Born Again

One of the things I love about my job is the feeling I get the day one of our projects is released into production. Looking at the finished product I feel like a genius. And of course there is the relief. We actually managed to deliver something on time. And it works!It's like being born again, surviving a near-death experience. Almost a religious experience.

Wouldn't have thought so this morning. At 7:00am there I was sitting in my office half-asleep desperately trying to debug a data conversion & installation package which was supposed to be working just fine the day before. The guy in the office on my right was on the phone. However being too lazy to actually pick up the phone he always has it on speaker. So like it or not I have to listen in on all his calls, business or personal. There are times when I appreciate this. Am a woman. I love gossip. But not under the circumstances. He wouldn't shut up & after a while CURSORS & INNER JOINS & LEFT OUTER JOINS were merging together before my eyes & twisting into this giant whirlpool of SQL that I was drowning in.

So I go over, knock on his door & ask him to keep it down. So he asks me what's in it for him. Forgot that bit. We bribe him to keep quiet. He'll charge you a chocolate or a cigarette. But am fasting, I whine. Tough, he says. He's not. I go back in my office & search my bag just incase. There is a pack but it's empty. Bummer. So I go back & try to ask really nicely. He says ok but I owe him a big favor. Jerk.

Peace. At last. Still it was 9 before I got the offending script to return what it was supposed to return as opposed to what it wants to return. And please no one try to tell me code doesn't have a mind of its own because it does. You have to convince it to give you what you want.

Decided to let it run one last time as a test. We had a meeting at 9. Came back to my office at about 10:30 to find that the package completed successfully. So I started typing some SELECT & GROUP BY statements to see that the right data was in the right places. Gotta love SQL. It's a neverending story.

Called the support guys on the customer's side to tell them we were ready to install. Was still worried they might not have the machines ready. Or the network configuration that was agreed. Or the server architecture that was agreed. In any of these cases the installation wouldn't work. Have had that done to me before. It's embarrassing because even if it's their fault, it's still your product crashing after you said it was ready.

But these guys were great. Two of them are really hot btw & today they proved they're not just dumb muscle. Beauty & brains. Who can resist?

So it was a happy ending. So far. It's considered really good if the users still can't find a bug in your application after 6 months of regular use. We will be providing maintenance for a period specified by the contract. I think it's 18 months in this case. So will be keeping my fingers sort of half-crossed for the next few months but am optimistic.

So where's the catch?Other than that I won't be seeing so much of the two office crushes I mentioned above anymore?The catch is that now am stuck with nothing to do other than this. Just hope something new comes up soon.

Still - catch or not - I had a good day at work (el7amdullilah).