Spreadsheet nightmare and next weekend's plans

I have a deadline of Wednesday to get two documents delivered. It's involves in regards using ugly spreadsheets as my source. They went through massive updates since I last used them in December.

I spent Sunday working on these documents. I have made good progress, but need to go through roughly 2,000 rows of data. I've already gone through that may rows! We'll see if I can get through this nonsense.

Next weekend will be better. I'm getting together with a friend on Saturday now that our lockdown has been lifted once again.

Sore neck, GPS, and social meetings

I have a sore neck. It's only on the left side. I'm not sure what I did. I'm trying to stretch it out.

I pulled out my old GPS. I charged it and updated the maps on it. It's interesting how outdated it looks, but it's reliable. I am happy that it works.

As far as work goes, I finished adding a bunch of content into two documents. I haven't looked at the output because the system that builds our documentation libraries was down.

Things will start to pick up socially. I made plans with three friends to meet up for dinner. Fun!

Spreadsheet hell

I have been writing two new documents for work. They are based on two spreadsheets that are horribly designed.

This person interchanges the software product's name and the software company's name. On top of that, she has merged a bunch of columns, so it's difficult to comprehend. Ugh!

Finally, this person repeats the same list of software products for every software release that our company does. Yet, the list is supposed to reflect a specific release. Huh? It's such a waste of time going through each software release because the versions rarely change.

I am nearly done with this set of spreadsheets for the previous release. I am expecting a new set this week. I have a feeling that they will look equally horrible because this person hasn't bothered to make her spreadsheets meaningful and useful. Instead, it's a dumping ground for her data.

Flu shot and interviews

Yesterday, I got a phone call to get my flu shot. The call came in while I was conducting an interview with my manager. I actually had to tell the guy from the drugstore that I needed to call him back and that it was a bad time for me to talk to him.

Yesterday was a crazy day. I have a bunch of documentation updates to make on top of having three interviews with candidates for one intern position. It means that I am likely conducting training in early January.

My arm that got the flu shot is sore right now. Other than that, it went smoothly.

My friend and a product manager

My friend, who has leukemia, has provided an update and it's promising. She went through a trial and she may be in remission. She'll know for sure on Wednesday. I like good news!

At work, it's busy, as we are gearing towards a major software release. I have been restructuring a section of our documentation that is long overdue, but it also conforms to changes that we have done recently. 

The review with the product manager and software architect was smooth. I'm pleased.

With the product manager, he seems to like me more than I recall. In the past, he grumbled about an issue in our documentation to my manager. The latter defended me by saying that I delegate the work to students, so the fault wasn't exactly solely mine.

I have worked with this product manager more closely over the past year or so. When we used to be in the office and once had a major meeting where it was standing room only, he actually pushed me in front of him, as he's probably 6'4" and I'm half a foot shorter. It was a nice gesture to allow me to see what was happening.

He does have a girlfriend, so we won't go into any romantic what-if scenarios. However, he does do smileys in his e-mails, more to me than most. Maybe he's just a flirt.

Deliverables and research on a new phone

I have two deliverables to complete this week. One of them happens to be that same document that I worked overtime on two weeks ago, but with more updates. Here's hoping that scope creep doesn't happen again.

I'm thinking about my next cell phone. It will be another Google Pixel phone. I'm happy with it. The question is whether to go with the Google Pixel 4a with 5G, or the 5 model with 5G.

I am leaning towards the former. The screen is slightly larger, which is 6.2". It's also cheaper than the 5.

The 5 is the same size as my current phone, which is 6.0". It has wireless charging and some minor enhancements. To me, they aren't huge features that make me want to spend an extra $150.

Appreciation and respect at work

For years, I successfully handled completed every software release containing documentation. As of a few months ago, this main task was handed off to two of my counterparts.

During this entire period, I felt that folks on my team took my work for granted. I wasn't losing my mind. They did.

The woman who has been doing half my role finally realized that I do a lot of work. I had invited her to a meeting on what to do after a release is over. She decided to waltz into this meeting 1.5 hours later.

