Mon, Nov 6th - Emergency

Monday morning I wake with a headache after a somewhat restless night. I decide to work from and get a piece of work out of the way, so I can relax. I start early with the obligatory cup of tea, and soon have 8 parallel copies updating the "server" (PC in the corner), whilst downloading a huge file from the internet. Since this laptop is under-specced, it is running at almost full capacity. I seem to have a knack of pushing machines to their limit.

I don't really want to disturb everything so am sat wondering what I can use the time for whilst it is busy (probably taking 2 hours), when my team pops up on MSN. I have a brief chat and then an email comes in. They want someone to pick up a bit of work to clarify some documentation. Sounds fine, so I casually ask how urgent is this, given my machine is tied up. The reply is:


I really need someone to look at this as soon as possible as X need the rework actioned before they can progress with their testing. Also the guys worked all weekend on this as there is a live issue with Antivirus v1.0 so they want us to get Antivirus v3.0 out urgently to address the live issue.

Currently this is our no 1 priority.

Okkkaaayyyy. So it's about 11am and you're coming to tell our team now that there's an issue and people have "worked all weekend on", and you didn't mention this last week or ask if the bloke who DID the work on this was free next week....

There is no-one else to look at it except me, so I have a look. Of course, I am coming at this green so have to dig around first to figure out the solution. I finally update the documentation and tell them I've done it. Then they tell me there's another document to update too. Arrggggg!!

I reply and kindly ask next time for a piece of work that ISN'T priority 1.