Here we go again ...

Long standing readers of this blog (who really should draw up a chair and make themselves comfortable) may remember the on going saga of the timesheets system. We've had a system based on quarter day slots running since the start of the year and it is actually running quite smoothly - shock, horror. The problem is that quarter day slots aren't a great deal of use for the support and apps dev people who tend to do odd hours on particular contracts here and there. The programmer appropriated a big chunk of code for an hourly system from somewhere else and gave it to us to test. The main input screen sort of does the job, with a few niggles, but the reports and management options are not there yet, so I sent back a list of things to work on last week. Now, the manager in charge of the development team has decided that all his team will start using the system as of now - he sent out an email on Friday afternoon and then went off on holiday for two weeks on Monday morning. Terrific.

So, I've been trying to get some documentation completed whilst fielding calls from irate developers who don't know what they are supposed to be doing - I can tell them how to put codes into the system, but I haven't a clue what codes they are actually supposed to be using. I also need to prioritise outstanding work for the programmer and now I find that things that I thought would be straightforward (such as the ability for managers and team leaders to view and update their teams timesheets) and that we currently have in the current system are hugely difficult and will take ages to deliver. Grrrrr.

My boss called me to pass on one request for help and when I said I was in the Leeds office she asked if I could pop downstairs to help Sally. I toddled off downstairs and asked "Where does Sally sit?" and got the reply "Fife" ...

It's a good job that we had fencing last night so I could hit things, and it looked like being an all male evening at one point with the two new Daves joining me, Burgi, Loops and Charles, but Rachel arrived in the nick of time to restore the balance a little. Assessments in less than two weeks .... eeeep!

Into town at lunchtime for the usual sushi and a mooch in Travelling Man which proved most rewarding - a Mechwarrior : Age of Destruction set reduced from £19.99 to £4.99. Bargain! Well worth it for the gorgeous painted miniatures alone.