It just shows that when folks aren't responsible for a task, they don't care. When they are, it matters and they panic when they don't have the answers.

It's happening now.

With my manager,  he makes me the representative for everything. I had a good talk about this issue again this past Tuesday. It needs to be spread around the team. If I'm not available, the knowledge is likely lost when I do not have a backup.

Folks are listening. In a team meeting on Thursday, this woman thanked me for always being there for her when she has questions and I quickly reply. She called me a "data bank," which is a fun nickname.

My manager decided to nominate someone else to represent our team for development work. He said that normally, it would go to me, but he said that I am pretty busy. You think?

My manager also said that for the last seven years, I have been handling all these release activities "quietly and flawlessly." I complete my work. I communicate well. I don't complain, other than when things are completely stressing me out and I need help, or when someone is holding up the process.

Progress is good. It's important to vocalize how you feel. It is also noticeable how valuable you are as an employee when you no longer do a specific task and your manager worries about the folks (yep, plural) who are taking it over.

Never-ending comments

I get tired of colleagues who have tons of comments and cannot commit to saying that a document is good to go. It is why this document has never been released to the world for a good year.

The odd thing is that this one colleague owns the document, but required two people to write the content. I am there to edit the content, along with my intern.

He "expected" that my team would use a template for this work. I said that my team has never owned these documents. As a result, there isn't a template.

I don't know why my manager committed to editing this document. It is marketing material, something that our entire team does not have the expertise to do.

One more day of work to go... thank goodness!

Issues with the new employee continue

I haven't talked about the new employee for a bit. She is definitely the most challenging person to understand. This post explores a lot of my thoughts that I have shared with various folks for the past month.

We have a new authoring tool that most of our team has been gearing up to move to. I have said to this person that she is not ready. She doesn't have the basics down with our current authoring tool. My team consisting of this woman and two students are staying on our current tool.

She is stubborn and adamant to learn the new tool. Her reasoning, according to what she told my two students, is that there isn't a relationship between the two authoring tools. Um, that's because you don't understand the existing tool well enough to see that your transition to the new one will be difficult if you don't have a decent foundation on how things work.

Before the Christmas holidays, I had instructions for my two students to look at the training materials on the new tool. I specifically told the new employee that she wasn't ready and to focus on learning our current tool. What does she do? She watched one of the videos on the new tool.

She has raised a number of red flags in my eyes. The first one occurred during her third interview (it was my second one with her) where she said that she was a "slow learner." I brought that up to my manager, but he dismissed it. He thought that the extra time she spends after work to learn would make her catch up.

I was right. Hiring a slow learning in an IT field is bad.

She has been with the company for over two months. She cannot grasp simple things like knowing that the entire team is away on an all-employee meeting, which means that the team will not respond to her e-mails. She couldn't attend because she had a medical appointment that day and worked from home. Yet, she constantly sent out e-mails and even texted one of my students over work when she got to this offsite meeting that was not urgent. She does not take into consideration whether folks are physically able to respond to her e-mails. She is only thinking about herself.

Most of our department has to do a test that grants you access to this new tool, but for the production (live) environment. I said to this new employee that her main focus is to get up to speed with work so that she takes over one of my documentation software release duties. Her deadline is later than everyone else's to do this test. My manager made the same comment in a departmental meeting last Thursday.

What does she do? The following day, she takes this test. She hasn't gone through all the training materials or videos. She just did the test over and over again (you select either one answer or some combination) until she passed it.

I was annoyed. I told her so on Monday. The fact that she just asked for access to the test environment and was absolutely afraid to even log on was a joke. Now, she has access to a production environment where she could mess up everything with her current "knowledge" that she allegedly proved to possess on this test.

I told her she put the cart before the horse.. How meaningful are the answers that she memorized to ultimately pass this test? Not all that meaningful at this stage.

She doesn't listen. She has difficulty comprehending simple concepts. Yet, she does whatever she feels like.

She pointed out that she's not a linear learner. Yep, it shows. She is all over the map to the point where none of us truly knows what she is thinking. She has no sound judgment about much.

