52 posts tagged “workin”
I remember when I first saw the EDS Catherder's commercial. It was 1999 and I was in my little apartment in Oceanside, with 3 cats and a large bottle of white zinfandel and a coffee table that I was supposedly putting together. I paused, with a screwdriver in one hand and a glass of the awful pink stuff in the other, and watched the whole thing, and thought to myself: there is no way managing people or projects is really that bad. Then I promptly stripped the screw in the corner of the table; it still is a bit wobbly on that end ten years later.
Fast forward 10 years and Catherding defines what I do at work, each year, from Thanksgiving to Martin Luther King Day. These holidays have nothing to do with the actual projects, that just happens to be when they fall.
I've blogged about this before:every year we get together and redefine our geography so we can redefine our productivity. This year I thought to myself that if I could just take on more of the process, I could make it work better! I could! So instead of doing just the fiscal bit, I took on the geographies as well. I made use of technology (MOSS 07, MapPoint 2010, SS2k5 and 2k8) and screenshots and time, and created a simple, logical, path for people to follow (13 people, to be precise) with plenty of lead time for them (3 weeks).
The first two weeks there were encouraging thank-yous and complements on what I had done by all. By week three (that would be the last week) there was rising panic, which I quelled by individual half-hour mentoring sessions. By the end of week three I was having to go back and re-do parts of my work because others had not decided to look at things until the very end. In one instance, I had to redo a couple of worksheets (at about an hour apiece) THREE TIMES for the SAME PERSON because he couldn't quite figure out what he really wanted.
Each year I come away with this feeling spent and wrung and awful. Each year I vow next year will not make me do this, and that I will make things smoother. What I have discovered is I'm making the process more accurate and more simple: for everyone else. In the meantime, my sanity is slowly flushing down the toilet as I process the monetary drives that run into ten (count 'em) digits. Before the decimal point.
I could do with a shiny fraction of that, methinks.
The C had a rough day at school the other day and, when we were reviewing his day, started hitting himself. That drives me nuts, and I usually beg him to stop or admonish him. It's his way of punishing himself, and it is disturbing to watch and more disturbing to know your kid is hurting himself.
So I figured I'd try my parent's tactic: to talk to him at my level and let him know how I deal with pooey days. Because guess what? Mommy has rough days too. We talked about how if I'm overwhelmed I go into Tolga the Data God's office and whine and plead (true), and the C points out that I'm saying that just to make him feel better. I'll take him in soon to clear that up.
Then I talked about what I do to make myself feel better after a rough day: I... clean.
It was like someone opened a big, gaping window into my subconscious and out came all the smoke and other awful smells: holy crap, I'm an OCD cleanfreak because I'm unhappy with myself. Well, no, not quite that drastic. But I clean because it is something I can control: project isn't going to ship because skiplevel changes everything, ON SHIP DAY? Time to wax the floors; at least that will be awesome.
I'm coming to find out that as a parent you find out at least as much about yourself as you do about this junior human you're in charge of. I've also discovered I'm really, truly, not that good with change.
Unless it's change I know is coming.
You see, if I know a project is going to be riddled with change and uncertainty, I am Totally Copacetic. I will contingency plan and be smug when plan number 457 comes true (out of plans 1-13,492). This explains why the first few (15 or so) X changed tactics or things got shirty with him I freaked out: this was supposed to be a stable, non-changing thing (once divorced). Now that I know it won't be, the latest cryptic email or snyde comment bothers me only slightly less than the newest chin hair to be tweezed.
Did I mention my skiplevel changed the project on ship day? That was this Monday.
It shipped with all the changes Wednesday. And my boss thinks I'm awesome.
I'm a simple pleasures kind of person. A decent glass (or two) of red, a warm beach, a pleasant vista, a home cooked meal. Each of these tickle my fancy. (My fancy isn't all that fancy, and I am distinctly "utilitarian" -- according to GH -- and I *like* it that way.)
Also on the list: solving a problem. Specifically, data problems.
I work with data for a living. I have worked with data for a living now for 5 years at BTCo (and 2 years beforehand in my old job), and in all my time I have never had angst as awful as the latest Feed. You see, BTCo owns some smaller STCos. I work for the strategic department within BTCo that has to define 1. how well ALL of BTCo is doing, and 2. how to make it do more well. Ergo, I play with data from all of BTCo, including the STCo's. It doesn't matter that we just acquired the last one a YEAR ago, I need to know it and own it.
