Settling in
Well, here I am in darkest Fife. The journey wasn't too onerous, for a change, but the hectic run-up to it is something I could have done without. Just two hours before we were due to leave, the Horse Doctor phoned. Could I come down to the office for a few minutes? There was something the boss needed to talk to me about.
Now, it's not a good thing to annoy the boss. He signs my time sheets, after all. So I stopped the packing, left the dachshund to amuse himself as best he could in the garden, and headed off down to the office. This isn't a long commute - perhaps the better part of a hundred and fifty yards - but it's a psychological thing. I wasn't supposed to be working on Friday.
The something that the boss needed to talk to me about concerned a database I created for a project some months ago, which had been sent to the client without anyone bothering to check with me whether it was ready to go or not. Since only half of the data had been input (not my job this time, I hasten to add) and the other half was sitting around in a series of bafflingly-labelled spreadsheets, the answer would have been no, had I been asked. As I wasn't, the first I knew about it was when the client started spluttering in incoherent rage to my boss, and he passed the venting of spleen on to me.
Things haven't been helped much by the fact that the client, although requesting the data be presented in an Access database, doesn't have a clue how to then query said data for meaningful analysis. Instead he has sent it to a third party, who rips it out into excel spreadsheets and then does chi-squared magic on it using a large pad and a pencil. Or something. It's basically a complete and utter fiasco, but one for which I get paid handsomely. So I'm not going to complain too much.
Except that my boss wanted me to go to a meeting with the client today, to explain and perhaps sacrificially cut my own throat by way of apology. I put my foot down on that one. Instead, I spent most of the weekend trying to sort out the mess, wrangle the data into a form that the client could, maybe, understand, and try to work out just what it was my colleagues had done to the lovely, simple, logical database I had created to turn it into the mad dog's breakfast it had become. I finally emailed off the resuscitated patient late last night before crawling into bed, there to be kept awake all night by a particularly enthusiastic owl.
And do I get overtime for weekend working? Do I buggery!
Now, it's not a good thing to annoy the boss. He signs my time sheets, after all. So I stopped the packing, left the dachshund to amuse himself as best he could in the garden, and headed off down to the office. This isn't a long commute - perhaps the better part of a hundred and fifty yards - but it's a psychological thing. I wasn't supposed to be working on Friday.
The something that the boss needed to talk to me about concerned a database I created for a project some months ago, which had been sent to the client without anyone bothering to check with me whether it was ready to go or not. Since only half of the data had been input (not my job this time, I hasten to add) and the other half was sitting around in a series of bafflingly-labelled spreadsheets, the answer would have been no, had I been asked. As I wasn't, the first I knew about it was when the client started spluttering in incoherent rage to my boss, and he passed the venting of spleen on to me.
Things haven't been helped much by the fact that the client, although requesting the data be presented in an Access database, doesn't have a clue how to then query said data for meaningful analysis. Instead he has sent it to a third party, who rips it out into excel spreadsheets and then does chi-squared magic on it using a large pad and a pencil. Or something. It's basically a complete and utter fiasco, but one for which I get paid handsomely. So I'm not going to complain too much.
Except that my boss wanted me to go to a meeting with the client today, to explain and perhaps sacrificially cut my own throat by way of apology. I put my foot down on that one. Instead, I spent most of the weekend trying to sort out the mess, wrangle the data into a form that the client could, maybe, understand, and try to work out just what it was my colleagues had done to the lovely, simple, logical database I had created to turn it into the mad dog's breakfast it had become. I finally emailed off the resuscitated patient late last night before crawling into bed, there to be kept awake all night by a particularly enthusiastic owl.
And do I get overtime for weekend working? Do I buggery!
Comments
I love it when people get called in to clean up someone else's mess.
And no thanks for it, either.
It reaffirms my pessimism about justice in this world.