I had a talk with my manager on Monday night. I told him that my students and I have been drilling her with exercises and explaining concepts in multiple different ways. It is the plan that he first devised. It doesn't appear to be helping. I levelled with him and said that she wasn't a fit for this job. He nodded.

The problem is that the company is under a hiring freeze. We let her go and I am back to doing everything. I personally don't want her becoming a permanent employee at this company. She is not pulling her weight. I don't always want to be saving the day because we can't get another employee to fill the void.

On Tuesday, my manager wrote an e-mail to her and copied me. It was a snowday. He basically reinforced that she needs to work on understanding concepts and her job. All of us have noticed that she is great at memorizing, but does not understand what she is spewing out. She doesn't have critical thinking skills. She can't think for herself.

I had this chat with my guy when we were in the States. He agrees that it's probably better to get rid of her than having her pull down everyone.

The current plan is to have my students work with her on simulating a documentation release. We are assessing how she will do within the next two weeks. I have a feeling that she will be at the level that she is currently at -- slow and incompetent.

She's a nice person. She's just not suitable for this job.

Deadlines and Christmas market - yay, weekend!

It has been a crazy week. My team got our documentation packaged and uploaded. There are a few issues that need helpdesk support. However, we worked so hard to get our deliverables out the door.

I'm glad that it's the weekend. I am seeing a couple of friends tomorrow at a Christmas market. I am looking forward to seeing them again and what's at the market.

Missing someone that it hurts and dealing with work madness

Have you ever missed someone that it just hurts? That, for a brief moment, a sense of sadness and panic set in? After all of that passes, you're then okay?

I am feeling all of these emotions. I don't know why I am experiencing such a mixed bag, but I do miss my guy a ton.

I suppose that it doesn't help that there are issues with an upcoming, major software release. All weekend, I simply saw e-mails flooding my inbox on various issues, and what needs to be fixed in both the code and documentation.

About that job that I had interviewed for several weeks ago, it turns out that the position is on hold. I frankly didn't think it was a good fit for me. However, I have heard through the odd, contracted human resources woman that they have a different position in mind for me come January.

I don't have a favourable impression about this company. I will hear what they have to say, but I won't hold my breath.

Busy day dealing with incompetent colleagues

It was a crazy day at work. I'm exhausted.

I lost count after 43. This number represents how many e-mails ended up in my inbox from roughly 10:00 till 17:00. My guess is that I hit 60 e-mails easily.

I find e-mail to be a distraction. Today was a heavy inbox day. It was full of self-absorbed folks who think that my small team is there twiddling our thumbs, waiting for work. We have a ton of work to do, on the contrary.

One software developer provided two documents to us late on Monday. He asked me on Wednesday whether they were ready for him to share for his final review meeting on Thursday.

I took exception to this comment. First, my team isn't so free that we jump on his late guides and complete them. Second, we didn't know about his meeting. His expectation that we would edit them in time for his meeting was a tall order. Third, it seems ridiculous to send us what was dubbed final documents when he is having a final review meeting days later. Technically, these documents are not final. My team has another stab at making these not-so-final documents final.

I also take exception to the assigned project manager. She can't do her job. I have been doing most of her work by making sure documents get to me on specified dates and following up. Most deliverables have been late. I chase after folks because this project manager doesn't.

I have informed her that she needs to chase after folks. She should not be asking me two weeks in advance for documents. I flat out told her that I am not her problem. She needs to focus on other folks who are late with theirs. I don't see her chasing after them that way.

Then, there was another document that came two weeks late on Monday. I was not informed that this document would change. So wrong. Again, I spoke up.

I am sure that these folks do not enjoy dealing with me. Frankly, I don't care. They are not making my working life easy and are not respecting established deadlines. They are causing grief for my team.

I decided to call it a day just before 17:00. Luckily, today is my final workday this week. I am looking forward to my well-deserved mini vacation.

Sharky, pleasure, and math

It has been a while since I wrote about Sharky, a software development manager with whom I work on various documentation tasks. These days, we have a ton of software releases for existing customers. Naturally, they need release notes and documentation.

