A rather large project is underway, and one of the components of this project is a conversion from one tool to another.  Unfortunately, the timing of this conversion is unfortunate, as it has to be done by January 1.  Needless to say, lots of different threads are occurring around the same effort, all working on different parts.

One of the problems I have rapidly grown to discover about this project is our lack of communication to groups outside of our area–IT.  It has been non-existent.  This is problematic, as evidenced by the electronic exchange I engaged in with someone well above my pay-grade.  Unfortunately, like most email exchanges, this devolved when someone decided to include someone else further up in the organization in an email thread, who then decided to include someone else further up in the organization in the email thread.  Naturally, that last “someone else” decided to throw their weight around.

Thus, a mad scramble ensued today to make sure that a sufficiently important person in the organization is communicating this change to the business to ensure they are aware of this change coming up incredibly soon and are aligning to support this change.

Admittedly, I should have identified this a long time ago, but I had falsely presumed that with all the effort required on the IT side of things that someone else was engaged on the side of the business.  Clearly, that is not the case.

With this and other ongoing efforts in a holiday-shortened week, the mountain I need to climb just became much steeper.

Of course, once I got to the gym, the world began to conspire against me. 

1. Gym opens at 6:00 AM, but I and a few others arrive at the door a few minutes early.  We proceed to stand outside the door looking in until the clock hits 6 and the staff decide to let us in.  Nothing like standing in the cold to get you ready to workout. 
2. I stash my gym bag and coat in the locker room, and I proceed to grab a treadmill I like for my morning climb as I call it.  I step away for a quick drink of water and to grab a magazine, and I see an older woman approaching and starting to get ready on the treadmill.  Her friend—probably her equal in age—proceeds to ask if I can move to another treadmill.  Nevermind that I had effectively claimed said treadmill by putting my iPod and towel on the treadmill.  As I am a hopeless sap, I give in and give the treadmill to the old buzzard woman. 
3. I move to working out on an elliptical in the hopes that the old buzzards women finish their workout before, allowing me to reclaim my treadmill.  Naturally, that does not happen and I go the full 30 minutes on the elliptical. 
4. As I end my workout on the elliptical—nearing the end of my 5 minute cooldown—my elliptical machine suddenly loses all power.  I am left their sputtering a series of curse words, wondering what in the bloody hell happened.  The power comes back on, but my workout is now done.  As I get off the elliptical, I see one of the trainers who earlier watched me for a few minutes in the cold.  I also see the power outlet nearby the weight stack of the machine his client was using.  Some deductive reasoning leads me to believe that he nudged the power to my elliptical while throwing some plates on his client’s weight machine.  I continue muttering to myself a series of unspeakable words.  I can also tell that the trainer knows he caused my “outage,” as he does not make any eye contact with me as I leave the machine and walk right behind him. 
5. The old buzzard woman has still not cleared off my treadmill, so I decide to go for a shorter 20 minute run.  The treadmill I am on does not seem to have any flex in the deck, and I move to an adjacent treadmill after 8 minutes.  The new treadmill is 100 times better, and I finish my run there. 

So, after all of this, I then run home to get ready for work and some early morning meetings—the first of which was at 9 AM.  Heckuva way to start the day. 

Until recently, for most of my professional life I have enjoyed having my own office.  I had a door I could close for phone calls and conference calls, and I was able to enjoy music while I worked.  Now, my place of work is a cubicle whose walls are at most six inches higher than the laminate work surface I have.  The setup is the same for most of the cubicles around mine.  Since I moved to my new space in the spring, I have been pretty lucky to only have one of the adjacent cubicles occupied.  While others extoll the virtues of such a work environment as being collaborative, I find it to be highly disruptive.  There are plenty of distractions–phone calls, other conversations, and the constant interruption of the “walk-up” question.

Lately, though, my largest concern would have to be my “cube neighbor“.  In particular, the various things my cube neighbor has done in the last two weeks have truly made my skin crawl.  Here they are in a rough order of their descent into gaucheness.

Belching

My cube neighbor has loudly belched quite a few times since his arrival.  The first time I heard it, I was in the midst of working on some emails and an issue that had a arrived at work, so I was pretty busy at the time.  I dismissed it as something else.  A short time later, I heard the familiar sound of gas escaping from one’s mouth, and I glanced over at my neighbor.  Of course, he didn’t flinch, continuing on his work, digging into some programming code.  Some time after that, I heard it again.  At this point, I designated a nickname for my neighbor that shall not grace these pages.  Little did I realize how appropriate that nickname was given the next professional faux pas.

