Know your time lines and stick to them

This is pretty straightforward people. Know when you need to deliver things by (milestones, project builds, documents, etc) and make sure they’re delivered by that date/time. When things start slipping from the timeline, then it just compounds as one section runs into another. Believe me when I say that there is only so much overlap you can orchestrate before something breaks. Think Jenga.

On that same note, make sure that your time requirements are accurate. I cannot stress that enough. If you think something should only take you an hour, give yourself 2. If you end up ahead of schedule, great! You’ve just created buffer time for when something goes wrong. I’m not advocating giving yourself a week to do a day-long job, but be realistic with your time lines, not optimistic.

Don’t bother getting mad, you’ll only give yourself a hernia

I learned this about half way through the project, which is depressing because had I learned sooner I wouldn’t be as sick as I have been. Stressing out and getting upset by every mishap isn’t worth the energy expended to do so. The phrase “No use crying over spilled milk” has never wrung so true as it has for me during this time.

I realized that getting upset doesn’t do anyone any good, and only serves to fray already shot nerves. Realize that thing’s aren’t going according to plan, and plot out a logical course of action. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care that your project is 1 hour before a presentation to 100 important people and not working. Far from, actually. What I’m saying is that muttering your last rights in the corner as you rock back and forth in a fetal position isn’t going to do anyone any good.

Don’t play the blame game, but don’t let things slide either

This was a big one for me. Throughout the entire project, my mantra has been (and probably will always be for projects): “I don’t care why it was broken, so long as it’s fixed now.” What This means is that I don’t care who’s fault it may or may not be. I care that the project is continuing to move toward its goal now that the problem has been overcome.

If someone’s not pulling their weight, fix it. If someone made a mistake, tell them. People are responsible for their action or lack there of. That doesn’t mean you should go pinning the blame on people when something goes haywire. Explain the problem like an adult, and approach it like an adult. Saying “You didn’t do X so fix it now” isn’t going to get you the warm reception you’re expecting. People get defensive when you attack them head on, and this is how arguments over stupid topics start.

Think before you open your damned mouth

This one was/is hard for me. I have a habit of shooting my mouth off when I shouldn’t and I know it. This translates directly into how I work with others, and I have to make a conscious effort to think about what I’m saying and how I’m saying it. I’ve noted a couple times during this project that I’ve sounded like a complete dick. I don’t mean to, but because I worded things badly it makes me look like a jerkhole.

Before you click the send button, open your mouth, or pick up the pen, think. Figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Try and make sure you’re not being out-right offensive (unless that’s your goal) and be concise. Taking the extra five seconds can make the resulting exchange that much easier.

Write it down

There were so many times when steps in installation, documentation, development, and God knows where else were overlooked, ignored, or outright forgotten. If you happen to have the goldfish memory that I do, you will benefit from this. Writing things down at least gives you a paper-trail to work with. If you find yourself taking a lot of notes, give them a time stamp. Use different colours of pens and/r highlighters to signify different sections or notation types.

I’ve found that by the time I’ve taken to write down what I want to remember, it’s already locked in my head. The simple act of writing it down seems to solidify the memory so that the note I just took is now no longer required, as my brain has done its job.

Writing things down has the added bonus of allowing others to know what you know. If you’re not going to be around for a while, at least others have your notes to work from. Sure they could be utterly insane to anyone that isn’t you, but at least it’s something.

P.S. The same goes for commenting code.

Pay attention

Try and keep tabs on where everyone is in their time lines. If you need something from someone, make sure that when you need it, they haven’t swanned off to a meeting or vacation. There’s nothing worse then being ahead of the game, only to be brought back down or even pulled behind on your deliverables because Adam McMoron has decided to try and get Finance Girls number.

If you’re in charge of people, make sure that they aren’t playing minesweeper or Facebooking their best friend thrice-removed. I know it sounds stupid, but if you give people a week to do something, they’ll find a way to make it last a week. I’m not saying you need to have armed guards holding their families hostage to make sure they’re working efficiently, but make sure you know what’s going on. Schedule end-of-day meetings, or set up mandatory emails stating what they’ve been doing. If you want to get really stingy, find a time-logging program that you and your underlings can use.

Despite popular belief, assuming only makes an ass of you

It’s not their fault when you assumed something. Assumptions are guesses based on half-information and the ethers. If you have to assume something, there hasn’t been enough communication. If you find yourself saying things like “He’s supposed to be doing it” or “It should be here monday” you are assuming. Words like ‘should’ and ‘supposed’ are bad news.

You can avoid assuming by simply confirming what you think. If you think the package will be here on Monday, call the postal service. If you think that someone is supposed to be doing a job, ask them. The bottom line here is that assuming will end up biting you in the ass. Sometimes you assume right, but I assure you that most of the time you will assume very wrong.

Learn from your mistakes, lest you repeat them

During this project, there was a night that I was at work for 40 hours. Why? simply put: the shit got fucked up. I cannot and will not go into the details as to what happened or why, but suffice it to say that bad time-management, assumptions and flat out bad luck found most of the team working well into the next day. It sucked but we managed.