Last Friday, we crossed paths. My team was working on a major software release and we had to build our documentation. It's a long story, but it does take some time, even with some tasks being somewhat automated.

He indicated that there would be only one trouble report (it's essentially a bug report in either the software or documentation) to indicate in the release notes. I was good with that.

On Monday, I followed up with him. He had changed his story. There were 21 trouble reports and counting! Okay, being a one-year-old toddler versus a 21-year-old undergraduate student is a huge difference. Why can't he count properly?!

Anyway, this past Monday, he assigned me a trouble report to work on. It was incorrectly dubbed as a documentation issue for our part of the software, when it should go to a different writer. I wrote an e-mail to him to explain things. I indicated that he could reassign it to another writer or I could simply reject the trouble report.

"Cutiebootie, I reassigned the report," he said to me.
"Thanks. I wasn't sure whether you wanted to reassign it or have me reject it, which I enjoy," I said.
"I didn't realize that it gave you pleasure -- that it is pleasurable for you," he said.

Of note, Sharky has a thing for me. My guy and I have discussed various actions that he does or says that supports his attraction. My guy often teased me by saying, "But, Cutiebootie, he lusts after you."

My manager had heard the pleasure and pleasurable references. His eyebrows automatically raised as his eyes got larger. Last year, he went on about how Sharky resembles George Clooney. Although I don't see it, I still tease my manager by saying that Sharky is his boyfriend.

Ah, what fun!

I told my guy about it. Naturally, he takes it in good stride.

"He has good taste in women. Anyone would lust after a cute Chinese girl like you," he admitted.
"You're sweet. He's creepy, though. And, he can't count!"

I don't do well being with someone who can't do simple math. Thank goodness my guy and I are math nerds.

From booze to writing

On Friday, my team completed our documentation work for a major release. We were unwinding by chatting.

Our chat led to going on the LCBO site to look at alcohol. Earlier in the week, I had made the suggestion to go out to a bar, and celebrate by having a drink and some appetizers. They were good with it.

I had the site on my laptop and was sharing it on a huge TV that we had in this meeting room.

Our manager knocked on the door before entering. I quickly changed screens and threw up our editing tool.

He came in to talk. I have a feeling that he came in simply because he had no one to chat. Moments later, he left.

All of us had a good laugh. One of the writers was impressed that I had switched screens so quickly. It wouldn't have looked that great to have various bottles of booze displayed!

Stressful Friday and a reflective, relaxing Saturday

On Friday, there was drama with the new writer on my team. She isn't working out.

I gave her a task to update a crucial page in our documentation. The details were outlined in a PowerPoint presentation. Our manager also got involved.

Before our meeting on Friday, we had had three previous meetings. Each time, we had changes that needed to be made.

Just before our meeting, my manager asked me whether I had reviewed her work. I indicated that I hadn't seen the link to it. Instead, we did a bit of an analysis.

In the meeting, it started out okay, except that her attention started focusing on something else. Figures. Her attention span is all over the place.

The meeting got worse when my manager and she confronted each another. What rubbed me the wrong way was that she found out through another writer on our team that my manager and I had reviewed her work beforehand. She claimed that it was still work in progress, which was the whole point of the meeting.

I didn't feel great about being accused of prematurely looking at her work at first. However, when you do go into a review meeting, it makes sense to review what is currently there. Is that crazy?

The changes are pretty straightforward. She ends up doing her own thing while not paying attention to important details. This page details what versions of various application can work with our software product. It's important. You can't make stuff up as you go.

She has a ton of issues. Whenever she gets a task, she has the need to meet the person and hold meetings. The rest of our team does not understand why she makes things more complex than they should be. You are giving a document. Just do the work. Why do you need to meet that person immediately?

She isn't the right fit for us.

It is unfortunate that we cannot fire her, which my manager has hinted. We have yet another hiring freeze and he cannot afford to throw me back into development work.

I feel much better today. It helps to have a decent night's sleep to unwind.

Can I ignore you permanently or just for today?

Sometimes, I can be witty. Other times, I am so focused on doing something that my wit is non-existent.

This short post is thankfully about the former.