And I totally would've, hadn't it been for the last SEVEN MONTHS troubleshooting the feed from this latest. We'll call them VD. I took on the VD feed when my boss (who is, and I mean this sincerely and with zero amount of snark, a Data God) threw up his hands in disgust. Yessiree, I was gonna solve this problem and make it all good. Thus ensued weeks upon weeks (and eventually, the aforementioned 7 months) of 6am phonecalls with Rome, assertations and pleadings regarding basic data hygeine, earnest reviews of input and output, and a lot of hair pulling.
I have learned that if the nice man tells you it's a duck, asserts it's a duck, and swears upon the life of his grandchildren it is a duck, and it does not quack/is not yellow/does not waddle, it's not a duck.
I could detail all of the problems with the data that I experienced, but it would mean nothing. All of it could've been avoided if they sent me their code (as requested) as I had sent them mine. All of it could've been avoided if they actually looked at the spec (and sample, and sample situations) I provided. All of it could've been avoided if they were willing to concede, at any point, that perhaps their data feed was flawed.
Tonight, after seven long months, I have solved the problem. I have figured it out. And yes, I'm patting myself on the back so hard that I've actually managed to throw it out. (Actually, I did that last night, but that's another story. Getting old sucks.)
The Data Dominatrix has bitchslapped it into place, and it ainta-neva-gonna fugghedaboutit.
Do you smell it? The apathy, the ambivalence, the wafting stench of abject boredom laced with slight paranoia? That, my dear corporate friends, is review time. You only smell it a little bit right now, because in MY company, it's Mid Year Review Time!
(Woo Hoo! Imagine balloons and confetti falling from the ceiling!)
No one in my company *likes* reviews. The reviewed don't like reviews because it's just one more reminder that you're that far away from another promotion. The reviewers don't like it because it's just one more reminder that you're that far away from another promotion. HR doesn't like it because it's just one more reminder that you're that far away from another promotion. At least with the End Of Year Reviews, we get to do the Bell Curve Grade of Achievement, in which 70% of the reviewed get an X, 25% of reviewed get a X+0.5, and 5% of reviewed get an X+!. No one ever gets a X+1.5, because it means you should've been promoted ages ago, and no one wants to admit to *that* sort of oversight. Still, those numbers translate to cold hard cash, and we all like cold hard cash, and so that is a nice silver (or green, with black borders) lining.
The Mid Year Reviews, however, offer no such lining; this year they've been demoted to a casual chat between boss and worker. The general consensus from HR seems to be, "we know you skate by on the Mid Years anyway and only put fluff in, so you may as well not fill out the form." Consequently, for those of us who are form-addicted, metric-centric, anal-retentive documenters, we have a new fresh layer of hell added. Responsibility with no tracking or guidance! Excellent!
Naturally my first inclination was to do a comprehensive SWOT analysis of each of my direct reports, and myself, and then encourage them to do the same; we could then compare notes and find trends. Then I remembered: no one likes to do SWOT analyses but me. Also, I'm paying them a fairly decent wage to do development work, so paying them a fairly decent wage to do administrative and analysis work is not a good idea.
My second inclination was to rebell; to insist I have some sort of form or use last year's form (hey, I can break into that system still!) and use it as a "guide". But then my boss would worry about my overengineering the process, my people would wonder why I couldn't go with the flow, and HR would ask me why didn't I read their email and also did I get the memo about the cover sheet on the TPS reports?
I went with inclination three: to sit down and have the casual chat. To frankly announce that the goals, while still not written or all that SMART**, were there; to remind them to keep on keepin' on; to let them know if they wanted to branch out into alternative disciplines (Java, DotNet, Woodworking) I was there to support them. I encouraged them to let me know if there was anything I could do to help (e.g., mock me privately or continue to mock me publicly, as needed) and to reassure them that just as soon as I could get some goals written down I would.
I need a form first.
**SMART Criteria stands for Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Time-Bound. Currently our goals are more like MAT, or MArT; by about September they will become more SMarT, and eventually be ST.
I sit in the corner, pleasantly plugged in and eyeballing the sweets case. I am at Herkimer Coffee, on Greenwood. I am here because the C has Theater Camp about 10 blocks from here and it makes no sense to drive the 20 miles back to Bellevue, only to turn around in 3 hours.