One month later, it happened again.

What the hell happened? Different problems, but many of the same root causes. Assumptions were made, time was mis-managed, and we weren’t paying attention where we should have. As a result the work that was scheduled for 9 AM didn’t begin until 9 PM. There’s no excuse for this, and I won’t make one. I know where the flaws are now, and I’ll be Goddamned if I’m going to let it happen again.

That’s all for now. I’m sure when the project is totally finished, I’ll do a postmortem and regale you with even more fun tidbits that you can use (or ignore, though that would be silly.)

Photo credit: Stock.xchng – Jonathan Natiuk

Another helpful tidbit: if you are tired enough, you can actually sleep on a cement floor! I proved this by passing out in our conference room for nearly two hours. I say passed out because it wasn’t sleep in any sense. I actually felt worse when I was roused. Ah well, such is my work-life.

Onto the random paragraphs that summarize my life in the past little while!

I’ve been obsessed with the newest season of Sam & Max by Telltale Games. This season (with the exception of one episode) blows the first season out of the water. I’m not saying that the first season is bad, far from in actuality, but this seasons writing and direction are much tighter than the last season, and I’m rather looking forward to the last installment. I pray that they continue making more seasons.

There’s a new Dentyne commercial out that I’m in love with, and thanks to a little investigation Theresa and I found the band that made the song. Ben’s Brother is the culprit, and after listening to their myspace page, I went and tracked down their 2007 album: “Beta Male Fairytales”. It turns out that though ‘Stuttering’ will be a super hit single, the rest of their music is pretty much top-end awesome. I’ve officially become a fanboy of them and pray that they visit Canada at some point in the future. I’ll make sure to do a review of the album this week. For those looking for a copy of the track (which cannot be downloaded from the bands MySpace page there is another MySpace page that features the download. How long it’ll be up I don’t know so I suggest getting it while it’s ‘hot’.

So a new Panic! At The Disco album came out. Considering how hyped up the first CD was, I’m a little shocked that this went so under the radar. I’ll admit I liked them when I first heard of them (I was visitor 63 on their MySpace way back in the day.. and I still have their original 3 track releases). Then they got huge and over-played. Then they disappeared. I was expecting them to burn hot and then fizzle out after the first album. Then I heard about “Pretty. Odd.” two days before the release date. I got my hands on a copy recently and I’ve gotta say that it’s a drastic departure from their last album. “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” was all about being bouncy and energetic and borderline insane. “Fairly Odd” is toned down and dare I say, a more matured sound than before. I don’t know whether I like it or not. I’ll try and review their newest album this week as well.

I was recently recommended an artist called Matt McIntosh on Last.Fm and I have to say that I’m at least a little impressed. Very haunting, toned down, with a weird-hollow voiced sound to it. I’ll try and review this one when I get the chance. Apparently he’s made a lot of music in the past.

Last thing to note, I’ve been getting more into Twitter, though I’m not entirely sure why.

Until next time folks.

So kiss me again
Cause only you can stop this stut-stut-stut-stuttering
Kiss me again
And ease my su-su su-su su-su s-su-s-suffering

Ben’s Brother – Stuttering

Corey signing off

Scope creep was rampant to a scale that I have not experienced since, and that’s saying something. I’ve had projects where I’ve been up for over 40 hours straight working because of scope creep, and I can assure that none of them fell anywhere near what I was supposed to do for this company. On top of that, every section had to have their own way of doing things, and I had to try and figure out how to fit it all together in one neat, little package.

Though the result is obvious already, I’ll press on. I swear I have a point to make with all of this.

I’d like to say that I worked as hard as I possibly could have, and that it all turned out great. I can’t, obviously, but I’d like to. Once the realization that the project could not possibly be done by someone with my abilities, i started to freak-out, which translated into slacking off. Like I stated previously, scope creep was everywhere, but it was not the only problem. The other major problem was a complete and utter fail at the effort estimates by both my employers and myself. Who knew that it took more than 4 months for anyone to make a CMS? Apparently we didn’t.

To add to this, I was younger, way less experienced, lazier, and my work ethic was roughly at the sub-par level. Throw in the fact that I had just started dating someone, and you get a bad collection of attributes to add to the already meaty mix of failure. I can admit to the fact that I did not work as had as I could have, and though that did contribute to the problem, even working at my best it was still a futile attempt. I’m not trying to lessen my blame or guilt here (I do feel it, believe me) I’m just explaining the situation.

Lets move forward in time to now. More specifically to last night. I was curious to see how they were doing. I logged onto the site in Firefox, and my eyes started to bleed. Then all of those repressed memories came flooding back, and I recalled how I just couldn’t get the damned thing to render in FF. Granted, FF was only in its 1.0 stage and had issues, but it all basically comes down to my lack of experience that lead to the horror that I was looking at. “My God, they’re using it,” I said to myself “they’re actually using it!” I looked around, and dear God they were still updating it too. So even after I did a piss-poor job with it all, they were actually using it.