The other day, Sharky, the development manager who, according to my guy, has a crush on me, had sent an e-mail to add something into a document. He came over to his locker, which is next to my desk, to get something from it.

I started a conversation about the information that he had just asked me to add. It didn't make sense for a number of reasons.

After he verified that I had a point, we had this brief exchange of words:

"You're right. Just ignore me," he replied.
"Permanently or just for today?" I asked him.

He smiled, likely because he welcomed the attention that I was providing.

My manager sits next to me. He laughed. One of my co-op students sits on the other side of our manager. She laughed, too.

Hey, if you are going to open yourself up to such a zinger, I am taking it!

Frustration with a contractor - ugh!

I enjoyed blogging this past weekend. Frankly, I miss the weekend already. I was relaxed, happy, and cheerful.

All of those sentiments faded away when I got to work on Monday. I have to vent. 

It has been a while since I have felt so perturbed over a co-worker's actions that it makes me feel sick.  I felt tension in my neck and forehead. I could feel heartburn creeping in. My stomach has been queasy. I have felt this way for several hours now. Luckily, a nice, relaxing warm shower has got me in the mood to write.

At work, we recently hired two contractors. The first one is male. The second one joined a week later and is female. I don't have an issue with the latter.

The male is problematic. He constantly yawns throughout the day. He doesn't take notes. I actually had to tell him to take notes. Funny how professors never truly tell their students to take notes. It's implied that you do. 

He isn't a quick learner. He doesn't do what I have asked him to do and his work suffers. He takes constant breaks. The list goes on and on.

The first incident happened last Thursday. I came in to work and he attempted small talk. He asked me whether I was thrilled about not having a 07:00 meeting. It was an uninteresting one-liner, but I give him credit from trying. I simply told him that these meetings are part of the job.

I still had my coat on. I still had my lunch bag strapped across my body. I had yet to take my laptop out of my bag. He started asking me work-related questions.

I don't work that way. Let me settle in. I told him so. He is 27 years of age. He doesn't act it.

I finally got my coat off and started logging on to my laptop. I grabbed my mug to get some hot water for my tea. Apparently, my bluntness wasn't effective enough. He started again with another work-related question.

"I am getting hot water. Are you serious? Let me settle in. Your question can't be that important, can it?" I asked him, practically rhetorically.
"No, it can wait."

As much as I like helping people out, I don't like starting my workday with countless questions and have yet to sit down to do work. Let me answer my e-mails and log in to all applications that I need. Let me breathe.

Then, there was Monday. I met with him to see how he was doing with a fairly straightforward writing task. Well, I thought that it was straightforward.

"Did you start a [documentation] build?" I asked him.
"No, I forgot," he replied.
"We need to start a build, so we can see what the documentation looks like from a reader's perspective. Often, I will catch issues that I don't see in our editor," I stated.

Well, my words of wisdom backfired on me. I asked him to start a build. I had yet to review his work.

My manager and this co-worker had a one-on-one meeting Monday afternoon. They came out of the meeting with my manager asking that all three of us talk about some work items that they had discussed.

It turns out that they reviewed the documentation build output that I had yet to review. Sure enough, this co-worker managed to make a guide that is supposed to have the same content in two different software products look completely different. He messed up bigtime.

I pointed out that it was the reason why he needed to build our documentation -- to review it. My manager also asked him the same question.

I was probably more perturbed that I had to explain what he was doing to my manager. This guy obviously cannot communicate what he is or was working on.

I also wasted even more time talking to him. As usual, he has a bunch of questions and does not try to retain any answers that I have given him on countless occasions. I sound like a parrot. I don't get any treats, though.

Oh, did I mention that we have a deadline for this Friday to have all our documents completed? It's not going to happen with this incompetent contractor.

I was steaming in frustration for the remainder of my time at the office. I haven't felt like that in a while.

My working out helped. So did the shower, as I have just mentioned. Blogging does, too. It's therapeutic.

I do wish that my guy could be with me right now. He's always good at hugging me, kissing my forehead, and telling me that things are going to work out. They always do. 

He's right. I just miss that reassurance from him.