The early morning crowd was the standard pre-work coffee crowd plus a little bit of urban mommie light. They've long gone and now it is but three of us, either ignoring or enjoying the loud music and tending to our business.
You'll have to pardon me, I'm terribly smug; I've solved my data issue *and* devised a nifty (and almost incredibly efficient) way to test it.
Or maybe that's the coffee talking.
About two days ago I got a frenetic email from someone about the figures for the Balkans doubling in January.
Welcome to my typical day.
The end user is stationed in Germany, which means as I arrive to work she is leaving; there is an awkward lag then between question and response. The crux of the issue is this: If she runs a report from January 07-January 09, the January 07 figures are doubled. This is not to be supported!
This sort of thing comes to me, along with the "run this data really quick for the CEO and by the way it will be published in the New York Times so do make sure it's correct". You know, no pressure.
At any rate. The report they are referring to has two methods of execution: one against a series of tables that have "this year" and "last year" data side by side (so you can do year on year comparison in an easy fashion), and the other executes against a series of tables that do not (because these tables use up their extra space for massive more amounts of detail).
After about 5 hours of troubleshooting yesterday, I managed to discover the following:
- It only happens when we execute the more detailed tables.
- It only happens when we execute a date set longer than 12 months.
- It is happening within the first two aggregations in the code.
The code itself is about a thousand lines long -- there are if/elseif statements to do things like check to see what type of data the user ordered, what sort of timing they ordered it by, how detailed it needs to be -- so my "problem area" is somewhere between lines 50 and 110. I stared at them uncomprehendingly for about an hour yesterday.
In the middle of the night I had an epiphany of how I would test, but I didn't reach for my notepad and so now I'm back to staring at code.
[UPDATE]: Here was the solution to my problem. This will be interesting to you if you are interested in SQL, and not at all if you are not, so skip this bit if you are not:
Let's say you have a data point that you want to look at in a year-over-year perspective. Call it, say, Money. Money is a metric and you can sum() and count() and avg() money all you want. Money has dimensions, let us (for this example) give Money two dimensions: Date (datetime) and Source (varchar -- aka text). Let's say I want to look at the Money, by month, from January 2008 through January 2009 inclusive, and I want to look at the year-over-year effect.
The calculation we will use for Year-over-year is (This Year / Last Year)-1, expressed as a percentage. So if This Year Money is 300, and Last Year Money is 150, then the percentage for year over year is (300/150)-1= 2-1 = 1= 100% growth.
In order to get our base data for the months, though, what I like to do is run all of the months into a table, and then link it on itself, like this:
select sum(Money) as TotalMoney, Date, Source
into #temp
from MyTable
where Date between '1/1/07' and '1/31/09'
group by Date, Source
select coalesce(cy.Date,dateadd(mm,12,ly.date)) as Date,
coalesce(cy.source,ly.source) as Source,
cy.TotalMoney as ThisYearMoney,
ly.TotalMoney as LastYearMoney
from #temp cy
full outer join #temp ly
on cy.date=dateadd(mm,12,ly.date)
and cy.source=ly.source
where coalesce(cy.Date,dateadd(mm,12,ly.date)) between '1/1/08' and '1/31/09'
And that would work just fine. But when I sent my code to our Data Gurus, they broke it into two inserts: one for January 07-January 08 (the "last year" of my data) and January 08-January 09 (the "this year" of my data), ostensibly in order to make it faster.
If you can see the problem with this, you should consider a career in SQL.
It took me a bit, but January 08 is doubling because it is getting pulled in with each process. I TOLD THEM they should've pulled it in one process, but do they listen to me? No.
----
On the flip side, today is the 14th day of the 2nd month. 14/2=7. I walked 7 blocks to Top Pot (from my parking spot), to stand behind 7 people. 7+7=14 or 7(2)=14, either way. I think I am going to write a daily post about the numeric coincidences I run across (if I can), because I seem to run across them a lot. I'm sure they're meaningless, but they are fun :)
One of the things companies like to do in recessions is look to their (remaining) employees for ideas on how to save money and/or spend a little money in order to make a lot of money. Behold, my team!
