This morning I had a call from the same guy as yesterday. Far way more friendlier and after a short clarification about he just had a bad day yesterday …. He asked about whether or not we could start again?!

Sure we could! And now it was me asking for the reason why he had decided to call me again after all. Can you imagine my face when he told me, that thinking about our conversation for his feeling I was the only, one in a long chain of persons he had called before, analyzing his problem seriously?!

Having all figured out finally, we then nearly phoned for another hour discussing the several different ways for him getting on, looking for the best. I made a few suggestions and finally I’ve found the one he is happy now to go with.

Looks like I have a new project certainly keeping me busy for one or two month. Hey! I’m really sorry for using this word …. idiot … first. :-/

Sometimes and curious for sure, even a real rough start is able to work out later on. Glad we’ve figured that out!

Since a while my mind is spinning with some new business idea. The initial topic came up when talking with some friend. And immediately feeling convinced about, I really would have loved going on with my friend and working together on it.

But even I asked more than once, it looks like there is no real interest in a cooperation. And in case there is really one thing I’ve finally learned - in such situation there is no way forcing it. It has to fit and just to fit!

Though since hearing about, I wasn’t able to stop thinking about this plan anymore. My mind processed it again and again ….. until today when by coincidence it came up again during a conversation with the retiring "Tuning" philosopher I’ve already mentioned here recently.

A guy having lots of free time soon and nearly instantly agreed in helping me with setting it up and contributing to it.
Five minutes talking about the principal idea and we already started to make our own plan about how to go on with it.

Sure, the basic idea is still the same, but as for the background behind will be a totally new and different I’m not really feeling sad about borrowing a great idea of a friend. Now making it to my own.

The domain for the new project is already registered …. But for now the info about for sure will remain unveiled!

It is ususal that already longer lasting projects have some inner and situation driven dynamic. This is nothing I mind or wouldn’t been aware about when starting some new job. It is really always and every time the same. First you have to get familiar with folks and their own thinking to then later on being able to understand their requests quickly and finally start to thinking and working for them. 

As one of the most usual consequence of working with a team of different players in projects often a specific nomenclature does arise.  Specific terms and expressions people use to quickly discuss things with others and also often … only insiders will get and understand.

So starting as a new member in an already running project often does mean to learn first about that terms other project member does use first.

Sure, things do repead in their usage. Most likely there is a production, a test and a development environment with cyclically ports or pushes from one environment into another. Also the procedures and quality aspects are clear or will get transparent for you very quickly. And so it is just again about getting familiar with the customer, their needs, dead lines and server/account information … lets say usually …. :-/

Right now I’m rushing into a project everything seems to be crazy at all. Already the count of the database is impressive.Actually there are 39 - all at several terrabytes of size. Perhaps you might get, that already getting a first overlook might take some serious time. Just especially in this project everything seems to be insane.

Not one name or description used in this project is persistent or consistent in it’s usage. There is an old and a new naming schema for everything. As also a customer own and a retail environment, the playground or test, finally the Advanced Testing and Verification Plattform (ATVP) and so on in every major environment …. Oh Boy!

About all that expressions nearly my head starts to hurt.

Usually I get familiar with things really quick. But this time it looks like I have to start writing down my own dictionary to succeed. Really, I must have been crazy accepting this work …..

All today I’m working together and for a company running a real big application move from remote. When ask about in front they said that they will do all the planning their selves. Great I thought, but stayed dumb not going the risk making them grumpy.

At the end I really got some planning two days ago and after a few iteration of asking and answering even I thought we could work with it.

Today now work started rough as for a few preconditions weren’t ready and done, but after half an hour we were back in plan and everything looked fine. Just "looking" and "being" are two different things ….

The few minor hurdles came up for sure during the morning, but this is normal and nothing to mind and worry about in such a project. Even with the best planning in advance you can’t think about all and it depends on the coordinator and/or players to cruise and steer around.

But finally the best of all happend around lunchtime. Right around noon we had planned to stop some application and export/re-import a real big database. So I dialed in into a phone conference as scheduled and found myself alone there.

Right 15 minutes later the accountant of the customer dialed in and asked " What are we doing right now?" and I answered "Waiting?!" Perplexed He asked why and I said "Personally I guess your guys are at lunch … hopefully food is good there …."

Then there was silence!!        roflmao

Did I already mention that I hate customers?!

All the last few days I had to deal with a customer and a bigger project coming up with all kind of problems and issues forced by their more than loosely planned project. Thanks god I can honestly say and confirm that it wasn’t me making this plan and  right from the beginningI had some serious worries about they will be able to do that planning job by their own.

Today now the disaster went nearly perfect with customer empolyees were messing up a critical 24×7 database and corrupting the underlaying filesystem on disk and it’s content (database files) as well.

And what did they do then? They called me!! Why me?!

Now I’m sitting here since hours trying to get  …. sorry for that …. their shit recovered and fixed again, while they asked me whether or not it would be still necessary for them being around…… :-((

Pardon! BUT DID I ALREADY MENTION THAT I HATE CUSTOMERS? At least TODAY….. grrrrrrr