Work kind-of woes (actually mostly not)
Jun. 6th, 2024 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverWell, I'm most of the way through the first week in my new job situation. It's... interesting. I mean, things are much easier, and yet frustrating in some ways.
As an update, since the last work post I did was private:
Our company doesn't actually produce its own software (but I am going to avoid ranting about my opinions on the company direction), so as you can imagine, there's not much for me to do, neither doing quality assurance (which is what my job title is) or managing anything (which the company keeps pushing me towards despite me not really wanting to do it). So, I've been assigned to manage a company pet project, which is holding regular hackthons for our employees to develop ideas and teamwork skills. This is something that management has wanted to start for a while now, but if there's one thing our upper management is good at, it's coming up with things they want to do and dragging their feet at ever actually doing them.
I'm now working directly with the VP of product, who I'll call Rick. He's the one who's been pushing this hackathon idea for the past, oh, three or four months so far. Last week (meaning, while I was still working for the client), he sent me his doc with his ideas of how the hackathon would be run. Of course I couldn't look at it - I was still being paid by the client to do their work, and there was a lot to do to hand off my duties - so I didn't get to look at it until Monday.
Meanwhile, Rick posts in our company Slack (that's the software where everyone can communicate with each other in real time) that the hackathon is coming, and the message is so vague that it implies that participation is mandatory and that it will require people to work over the weekend - both of which are entirely not true.
On Monday, I open the document, and yes, it has a lot of ideas about what should happen in the hackathon, but is populated with a lot of "we could do it like this", "maybe we should", "we still need to get (this) before we can", etc. There some concrete info in there, but not enough. I meet with Rick, and he definitely wants the hackathon to take place before June is out, and because his vague post last week resulted in a lot of questions and outcry, he wants an FAQ posted as soon as possible to answer people. He also wanted a list of action items - what we need to do to get this ready by the end of the month.
So that's what I worked on. Trying to answer questions in the FAQ, I realized that we really didn't have any idea how any of it would go, so I started writing a "rules and process" page, to explain exactly what was expected, such as, start forming teams on this date, where code will be stored, etc. It's supposed to be a "fun" hackathon for this first one, not a company-focused hackathon, so we're encouraging fun tools, game mods, whatever. Of course, I have no idea how a hackathon works, so I shot questions off to Rick, only to get answers hours later of "I'm in meetings all day, I'll answer tomorrow morning". (Of course, tomorrow comes and he's in meetings all morning - why couldn't he look ahead one day and say, I'll answer tomorrow afternoon?)
We finally had that meeting Wednesday afternoon and I presented the action item list that I created, which he basically brushed off (but I expected that so I'm going to take charge of that). Then I showed him the FAQ and the rules page (each with lots of things marked with questions) and told him, I wrote them as much as I could, but since this is not my show, I don't know if any of it is right or good. He told me that he trusts me, so write it all out and he'll review it and make adjustments. Okay.
Then he says that he wants that FAQ posted, late Wednesday if possible but otherwise first thing Monday, so he's going to write out what's not yet done and answer the questions and comments I already had, then post it. I wasn't really comfortable with that (his first post was a disaster, so why would I trust this?) so I got him to agree to send it to me so I could review it.
But, you might notice that the timeline here is to either post it on Wednesday or Monday. Why is that? Because Rick is actually semi-retired and he only works Monday through Wednesday! So, he's written the FAQ and it is not internally consistent with itself, and it directly contradicts the process I've written on the rules page (which he obviously never read) - and he's gone for the next two days so I can't even work it out with him!
So here I am, writing a blog post during work hours and I don't even feel guilty, because there's nothing else for me to do.
Which is not the worst thing, as I can clean my room, work on music or calligraphy, write... and still get paid. It's interesting: I obviously don't mind not actually doing work, but I'm also a bit upset that I'm not getting to do what I'm good at, what my job title says, which is software and process analysis. And I'm stuck trying to rein in a manager whose brain is just all over the place.
But, after working full tilt on the client's project for two years, I can appreciate a bit of a break. I just wish Rick wasn't such a g00ber. (It's disappointing. He's a good friend whom I've known for over twenty-five years now, but I'm really not enjoying working with him.)
As an update, since the last work post I did was private:
- I work for a software studio that contracts people out to work for other companies. We currently live on one very large client, plus two very small clients that each pay for about two people.