My team is responsible for strategic data provision for analytics. Take out all of the buzzwords and the literal translation is that we are the number runner geeks for the empire. We control the data, and it's fun. It's also very intimidating to a non-technical person.
About 70% of our audience is non-technical. They're salespeople, designed to get our company out there and increase the number of contracts we have and in general make us the best in the business. They were not hired for their Excel pivot table creation skills, they were hired for their smile and handshake abilities. Therefore most of my team's brainstorming is how to get data from A to B and make it easier for the B.
We've come up with a really sweet concept -- using Share Point, an MS product with possibilities, and interfacing/bastardizing it with SalesForce, Reporting Services, and other fun things -- but naturally it is dependent on our company's ability to expand our Share Point environment. Today I am playing the devils-advocate game of, "What happens if we don't get what we want, and we barely get what we need?" I suspect we can still deliver, in phases, using a dotNet platform and doing some truly creative coding, but it is an ambitious goal for a development team of 5 people who, most of the time, are running adhoc queries and creating reports to keep the emprie alive. It's particularly ambitious since the announcement regarding no merit increases; we are asking people to work harder and in new technologies for the benefit of the greater good and at the same rate. In a very odd way, I think this works with my team: the chance to branch out from their core skill set and get what will be a pretty slick app under their belts seems to have them excited, and it's infectious.
Or maybe that was the cupcakes I brought in this morning.
Usually I look back on a year towards the end of December, but I start thinking about it much earlier than that. I awoke at 5am this morning (I did eventually get back to sleep for an hour) with my "annual review" going through my head. (Last night I went to an office function at a highfalutin' Golf Club and Bar to say goodbye to one of our own -- and mingle with the VP and above set. I chatted with the company president for about 10 minutes about Starbucks' recession proofness (or not). As a result of the chattage and minglage there was also some wineage and whenever I get more than 3 down in a night I wake up in the middle of the night or early morning and am unable to go to sleep for a bit because the brain turns on).
Again with digression!
This morning's year in review started with me wondering where I will fit in in my workplace in the coming year. As per usual our boss has grand ideas (and I do mean that) but he ascribes to the "bite off more than you can chew" philosophy of life, which leaves me with some apprehension on what bits I will be spitting out during the course of 2009. I think I've done okay, work-wise, in 2008. Not so utterly awesome that I feel at all confident in asking for a Director position -- even though I'm my boss' only direct report that ISN'T one --but hopefully I will get recognized fiscally and all that. (The 2008 bonus money is in coffers and awaiting; the 2009 one is the one that is economically eschatological). 2009 will provide me the opportunity to grow as a manager and pick up some new skill sets and bulk up the resume. To that end I am spending quite a bit of time these last few days cleaning up a few of our processes (sometimes in a draconian fashion) and making some decisions that will make me unpopular in the short term. Oh well :)
I still haven't learned to drive a stick shift-- and I think I'll just put that off the list; it's been 3 years and I just don't see it happening.
I still haven't picked up a winter sport -- and I also will be removing this from the list. Unless I can count "knitting" as a winter sport, in which case that is certainly in store for January. Once I get my needlepoint done.
I haven't been good about saving (or as good as I'd like to be). That whole "ride the bus and not buy coffee" plan? Yeah that hasn't worked out so well. The riding the bus part works FINE, the fact that there's a Cafe Ladro right downstairs has been an unforeseen addiction. I am budgeting it but still... not as much in the brokerage account as I had wanted there to be. Then again, I figure we've got another 6-12 months of crappy prices before things start to really bounce back so that gives me time to save. I'll keep going to the library for movies (they bought All Creatures Great and Small on DVD! My reservation for it came in!) and clipping coupons and I don't see myself getting cable anytime soon.
I am no longer dieting. Oh, I'll pay attention to food intake and try to avoid the caffeine and all that, but I have discovered running allows me to eat things I like and still lose (or maintain) weight. Not gaining any weight over Thanksgiving was weird and cool.
I have resolved that the problems C has at school are something that we can help with, but they need to help with too. And that if I need to get a lawyer to get those problems sorted, I will. And that my responsibility is first to C, and then myself, and X needs to look after himself. The fallout from the Mexico trip debacle was such that I haven't had the daily (or twice or thrice daily) phonecalls eating up my time where he just wants to "chat"; this is good but again feels kinda weird.
