Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2013-02-14 10:56 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2013-02-14 10:56 pm
Entry tags:
A glowing-pink day
So first I had about four hours of sleep ... and I woke up about fifteen minutes before my alarm, which occasioned Crankiness.
I had my morning planned out, fortunately, and I followed that plan, including the part where I got myself some very pretty flowers, because I like them, and because it was a special day:
1) Valentine's Day
2) A fuck-o'clock-in-the-morning meeting (one which I'd remembered approximately 6pm the night before, and I was entirely unprepared-for, and at that point my blood sugar was too bombed-out to do anything helpful)
3) My one-year anniversary at Virtual Hammers (got a nail? we got a virtual hammer for that!)
The meeting went reasonably, and was enlivened by the mini frosted brownies (with hearts!), the hugs-and-kisses (the Hipster Designer lined two up for a very careful Instagram shot that had my Overlady laughing at him), and the conversation hearts. I am the chocolate fairy. (I had my team coming by my cube all day in search of the leftovers; I expect they'll have mostly disappeared by morning.)
Today I discovered that Monster (TANTRUM!!! ARRGH!) becomes much more palatable if you fill a cup entirely with crushed ice, halfway with sparkling water and a drizzle of raspberry syrup, and then fill the cup the rest of the way with Monster. I did go through two cans, which kept me vaguely functional.
Over lunch, I described to the Hipster Designer and our manager the train of thought that resulted in googling "snake butter" last night. I broke both of their brains, and that was even with the Pinky & the Brain explanation.
It is, as always, my job to take and then type up the notes from the fuck-o'clock meeting. Taking was less fun than it could have been due to my (thankfully pressure-sensitive) semi-electronic pen running out of ink midway through. (We can't record these meetings because reasons.) Typing up the notes usually eats most of my day. I had come in earlier than usual to prepare the briefing packets that I usually get done the night before. This ate into my notes time, and the Fun With Internal Systems ate into more of it.
I've been having display issues with the system, and the helpdesk guys who visited last night were trying to help, but... well. I ran into the specific elusive and hard to duplicate display issue no fewer than four times (and the helpdesk guy wasn't free to come see it in person). I took copious screenshots.
The third time, I was fascinated enough by the effect to try something novel: you can move items out of your queue and they still look like they're there, and you can act on them -- what happens when you pull them back in?
I was expecting the web app to refresh, perhaps violently. I was not expecting the web app to refresh and apply a different display option. The refresh cleared the issue, and I was left staring at it in vague shock (and procrastinating a bit from typing up the notes). I put it back to rights and continued with my day.
The fourth time, I was ready. I took a screenshot. I prepared to move the item. I took another screenshot. I ran and fetched the Junior Researcher -- who had just been by my cube with a task -- and had him come witness to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. I moved the item. The app refreshed violently and applied the same display option that it had last time. I confirmed with the Junior Researcher that I was not, in fact, hallucinating (I've been known to do this every now and then, so it's best to check), and took a final screenshot, and filed an update to my ticket.
The helpdesk guy laughed at the "and got jresearcher to make sure I wasn't hallucinating" bit, and recomposed my account and put it on another back-end server. We'll see if that fixes it.
At the training meeting for my admin team colleagues yesterday, my passion about finding the bugs in the system so they can be fixed was mistaken (twice) for passion about the system itself. I ... uh. I guess that's a valid reading! I just want the system to work. I explained it thus:
I enjoy my job a lot. However, some of the routine tasks are a bit dull. When a bug falls into my lap, investigating and duplicating that bug is like finding a whole Oreo in the cookies & cream ice cream.
Later, I elaborated, to my Overlady:
Yes, it's horribly frustrating when I find bugs that I can't track down, or that interfere with my proper work. But when I do manage to pin down the circumstances to duplicate a bug, it's an enormous puzzle-solving high. And since it is an intermittent reward schedule, it is basically like gambling -- it's the most addictive thing about my job, so of course I'm going to keep doing it, because I keep getting rewarded for it.
Since I know how transcribing notes affects me, I spaced it out with a longer than usual lunch and some breaks, totalling two hours of breaks and eight hours of work. Oof. Then I tracked down one of the people with the girl scout cookies (neatly and inadvertently continuing a tradition, as I got girl scout cookies my first day too), and headed off for home.
