Heel pain

I woke up this morning at around 4:30 pm and had heel pain. Whenever I walk a lot, I end up overusing my right foot in some way. I ended up with heel pain.

It took several hours for the pain to subside. I was supposed to go to a work bowling events, but ended up not going because I was tired. I needed a nap.

I'm doing a lot better now. Luckily, it doesn't happen all the time. However, when the pain arrives, it does take a while for it to subside.

Change and missing it

Monday wasn't my finer workdays. I found out that a feature that I had written about before I went on vacation was checked in properly. However, the powers that be moved the feature to a different release version while I was away.

Someone had apparently mentioned this tidbit of information in a mass e-mail. I missed it.

Part of me felt bad. I generally don't miss that sort of thing. Part of me doesn't. Communication isn't stellar at work. I get tons of e-mails. Folks can't make a decision.

Luckily, things have been fixed before this software release. I'd feel bad if the software release went out and someone noticed this issue after the fact!

I may take a longer long weekend. I haven't taken a longer Labour Day weekend in ages. I am typically training a new intern in September. It won't be the case this year.

No doctor call, but I had a nice chat with a colleague about his English skills

As expected, I didn't get a call from my doctor. I left a voice message, letting folks there know that they missed the boat and to call me back later on today. I'll be calling them, too. I don't trust their reliability, which is sad.

I will ask for my appointment to be over the phone. I don't see the need to come into the clinic.

On a happier note, I worked with a software developer on a new feature. After we were done, he confided that he likes writing documentation. He said that if I have any feedback on his written work (he's from Brazil), he'd be happy to get some from me. 

It was nice to hear. I wish that more developers would work on improving their English, if English is their second language. Heck, there are some folks whose first language is English and aren't great at it!

I let him know that I'd be happy to provide feedback. I do it anyway within my team, so it's a natural extension.

Working with colleagues who annoy me

At work, I seem to work with people who have interesting personalities, issues and, quirks. I wish that I didn't have to collaborate with them. Luckily, I don't that often with most of them.

Well, there's Diva. She enjoys texting me on our messaging app. I, on the other hand, cringe when she contacts me. We spent forty minutes texting. Why? First, she types slowly. I end up moving onto other work and getting back to her messages. She should consider writing an e-mail instead, as her issues are never urgent. Second, she isn't clear about what she is conveying in her texts. They are confusing for me because she doesn't consider whether her audience will get what she is saying. Third, the reason why I didn't understand her was because she messed up performing a procedure, which caused my work to appear somewhere it shouldn't have been. It was nice pointing that mistake out to her again.

As mentioned a while back, she and another colleague have taken on roughly half my old workload. I always felt that they took what I did for granted. I did and still continue to do a lot. She, in particular, is paying the price for being sloppy.

There is a software tester that I worked with several years ago. He moved on to another position within the company, which was great. I didn't like working with him. Sadly, he's back. He hasn't changed a bit. He has bugged me unnecessarily three times. I finally had it, even after giving him an example of asking a software developer technical questions instead of me. I had to explicitly tell him to copy that developer and me together. Ugh! He, too, enjoys texting. It's not my preferred method. Nothing is that urgent.

Finally, I have been working with a female software developer in a focus group. She was nominated to lead it. Sadly, she talks a ton. She does not let people speak. She seems to thoroughly enjoy hearing herself speak in circles. She talks up such a storm that I just tune out. A meeting that she had set up for thirty minutes yesterday with a group of twenty people got extended to an hour because she took up 37 minutes of it with her gibberish.

Thank goodness it's Friday. Here's hoping that it's a quiet day without dealing with these characters.

Predictable dentist's appointment and recognition at work

My dentist's appointment was predictable. I got x-rays done on my teeth. My teeth were cleaned. I have no cavities. Predictable is good.

On Monday, I went to an all-employee meeting at work. My manager rolled out a project that our team has been working hard on for several months. He had a slide recognizing all of us by listing our names.

For the last 1.5 months, I have been working closely with a developer to document a new way of installing software. We worked well together.

Well, his manage had a slide that listed only software developers on his team. He didn't put me on it. It didn't sit well with me.

On Tuesday, this developer sent me a recognition e-mail, which is a part of our internal program, saying nice things about working with me to get these steps documented. I appreciated it and responded back. My manager saw this recognition and also acknowledged it.

It's nice to be recognized from time to time.