- About a month ago, the large client cut a bunch of our contractor positions - seventeen people in total. Our company had to let most of them go, in a managed layoff that worked out as well as can be expected for both company and employees.
- Somehow, despite not being a developer (meaning an actual tech contributor), the company didn't choose to lay me off. (I'm QA, so you'd expect me to be first on the chopping block. But I've been doing a lot of management work lately, so I think they wanted to keep me for that.) Instead, they kept me, though I had to leave the client's project, which I've been working on for two years now and which I loved.
- This past Monday was my first day not working for the client company.
Our company doesn't actually produce its own software (but I am going to avoid ranting about my opinions on the company direction), so as you can imagine, there's not much for me to do, neither doing quality assurance (which is what my job title is) or managing anything (which the company keeps pushing me towards despite me not really wanting to do it). So, I've been assigned to manage a company pet project, which is holding regular hackthons for our employees to develop ideas and teamwork skills. This is something that management has wanted to start for a while now, but if there's one thing our upper management is good at, it's coming up with things they want to do and dragging their feet at ever actually doing them.
I'm now working directly with the VP of product, who I'll call Rick. He's the one who's been pushing this hackathon idea for the past, oh, three or four months so far. Last week (meaning, while I was still working for the client), he sent me his doc with his ideas of how the hackathon would be run. Of course I couldn't look at it - I was still being paid by the client to do their work, and there was a lot to do to hand off my duties - so I didn't get to look at it until Monday.
Meanwhile, Rick posts in our company Slack (that's the software where everyone can communicate with each other in real time) that the hackathon is coming, and the message is so vague that it implies that participation is mandatory and that it will require people to work over the weekend - both of which are entirely not true.
On Monday, I open the document, and yes, it has a lot of ideas about what should happen in the hackathon, but is populated with a lot of "we could do it like this", "maybe we should", "we still need to get (this) before we can", etc. There some concrete info in there, but not enough. I meet with Rick, and he definitely wants the hackathon to take place before June is out, and because his vague post last week resulted in a lot of questions and outcry, he wants an FAQ posted as soon as possible to answer people. He also wanted a list of action items - what we need to do to get this ready by the end of the month.
So that's what I worked on. Trying to answer questions in the FAQ, I realized that we really didn't have any idea how any of it would go, so I started writing a "rules and process" page, to explain exactly what was expected, such as, start forming teams on this date, where code will be stored, etc. It's supposed to be a "fun" hackathon for this first one, not a company-focused hackathon, so we're encouraging fun tools, game mods, whatever. Of course, I have no idea how a hackathon works, so I shot questions off to Rick, only to get answers hours later of "I'm in meetings all day, I'll answer tomorrow morning". (Of course, tomorrow comes and he's in meetings all morning - why couldn't he look ahead one day and say, I'll answer tomorrow afternoon?)
We finally had that meeting Wednesday afternoon and I presented the action item list that I created, which he basically brushed off (but I expected that so I'm going to take charge of that). Then I showed him the FAQ and the rules page (each with lots of things marked with questions) and told him, I wrote them as much as I could, but since this is not my show, I don't know if any of it is right or good. He told me that he trusts me, so write it all out and he'll review it and make adjustments. Okay.
Then he says that he wants that FAQ posted, late Wednesday if possible but otherwise first thing Monday, so he's going to write out what's not yet done and answer the questions and comments I already had, then post it. I wasn't really comfortable with that (his first post was a disaster, so why would I trust this?) so I got him to agree to send it to me so I could review it.
But, you might notice that the timeline here is to either post it on Wednesday or Monday. Why is that? Because Rick is actually semi-retired and he only works Monday through Wednesday! So, he's written the FAQ and it is not internally consistent with itself, and it directly contradicts the process I've written on the rules page (which he obviously never read) - and he's gone for the next two days so I can't even work it out with him!
So here I am, writing a blog post during work hours and I don't even feel guilty, because there's nothing else for me to do.
Which is not the worst thing, as I can clean my room, work on music or calligraphy, write... and still get paid. It's interesting: I obviously don't mind not actually doing work, but I'm also a bit upset that I'm not getting to do what I'm good at, what my job title says, which is software and process analysis. And I'm stuck trying to rein in a manager whose brain is just all over the place.
But, after working full tilt on the client's project for two years, I can appreciate a bit of a break. I just wish Rick wasn't such a g00ber. (It's disappointing. He's a good friend whom I've known for over twenty-five years now, but I'm really not enjoying working with him.)
