putting this square on the fact that we’ve got a bit of a fall chill in the air in the mornings.

The thorn in my side that I’ve been testing is done! What a pain in the ass that was and I’m glad to have that in the rear view mirror. I said at this start, this one is gonna need time and care, and boy howdy it did.

Now, I’m going to go have a nice, calm day where I find no issues anywhere with anything and I can start and finish something without having to send it back to dev.

Hope springs eternal and all that, LOL.

You have a fantastic day!

OK, it sounded better in my head, LOL. I’m still a bit loopy since a certain kitty felt it was VERY IMPORTANT to wake me up 10 minutes before my alarm – I guess she know’s it’s FML meeting Wednesday.

The thing I’ve been testing – no issues yesterday, YAY! And a day extension on getting it done, YAY! This thing has been a pain the ass and I’ll be happy to put it in the rear view window.

I keep wanting to put together a proper template that covers ALL THE THINGS I can reuse over and over to test this particular app – I just haven’t been able to find the damn time to do it. Theoretically, I could reuse the one I’m using now, but because it had formulas dumped on it at the last minute, it’s all out of logical-to-me order. (When I started testing this bit, I had 6 formulas, then my coworker went on PTO and it was still broken, so I had to pick up the bits she had been working on.)

There are lots of times I can reuse other templates for the app, but it may be worth it to take a few hours and just do it so I have a *really good* master template – the app is certainly going to have to be tested yet again. There’s another app that I think is going to need it, too – I should probably consider that, too…

Look at my dumb ass creating more work for myself, LOL.

Well, time to go do the thing to make the money to feed the furry alarm clock.

You have a great day.

The thing I’m testing…it’s gonna kill me before the day is out, LOL.

So, found problem Thursday, coworker said it was fixed Friday – not fixed. It was then fixed Friday evening, coworker who is also testing checked it – just that one damn thing again with “I’ll check the rest tomorrow” – and cause they didn’t go any farther, I found yet another issue yesterday afternoon that could have been caught sooner.

Send back to dev, drop a note in the group chat, and log off. Get a slew of sad face reactions on Teams.

NO, NO SAD FACE REACTIONS. DO NOT MAKE ME FEEL BAD FOR DOING MY JOB.

I mean, damn, would you prefer I hadn’t caught it? And no, I couldn’t find it sooner cause it was masked by the other bits that were messed up.

Then I get, “can you retest by noon tomorrow” – I diplomatically said something along the lines of “I’ll try but it’s more likely monkeys might fly out my ass” – but hey, I know exactly what I’ll be working on this morning. I said when we started testing this, that it was a risky app that would require a lot of detail work and WELL, I WAS RIGHT.

And on that note, I am gonna go start work hella early and bask in my rightness.

You have a great day.

That was quick. But it was a fun weekend, and it’s only… 4 days and 11 hours until it’s back around again!

In international stuff I am weirdly fascinated by, it sure looks like Charles is gonna be an insufferable twat. Getting bitchy about an inkwell and telling foreign dignitaries they’re gonna have to take a bus to the funeral – well, he’s off to quite the start. (As he takes a private jet back up to Edinburgh to fetch the coffin rather than a train…) I think we’re seeing what happens when you’re pissed that it took too long to get to be the King. My brother says he lasts 5 years. I think he brings down the monarchy all on his own.

Like I said, weirdly fascinated by it all.

And in local stuff, TFS is in town and no one knows why. And I swear, seeing those photos last night set my teeth on edge. You get the fuck out of my town you asshole.

And on the most mundane of notes, it’s time to go do the thing and make the money and get a day closer to the weekend and retirement.

You have a great Monday – or at least get through it.