Last Day in Building XY
(Given that someone once got terminated for posting a picture of the building that receives the mail, I’ll go the safe route and NOT mention a building by number.) Longish and Ramblingish post to follow.
Well, doesn’t that suck.
I wanted to transfer within the company because for the last three years EVERY feature I’ve worked on (okay, there were ~2 exceptions) has been… butchered. With cause, believe me, but still.
So when the reason I’m given for NOT being offered a position is my lack of a record for delivering projects through to completion, I get a little… let’s say bitter.
It just hasn’t been the best week.
Of COURSE they change the rules now…
I had an interview loop on Friday afternoon (it went well; it was ~ my safety interview — I already knew and was known by the interviewing team). I have another loop scheduled for this Thursday that I’m actually a mite concerned about.
Then I read MiniMSFT today. Apparently, I missed a policy change this last week, which simplifies the internal transfer process. I’m not clear on the details at the moment… but… it looks like it’s a single interview. And only a single interview. No hours, and hours, of interviewing… I’m fairly jealous. Not only is it easier (from my standpoint, at least), with only one interview there’s only ONE opportunity for me to screw up.
I’m wearing a tie
I have an interview today. I’m “dressed up” — I’m wearing dress shoes, a white (short-sleeve) dress shirt, dress slacks, dress socks, and a tie. I’m not wearing a dress, but I’m still dressed up, especially compared to my usual jeans and a t-shirt.
I’ve spoken to two coworkers so far today. Both of them have looked at me strangely.
I should dress up more often. 🙂
Friends with Geeks
I don’t know which is worse, the fact that I’m about to ask:
Does anyone have a data structures and algorithms textbook sitting around that I can borrow for a few days?
OR
That I know at least some of you probably do…
I need to brush up on my coding, and the textbook I remembered keeping was actually my Intro to AI textbook — which helps with some problems, but not at all with most.
Of COURSE it’s already filled
I’ve been looking at internal job listings. I just reread one that I had flagged over the weekend. I don’t know why it didn’t catch my eye the first time…
A great deal of prototyping, dealing with multiple hardware architectures, managed and unmanaged cross machine communication… Seemed rather neat.
I emailed the manager for an informational interview, to find out what they’re doing. As I was writing the email, I realized I was actually a rather good candidate for the position.
Five minutes later, I got a reply — the position had been filled a few weeks ago.
Of course.
My favorite comment of the day
“Hi [manager], are we still friends with [other team]?”
– Me
(My followup explanation included references to my deep-seated desire to simply say, “I told you so.”)
Edit: Defining pseudo-HTML tags for your post doesn’t work too well.
Attainment of goals…
This post wasn’t going to be a whiny short post, but I lost my temper walking through the kitchen to my computer.
So for the last… three weeks? I’ve hit every goal at work. Today? I manage to work all day — aside from a conversation or two with friends — and accomplish NOTHING. I wasn’t able to check off a single item of work I had to do. Grrr. This is frustrating. Had I known today would have been this much of a waste, I would have spent more time pondering whether or not to make brownies to take to work tomorrow (I ended up decided it would take too many dishes, sorry folks).
Best. Programming book. EVER.
Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby — complete with Foxes!
Now, it’s not exactly Box’s Essential COM, but… So much more readable than most!
Deadlines
I have a deadline today. Given that I’ve missed the last two, I think I should make this one.
Unfortunately, I have only one bug left. I don’t know that I can fix it.
Why not?
I wish it was lack of competency, or lack of skill, or lack of time.
No, it’s lack of documentation. I don’t have any information on how the legacy feature I’m reimplementing USED to work, so instead I’m having to guess, time and again, on what is supposed to happen. It’s a complicated logic problem to begin with, and a lack of any clue of how it’s supposed to work is unbelievably complicated.
It strikes me, however, that this should have been done some time prior to five months before shipping. It’s a piece of legacy backwards compatibility — why on earth wasn’t this worked on previously??