Flatulence

One afternoon, while working on something at my desk, I noticed a foul odor had somehow made it into the office.  Of course, given that I am some floors up from the ground and that there are no windows that open to the outside, I knew the odor could not possibly be emanating from outside.  I immediately thought “Someone must have cooked something in the break room,” but it was well after lunch time.  Finally, though, once the foulness of the stench overwhelmed my olfactory senses, I realized someone nearby had obviously farted. Given that I am not terribly old or incontinent, I knew I was not the source.  There was no one else around in the vicinity of my desk.  The only one nearby was my cube neighbor.

Another time, while more of my coworkers were in the office, the same thing happened again.  When this happened, I instant-messaged my colleague who sits nearby.  Here is a brief recollection of our conversation:

Me: Do you notice something in the air?  Like something doesn’t smell right?

Him: Yes.  It smells terrible.

Me: I hate to ask, but you didn’t do that.

Him: Of course not.

Me: I had to ask.  Do you think it was my neighbor?

Him: Yes.

This conversation has now happened a few more times, all along the same lines.  Apparently, my cube neighbor eats all of the wrong things.

Personal Grooming

About two weeks ago, I came into the office early to get some work done, knowing I had some email to plow through and some other bigger things to resolve later in the day.  I rode my bike in that morning, and I brought breakfast with me–some oatmeal.  As I settled down to my desk and began the daily triage of my email, I heard the distinctive sound of someone engaging nail clippers to trim their nails.  A quick glance over at my cube neighbor, and he was carrying out his own personal manicure.   Again, I instant-message another one of my coworkers:

Me: Unbelievable.

Her: What?

Me: My cube neighbor is clipping his fingernails.

Her: Oh. My. God.

Her: I hope your oatmeal isn’t crunchy.

Me: C’mon now!!!

TL;DR

I enjoy the presence of a cube neighbor who likes to belch, fart, and clip their nails at their desk.  How awesome is that?  You may all enjoy a hearty laugh at my expense.

On Friday, I was covering for one of my team who was out of the office after working to the wee hours of Friday morning.  I should add that the matter involved the project I started on, but I have since moved on to the other expectations on my time.

Just as I was starting a meeting at 9 AM, I received an email asking for a piece of code to be migrated immediately.  I responded via email that it would take me a few minutes, but I would begin looking into it.  Additionally, I took my laptop with me to said meeting. I hate to excuse myself from meetings I have called, and I was loathe to do it for this meeting given the sensitivity of the subject.  Nonetheless, I had to focus on that meeting while I was starting to look at what had transpired.  Now, while in this meeting, here is what transpires:

• Developer looking to get the code into Production comes to the floor looking for me;
• Project Manager on said project calls my desk phone twice, and he leaves a voicemail for me on said phone.
• Director on said project emails my Director, who subsequently emails both my Supervisor and me.
• Project Manager calls my Supervisor, who knows I am next door to his office running this meeting, and my Supervisor comes in to ask for a status.

Now, in the time it took to have all of the above happen, I had completed my meeting and migrated the code that was being hotly contested.  The outcome of all of the above, though, was to merely create more noise and static that detracted from getting the task at hand done.

Instead of creating a lengthy email chain, the problem could have been easily resolved by calling my BlackBerry as opposed to calling my desk, my boss, and my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.  Sometimes, the most expedient way to get something done is the simplest way to do it.

On my ride home, there were more of the Sux fans.  Many of them wearing their “After 86 Years of Ineptitude, 2 World Series!” t-shirts.  It was even worse as I listened to some of the ball game on the radio on my ride home from the gym later in the evening–hearing the “Let’s go Red Sux!” chant.

After heaping scorn and hate upon many Yankees fans, I have truly come to hate and despise most of the denizens of Red Sux Nation.  It what was once a nostalgic and somewhat endearing tale when they would come to the precipice of victory in the Fall Classic.  Now, they have become pariahs as they have effectively become that which they have rejected so much–the Evil Empire of New England–equal to their arch-nemesis, the New York Yankees.

God, I hope the Rays win the AL East.

* For the uninitiated, my contempt for the Boston Red Sox has forced me to give them a new name: the Red Sux.

Honestly, I have grown to enjoy Twitter.  Is it something you need to be on?  Not really, but it is incredibly simple to use.  Nonetheless, the downtime of this free product has been annoying–keeping in mind you get what you pay for.  Given this, the most recent exhortation to flock to FriendFeed really started to grind my gears.

I’m spending 80% of my time on FriendFeed instead of here. Move over there, slow adopters.

