Messy Day

Yesterday was just a mess.

Customer A had discovered that we'd forgotten to send them our source code with a previous delivery, and wanted it. They also want some code that was given to us by a vendor/partner, that doesn't belong to us, so we technically can't release it. There was a lot of back-and-forth about exactly what we were giving them -- all the code? Just the parts that changed? All the code for the parts that changed? All discussion happened via email, because the project manager is on the road this week.

They also wanted us to make some changes to some documents for the build we delivered last month -- some of which don't make sense. (Some of which would then make the software noncompliant and necessitate re-writing parts of it.) So while the managers and the customers are hashing out which of their requested changes we're actually going to keep, the clock is ticking down toward the delivery... We finally got them to agree to wait on the updates until next week, at least.

And there are some documents due soon for the build that we're currently working. Confusingly enough, these are some of the same documents they want re-written for the previous build (e.g., Test Description, Design, etc.) The schedule was getting pretty confused because email traffic sometimes neglected to specify which build they were talking about at any given time.

And then customer B decided they're ready for a software delivery, too, so on top of customer A's nonsense, I had to review documents and software and prepare the delivery for customer B. And that software couldn't be tested at this location, so it had previously been sent up to the customer's test site, which is fine except now I have no way to actually verify that what was tested matches what we're delivering.

To make matters worse, my documentation specialist had a death in the family, so her head was not altogether in the game and we were frantically trying to get things settled enough for her to take today off.

I spent most of the day trying to keep the fires under control. I didn't get breakfast until 10:45, and I didn't get lunch until 3:30.

Here's hoping today is a little calmer. We'll see, I guess.

The weekend should be pretty good. We're hoping to take the kids to visit my folks for a bit, and Matt has his monthly D&D game on Saturday, and other than that, things should be pretty calm and relaxed.

Here's hoping.