All in all, it was a good day.
I had my morning planned out, fortunately, and I followed that plan, including the part where I got myself some very pretty flowers, because I like them, and because it was a special day:
1) Valentine's Day
2) A fuck-o'clock-in-the-morning meeting (one which I'd remembered approximately 6pm the night before, and I was entirely unprepared-for, and at that point my blood sugar was too bombed-out to do anything helpful)
3) My one-year anniversary at Virtual Hammers (got a nail? we got a virtual hammer for that!)
The meeting went reasonably, and was enlivened by the mini frosted brownies (with hearts!), the hugs-and-kisses (the Hipster Designer lined two up for a very careful Instagram shot that had my Overlady laughing at him), and the conversation hearts. I am the chocolate fairy. (I had my team coming by my cube all day in search of the leftovers; I expect they'll have mostly disappeared by morning.)
Today I discovered that Monster (TANTRUM!!! ARRGH!) becomes much more palatable if you fill a cup entirely with crushed ice, halfway with sparkling water and a drizzle of raspberry syrup, and then fill the cup the rest of the way with Monster. I did go through two cans, which kept me vaguely functional.
Over lunch, I described to the Hipster Designer and our manager the train of thought that resulted in googling "snake butter" last night. I broke both of their brains, and that was even with the Pinky & the Brain explanation.
It is, as always, my job to take and then type up the notes from the fuck-o'clock meeting. Taking was less fun than it could have been due to my (thankfully pressure-sensitive) semi-electronic pen running out of ink midway through. (We can't record these meetings because reasons.) Typing up the notes usually eats most of my day. I had come in earlier than usual to prepare the briefing packets that I usually get done the night before. This ate into my notes time, and the Fun With Internal Systems ate into more of it.
I've been having display issues with the system, and the helpdesk guys who visited last night were trying to help, but... well. I ran into the specific elusive and hard to duplicate display issue no fewer than four times (and the helpdesk guy wasn't free to come see it in person). I took copious screenshots.
The third time, I was fascinated enough by the effect to try something novel: you can move items out of your queue and they still look like they're there, and you can act on them -- what happens when you pull them back in?
I was expecting the web app to refresh, perhaps violently. I was not expecting the web app to refresh and apply a different display option. The refresh cleared the issue, and I was left staring at it in vague shock (and procrastinating a bit from typing up the notes). I put it back to rights and continued with my day.
The fourth time, I was ready. I took a screenshot. I prepared to move the item. I took another screenshot. I ran and fetched the Junior Researcher -- who had just been by my cube with a task -- and had him come witness to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. I moved the item. The app refreshed violently and applied the same display option that it had last time. I confirmed with the Junior Researcher that I was not, in fact, hallucinating (I've been known to do this every now and then, so it's best to check), and took a final screenshot, and filed an update to my ticket.
The helpdesk guy laughed at the "and got jresearcher to make sure I wasn't hallucinating" bit, and recomposed my account and put it on another back-end server. We'll see if that fixes it.
At the training meeting for my admin team colleagues yesterday, my passion about finding the bugs in the system so they can be fixed was mistaken (twice) for passion about the system itself. I ... uh. I guess that's a valid reading! I just want the system to work. I explained it thus:
I enjoy my job a lot. However, some of the routine tasks are a bit dull. When a bug falls into my lap, investigating and duplicating that bug is like finding a whole Oreo in the cookies & cream ice cream.
Later, I elaborated, to my Overlady:
Yes, it's horribly frustrating when I find bugs that I can't track down, or that interfere with my proper work. But when I do manage to pin down the circumstances to duplicate a bug, it's an enormous puzzle-solving high. And since it is an intermittent reward schedule, it is basically like gambling -- it's the most addictive thing about my job, so of course I'm going to keep doing it, because I keep getting rewarded for it.
Since I know how transcribing notes affects me, I spaced it out with a longer than usual lunch and some breaks, totalling two hours of breaks and eight hours of work. Oof. Then I tracked down one of the people with the girl scout cookies (neatly and inadvertently continuing a tradition, as I got girl scout cookies my first day too), and headed off for home.
All in all, it was a good day.