Last Nerve
CubeBuddy knows just the right way to step on my last nerve. She must spend countless hours plotting it.
Today's went down like this:
Here's Granola: Super stressed out, since we were supposed to take our product beta on Friday, and missed it, and so we were aiming for tonight. (Uh, we missed it)
Here's CubeBuddy: No out-of-the-ordinary stress is going on for her, as I'm the sde-t on the project, and this is our only one, currently. What is she doing? Beats me.
Now, imagine, if you will this:
We were supposed to do something to the Japanese Web site this morning, but due to all the fixes, etc, it didn't get dealt with until 12:30 this afternoon. I had to coordinate my efforts with three different teams, and four different people. Finally, things were going well, and I was able to do what I was supposed to do. Except, it failed. Well, when things like that fail, the system automatically pages the on-call person. Who do you think that is today? Correct: CubeBuddy. So, predictably, she reacts by freaking out in my general direction.
Since I knew that was going to happen as soon as it failed, and I knew it was going to fail, I did the most logical thing to delay having to deal with her general freaking-out-ness: I turned up my music on my headphones. Then, I proceeded to deal with the problem at hand. Sure enough, as soon as it failed I heard her pager go off. Then, less than a minute later, she asked me about it. I was in the middle of thinking about how to fix the problem, so I rocked out to my music and ignored her. Finally, she realized that I was ignoring her, and she said, "Granola." loudly enough for me to have to respond. I took out the headphones and turned around to face her (our backs are towards each other) to deal with her problem. She asked about it, I explained what was going on, and what had to happen. She asked me if I knew how to unbreak what was broken, and I told her I wasn't sure if that's what we needed to do. Eventually, I made a decision and initiated that process, then I went back to doing the other two things on which I was supposed to be working. But, not before we had a discussion on how we both had to leave at 4:30, and I wouldn't be available to do anything about it until 6:30, and how she wouldn't be home until 6. My 6:30 trumps your 6, sorry chicky.
In the middle of doing task 1 (the Japan stuff was task 3) CubeBuddy decided that she had to talk to me. Right. Now. Without looking away from my screen or taking out my earphones I told her to wait 5 minutes (really, I did), and kept right on working (in my defense, it was concentration intensive). Then, one of my favorite developers (who I was coordinating with on the Japanese stuff) came up to me to talk about his stuff. He kind of invaded my personal space, and so I took out my earphones to listen to what he was saying. Turns out, he was trying to see where I was looking, since I was typing and he couldn't see where I was typing (I was copying something off of one monitor onto another, and so it looked really odd). While I was answering his question CubeBuddy started talking to me. I can really carry on only one thought-process intensive conversation at once, so I ignored her, since his problem was more pressing.
When I was finished talking to the developer I turned to her to give her my undivided attention. She was just trying to tell me that if I did what I was in the middle of doing to solve the problem and it didn't fix it that she would deal with it when she got home. I thanked her. It really was nice of her, though, technically, she was responsible for dealing with the whole thing anyway.
Then, I put my earphones back in, turned the music up a notch or two and went back to the task (1) at hand. At 4:30 she, again, felt the need to interrupt me to let me know that it was almost 4:30, so I should hurry up. Duh. You think I didn't know that? All-in-all I would say it's a minor miracle she left the office with all limbs, and her head, attached to her body in the same manner in which she arrived.
Today's went down like this:
Here's Granola: Super stressed out, since we were supposed to take our product beta on Friday, and missed it, and so we were aiming for tonight. (Uh, we missed it)
Here's CubeBuddy: No out-of-the-ordinary stress is going on for her, as I'm the sde-t on the project, and this is our only one, currently. What is she doing? Beats me.
Now, imagine, if you will this:
We were supposed to do something to the Japanese Web site this morning, but due to all the fixes, etc, it didn't get dealt with until 12:30 this afternoon. I had to coordinate my efforts with three different teams, and four different people. Finally, things were going well, and I was able to do what I was supposed to do. Except, it failed. Well, when things like that fail, the system automatically pages the on-call person. Who do you think that is today? Correct: CubeBuddy. So, predictably, she reacts by freaking out in my general direction.
Since I knew that was going to happen as soon as it failed, and I knew it was going to fail, I did the most logical thing to delay having to deal with her general freaking-out-ness: I turned up my music on my headphones. Then, I proceeded to deal with the problem at hand. Sure enough, as soon as it failed I heard her pager go off. Then, less than a minute later, she asked me about it. I was in the middle of thinking about how to fix the problem, so I rocked out to my music and ignored her. Finally, she realized that I was ignoring her, and she said, "Granola." loudly enough for me to have to respond. I took out the headphones and turned around to face her (our backs are towards each other) to deal with her problem. She asked about it, I explained what was going on, and what had to happen. She asked me if I knew how to unbreak what was broken, and I told her I wasn't sure if that's what we needed to do. Eventually, I made a decision and initiated that process, then I went back to doing the other two things on which I was supposed to be working. But, not before we had a discussion on how we both had to leave at 4:30, and I wouldn't be available to do anything about it until 6:30, and how she wouldn't be home until 6. My 6:30 trumps your 6, sorry chicky.
In the middle of doing task 1 (the Japan stuff was task 3) CubeBuddy decided that she had to talk to me. Right. Now. Without looking away from my screen or taking out my earphones I told her to wait 5 minutes (really, I did), and kept right on working (in my defense, it was concentration intensive). Then, one of my favorite developers (who I was coordinating with on the Japanese stuff) came up to me to talk about his stuff. He kind of invaded my personal space, and so I took out my earphones to listen to what he was saying. Turns out, he was trying to see where I was looking, since I was typing and he couldn't see where I was typing (I was copying something off of one monitor onto another, and so it looked really odd). While I was answering his question CubeBuddy started talking to me. I can really carry on only one thought-process intensive conversation at once, so I ignored her, since his problem was more pressing.
When I was finished talking to the developer I turned to her to give her my undivided attention. She was just trying to tell me that if I did what I was in the middle of doing to solve the problem and it didn't fix it that she would deal with it when she got home. I thanked her. It really was nice of her, though, technically, she was responsible for dealing with the whole thing anyway.
Then, I put my earphones back in, turned the music up a notch or two and went back to the task (1) at hand. At 4:30 she, again, felt the need to interrupt me to let me know that it was almost 4:30, so I should hurry up. Duh. You think I didn't know that? All-in-all I would say it's a minor miracle she left the office with all limbs, and her head, attached to her body in the same manner in which she arrived.
posted by granola girl at 10:58 pm
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