Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

I brought the laptop downstairs. Had a sandwich. Went for a nice long walk. Sent an email to the animal shelter to see if they can use the brand new pet fountain that Lily doesn’t like. Ate some cheese and crackers.

The work is not getting itself done.

I think we’re approaching the point of, “Fuck it, there is still tomorrow.”

And it’s not over, waaahhhhhhhh. The plan for doing some prep work to make the upcoming week easier is out the window and it’s going to be actual work – there just wasn’t enough time to wrap everything up last night. :( Going from 3 maintenance releases a month to 6 SUCKS. Zero stars, do not recommend.

What’s frustrating is everyone is overloaded so things are getting missed. One thing I’m working on involved the structure of the tables being changed – like, 10 tables. First thing I did was look to make sure all the tables had been updated before processing things. Well, one got skipped. Asked about it Wednesday, didn’t get an answer til Thursday, the dev put in a database change request, that didn’t get touched until Friday morning and wasn’t finished until the evening build Friday night. And I’m mystified as to how this was tested in another database – I guess they just ran the process and it didn’t blow up, so all good.

And, it meant that something I’d tested earlier in the week had to be re-tested, cause though it was for a separate defect, it involved the same tables and when I tested it, I was running on the assumption that all the tables had in fact been been updated. Definitely my bad for choosing poorly on what defect to work on first. I did at least get that re-tested last night, so that’s something.

I’ll readily admit that I’m sitting here dithering cause the alternative is unpaid work in some form or fashion, either around the house or for the shareholders, and I don’t really want to do either.

I suppose I could just say, “Fuck it, I don’t work on weekends” but that is gonna make Monday a true hellscape and Mondays are bad enough on their own. I’m debating bringing the laptop downstairs and working with the TV on. but I’m not sure if that would just slow me down, and I don’t really want this to take longer than it has to, but I also don’t want to be locked upstairs all afternoon.

But first, I think I need a sandwich.

Yep, 6AM alarm is now gonna be the norm for a while. Yesterday, had I gotten in just a half hour earlier, I would have been done by the time the daily build ran in the evening instead of having to go back upstairs after dinner – and I wouldn’t have been online when the big boss sent the “client found another problem, can you take a look at your earliest convenience?” email to myself and my coworker. (And earliest convenience would have either been last night or the middle of next week.)

I like my job and I have a great team, both in dev & QC. For a while we were doing 3 monthly releases plus work on the new version, and we did it pretty well. We’re down to 2 monthly releases and the new version, which would also work well. This 2 monthly releases, new version and special weekly release – it’s just…IDK, it seems to be the tipping point between “things working well” and “JFC, do we even know what the hell we’re doing?”

But, it’s not permanent, and I keep reminding myself of that. And we’ll get better at it. But right now, hooooboy, we suck at this.

And I may be working this weekend, not work work, but getting some prep work out of the way for Monday. Obviously, I’d rather not, but it will make things smoother Monday morning. We’ll see.

You have an excellent Friday, and don’t let the bastards get ya down.

Things are – I think – settled back down at work – to the point where I set my alarm for 7 vs. 6. We’ll see if that was a good idea once I get upstairs.

I’m half wondering if I should just give in and get up at 6 until these special versions for the one client are done. The extra hour to get in front of the various disasters wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and if everything is fine – I’m done with the day early.

And on that note, I’m off to see what exploded overnight, LOL.

ETA: I should have gotten up at 6. *sigh*

These special releases are just killing us. I understand why we’re doing them, and they’re not permanent, but my god, they are a mess. We’re doing 2 other monthly releases and working on a new version and that was all working fine (not perfectly, but nothing is) and my god, this extra release has just thrown such a wrench into the works.

We test in the regular version, if it passes, it’s added to the special version and tested there, and if all is well, that’s fine. But if something is wrong… then multiple tests in the regular version and then a wait to get it to the special version and suddenly it’s OMG, TEST THE SPECIAL VERSION IT’S GOING OUT TONIGHT/TOMORROW/YESTERDAY.

If you couldn’t tell, yesterday was OMG, IT GOES OUT TONIGHT. My US based partner in crime & I got caught up in that, but we got it done and got some nice words from the three levels of management above us, which is nice, but you know what is also nice? Raises that actually keep up with inflation.

Someone doesn’t want to be up this early, and I don’t blame her.

You have a great day, and may no one toss a wrench into your meticulous to-do list.

My brother is hanging out w/a friend tonight and he mentioned they’re getting Chinese takeout.

Thought to myself, well, hell, I may just go pickup a curry and naan after work if we’re in a “it’s not a dick move to get something my brother has no interest in” situation.*

Then work got stupid and by the time I finished, it was too late for takeout.

I’m having tuna salad on triscuits and it’s perfectly fine and has protein and whatnot and it does the job. But it’s not curry and rice and naan.

Yeah, curry is going to have to happen here soon.

* I mean, I could tell him any given day, “I’m very much in the mood for Indian (or whatever) and if you can’t find something you want to try, you’re on your own” and he wouldn’t care, but I would still feel bad.

We’re gonna have one of those weeks… My coffee is weak, two days Fitbit says “great sleep!” and I want to go back to bed, and we are having some communication problems in the office.

When we fix apps for speed, they go to the performance testers, and we have to test them early (realistically, we do not, but whatever) – and last THURSDAY they discovered the apps weren’t actually faster. They notified a few people, but those of us who would have to retest these things after they were fussed with again WERE NOT TOLD and we found out YESTERDAY that oops, more changes are being checked in.

So, YAY, more testing of the same things that I already tested! It’s not the end of the world, the test data doesn’t have to be setup again, my templates can be used again, but FFS, cause things I thought were done, are not.

Our monthly releases are usually fairly smooth, but goodness, it’s been such a clusterfuck this past month.

And we’ve renamed our department. What was Engineering is now Engineering and Technology. Despite multiple earnest explanations from our department VP, I still don’t get it, but OK.

Ah well, it will all get done. Again.

You have a great day!

I really like my job and I also need another day off. Supposedly I slept well according to my Fitbit, but I am not so sure about that.

I don’t watch the Oscars anymore, cause I rarely have seen any of the movies, but it sure seems things got real damn weird last night. I ended up muting several names on Twitter just because “the discourse” got tiresome real quick. Should the joke have happened? No. Should the bitchslap have happened? No. Do I understand why the bitchslap happened? Yup. But, Twitter attention spans being what they are, when the mutes expire tonight, it should be like it never happened.

China is locking down Shanghai for a new Covid surge… They are locking down a city the size of Texas and we’re here all, “Do whatever you want!”

Welp, time to go get through the day. I wish I knew what made my sleep not so great last night so I can not do that again, LOL. At least this week shouldn’t be like last week.

Hope you slept better last night than I did! Have a great day!

I did not beat the rain for my walk – got to the top of the first hill and was greeted with a mix of snow, sleet, and rain… But being so damn close to the goal, I refused to give in and did laps around the house, LMAO.

AND NOW I’M EATING CARROTS.

Thank you sweet baby jesus, it is the weekend. Had an excellent sleep in with the LilyMonster this morning, got a big coffee, and all is right in my little world right now.

Of course, thanks to the utter pummeling I took this week at work, not a damn thing has gotten done around the house, so my exciting Saturday plans involve a lot of vacuuming.

And I really need to get out and get a walk in before the rain starts so I can get my damn 150 heart points for the week. I only need 9 for the day.

Dammit, it’s Saturday, why do I suddenly have so much to do?