Speaking of C and school, I have signed up through the PTSA to chair their annual Art Night. This should be good, because I am the least artistic person I know; but it has gained me a special invite to a special party for ONLY those parents chairing events. Well, nifty. I think I'll wear my Docs and Jeans to their little holiday party. I have also holiday-adopted two five-year-old girls, which will be fun to shop for.
I didn't get as much done on the house or on my projects this year, although I'm pretty happy with how the kilt and rehearsal dinner turned out, and the deck is still amazingly awesome. Next year hopefully I can get more done.
But no chickens. Really. I mean it.
I blog from my cube.
I asked for a cube, and I got it. The advantages to this are readily apparent to me: I can see how often my devs get randomized and micromanaged by the business analysts, and so I get to step in. I am more productive because I can rarely blog (there are people all around me, I do not need them to know about my sewing room). My anal retentive desk habits fit perfectly in cubicle world, where my cube is a bastion of white cleanliness.
That said, there are disadvantages to being in a swank new tower in downtown Bellevue. First off, getting here by metro transit was a lot more difficult than one would imagine. On day one, I arrived at my new park and ride (Redmond Bear Creek) which, according to metro transit, is not completely full by 9am. Metro transit is clearly using figures from 1999, because there wasn't a damned space available and several ersatz parking habits (like in fire lanes) were already present. So I elected to drive to work (not good, downtown Bellevue parking and all). Yesterday I decided to go to my old park and ride and deal with a connected route (e.g., 554 to Mercer Island, 550 back to Bellevue). My boss paid for a shiny wireless thingybob that lets me internets on the bus so hey I will use it.
Except as the 554 crawled up to the Mercer Island park and ride, the 550 was leaving it. There was supposed to be a 10 minute gap. Ergo, I arrived at the office 30 minutes later than intended. Today I had better luck, driving to Eastgate (12 miles away) and bussing from there. I think I have found my plan C.
However, there are other problems with swanky tower digs. We have a Cafe Ladro. Cafe Ladro makes SBUX look like McDonalds. Cafe Ladro is yummy. Cafe Ladro is a mere 11 floors away and they have yummy smelling food items, too. Budget buster, here we come.
For someone who forages out of vending machines, discovering that said vending machines are also 8 floors away, and that the gym area to go change is 11 floors away, is not optimal, either.
In other news, I finished cleaning out my basement this morning (donatables), moved the lovesac to the sewing (!) room, and coalesced some of my books. I think I'll save the book ISBN project for those 2 weeks of holiday time; I'm technically working from home for most of it and for an actual 3 days am on "holiday". But all this progress and moving and cleanliness wants me to start more projects, like painting the C's room or the library or changing out mouldings or ripping up floors. And since I'm being bad with the Ladro in the new digs, I really need to not.
Whee....
This week at work I have got absolutely nothing done that I wanted to. Not a thing. Hampered by increasing requests and vague requestors (outside of my group; the ones inside my group know what they're on about), I have had zero success in creating a data dictionary. I have had some success in smacking down a few of those requestors, though, particularly one who decided to flex her jaws at my new guy. My new guy is awesome, and she is not intelligent, and I had to give her the written what-for. You don't mess with my homies.
Oh, and X is going back to Saudi Arabia. What a garden spot that is just right now. To add insult to injury this means my plans are all in uproar: I have to reschedule my only dive between now and La Paz, and I have to explain to the C that he's going to be stuck with Mom for 2 weeks in a row.
I'm still running -- I ran despite a cold and have kept it up largely because I'm stubborn -- and slowly but surely I'm up to five miles. Race Day (30 November) has me a bit scared because of the quantity of hills -- I can run some hills on a smaller run, but last weekend's five-mile-plus-huge-hill had me in considerable discomfort.
Tomorrow night (my one of 2 C-free nights for the next 2 weeks) I will be seeing the Rancoteurs, whom I didn't know I liked until I looked them up and saw that they are responsible for "Steady as She Goes", among other songs. I am the benefactrix of an extended friendship through GH and one of her friends' not wanting to go to an "anklebiter" (read: all ages) show. Saturday marks my early morning run, then a brunch with the gals from my old high school, and then suiting up to go see Phantom of the Opera. At least I can say I'm keeping active.
I end this post with quite possibly the best thing ever, and that is that I have new Docs, and they are beautiful. Wipe your chin, you're drooling.