Sure, I have a FriendFeed account, and it does some interesting things I like.  Still, FriendFeed to me is just an aggregator.  It relies on folks posting items–links from Google Reader, links from del.icio.us, blog posts, flickr photos, LinkedIn, and other things–to build their FriendFeed content. You still need things like GoogleTalk, Twitter, Pownce, and your blog.  People: use common sense.  FriendFeed is an aggregator of your various points of presence on the Interwebs.  It is nothing more.

My other complaint is how everyone is crowing about “the discussion is happening over on FriendFeed.”  Better yet, I am moving from Twitter to FriendFeed since I can have a discussion.”  If I wanted to have a discussion with people, I would send them an instant message, send them an email, or, for chrissake, pick up the phone and call them.

We have comments in blogs, and that is, quite frankly, where most normal folks who actually have things to do will engage in their “conversations.”  Most normal folks do not have hours on end to comment on someone’s blog post on yet another aggregator.  Call me myopic, but I do not see how FriendFeed is the technical equivalent of the second coming of Christ.

Great, people can comment on my blog, my flickr photos, and my various tweets.  .  Are they commenting on my blog?  On a photo on Flickr?  On Twitter?  No.  They are commenting on someting in FriendFeed.  You know what I call that: FAIL.

At the end of the day, FriendFeed allows me to catch up on things when Twitter’s infrastructure is a smoking mess of plastic and silicon.  Nonetheless, it is just that.  To borrow from William Shatner in a classic SNL sketch:

GET A LIFE, will you people!

Alas, steamingpileofawesome.com was not available.  Looks like I might have to settle for an alternate.

While not as entertaining and ubiquitous as FAIL has become, I think it could certainly earn its own niche.

OMGWTFBBQ!!!!11!! iPhone 3G!!!  Faster!!!  Cheaper!!!!  It works with Exchange!!!  It has GPS!!!!!  It’s faster!!!!  Apps and the App Store are awesome!!!!  We also have a cool ad!!!!
Cue clapping at key points from audience members

While doing some other things around the home office this evening, I had Jobs’ keynote on in the background.  I may heap disdain on Apple and its products, but Jobs is the consummate presenter.

My favorite about this–in typical Apple fashion–in just one year, the price of the iPhone has dropped precipitously.  Hey, early iPhone buyers, you just got screwed again.  Enjoy that shaft.

Rather than force my 10 readers to click through, I will summarize my comment.  I admitted to being the person complaining about her use of the more tag in her posts.  While I respect her desire to make her blog more readable to her users using this convention, it pains me to no end as a user of an aggregator.

I suggested a few ways to make this tolerable for everyone who visits her blog.  For those of us using aggregators, why not present your feed for those of us using FeedDemon, Google Reader, Netvibes, or NetNewsWire in all of its full-text glory.  I pointed out that this is possible, as the online version of her employer’s sister publication–b–does this, thanks in part to my cantankerous ways.  I suggested she talk to Tim Windsor, so I apologize in advance for anything I might stir up, Tim.

I also suggested that maybe it would be possible to advertise the existence of RSS feeds for comments.  If the content can be aggregated, then why not do the same with the comments on said content.  Apparently, some of her readers do not know how easily one can click on the comments for different entries.  Perhaps advertising it in this way will encourage them to more easily track their contents.

I also suggested that if the number of posts on the main page was truly an issue then investigate the possibility of increasing the number of posts available on the main page.  I admitted to not knowing how (or if) the Sun’s corporate blogging platform exposes that setting, but I can only presume it is set at the global level.  I know MT does it, but I can understand that the corporate interface and usability types probably suggested a small number of posts on the page.  Let’s hope they let her increase the number of posts.

At the end, I just wanted to be able to point her in the right direction of maximizing her content for everyone–to the “unenlightened consumers” to the cranky “enlightened consumer.”  Sure, the web and Internet are full of sites where we still need to click through.  Nonetheless, in this age of feeds, aggregators, and other tools, let’s encourage their use.

P.S. Phil, I will gladly offer whatever assistance you require to make you an “enlightened consumer” of web content.  While it may not be for everyone, I think it is the best use of your time in an environment where there is too much competing for your attention.

P.P.S. While I know that my continuing ranting about full text seems to be the mad raving of some computer geek with too much time on his hands, I really think there is something to be said about bringing the content to you instead of you going to the content.  It reminds me of the early variation on bringing content to your desktop from around the late-1990s dot-com bubble.  Now that the tools are out there, we just need to encourage people to use them.