It started eating me up inside. I couldn’t let that just sit there. I had the knowledge, the power, and the will to at least try and rectify the situation. I’ve gained so much experience over the last three years that I should be able to fix what I had done to the site in no time at all. I wouldn’t try making a CMS but damn it, I could fix that markup.

That’s when I realized how far I’d actually come since then. It’s only been three years (less, technically) and my experience is so much more superior to what it was then that my mind actually crapped itself a little. As I looked at that website, I realized I could remake the imagery and the markup in a couple days tops. It took me weeks back then. Even the way I did the CMS – such as it was – seems far simpler now then it ever did then. Hell, i remember spending days trying to figure out how the hell to do a recursive function to create the menu, as I hadn’t been taught them by this point. I eat recursive functions for breakfast now, though they all basically taste the same.

I’ll wait for the laughter to die down before I continue. If you didn’t laugh, you’re not a programmer or you don’t appreciate nerd humor. That’s your problem, not mine.

What I’m getting at here is that every once in a while you need to be reminded with just how far you’ve come. It’s sort of like looking at your grade 2 math homework, and laughing at how simple it is now. It’s like re-reading the first book you ever read, just to see how much easier it is now. Take a step back and look at what you do now. Look back a couple years and look at what you did then, and revel in how far you’ve come. Be proud of what you can do now, even if it doesn’t seem like enough for what you need to do.

You’ve got your goals, and that’s important. It’s also important to look at your progress to those goals to get that boost of confidence.

Oh, and for the record: I’m remaking the website imagery and markup, and I’m planning to email it to them. They can do with it what they wish, but at least I’ll feel better. As it turns out, I’m about a 3rd done, and it’s taken me about 3 hours of effort thus far. 3 hours versus multiple weeks.

I’m proud of what I can do now.

I’ve been somewhat busy over the past little while what with work and all. I’ve finally started my job at The Revolution Night Club in Waterloo. I thought that my working from 10 to 3 in the morning would beat me up way more then it actually has. As long as I get a nap in before going to work, I’m fine. Besides, It allows me to wake up at 12 in the afternoon, which is some sort of accomplishment for me.

Since this is one of my few pointless personal posts, I figure I may as well talk about what it is that I do there. I have the glamorous job of bussing. “What is bussing?” you ask? A busser is that sucker that walks around picking up empty, abandoned, or otherwise useless husks that are the plastic cups, glasses, and bottles which once housed booze. A busser is, for lack of a better term, a janitor. We clean up the drinks, spills, and when it happens, vomit that occurs throughout the night. It’s not a great job, but I actually don’t mind it. I found I can tune out the thug music stunningly well, and I’m apparently good at my job. I don’t mind vomit, I’m good at moving through crowds of people, and my father-blessed work ethic makes me do my job well.

I have learned some things from the two shifts I have worked, and I feel the need to share some of these things. To make things convenient, here is a list:

1. Pay attention to your drinks people. It’s a waste of money to buy a drink, only to drink 3 sips of it and abandon it for any reason. You know as well as I do that you won’t drink it when you come back, and all you’ve managed to do is waste perfectly good alcohol, and your cash.
2. Drunk people are generally nice. I always thought that the Rev was a den of assholes who are itching for a fight. Not true, as it turns out. People are, for the most part, nice the more alcohol they consume.
3. The difference between the 19+ night and the 21+ night is staggering. On the 19+ night, no one is allowed to have bottles, the girls dress like tramps, and the guys are all trying to impress. Apparently aging two years does wonders for maturity levels. So much so that people can drink from bottles, dress more respectably, and dance on stages.
4. People never go when there is no cover. The Rev is free until 10:30 pm. Why is it that people don’t show up until 12 am then? What a waste of money people. it’s 6 bucks to get into the club after 10:30, so why not just go early and relax while there is a lull in the person count. It’ll help you get more drinks faster as well.
5. Girls dress like tramps, and it’s not impressing anyone. If you’re using your curves (or a lack therein) to attract a mate, trust me when I say that they’ll probably be lacking any redeemable qualities. Please don’t disrespect yourself by dressing like a hooker. If you do, you’re not allowed to get mad when guys stare at your jiggly bits. Have some self-respect.
6. People don’t really start to drink until nearly 1 am. Then it gets fucking crazy.

7. A lot of people can’t dance. I’m not saying they shouldn’t, because dancing is fun and who cares what anyone else thinks. Though if you are trying to impress the opposite sex (or the same if thats your bag) you have to learn at the very least how to not look like an epileptic monkey on the dance floor.
8. Girls like to scream/cheer at the most random shit.
9. Remixes are preferred to the originals.
10. Only white folk seem to like Techno. I don’t want to generalize here, but that what I’ve seen thus far.
11. 3 out of 100 people know how to dance to Techno. Considering our Techno room only holds like, 150 people, thats not a good ratio.
12. Girls thank you for taking away empty drinks. Guys nod.
13. Never try and pick up at a 19+ night. You don’t want what’s being served. If you really want to pick up, go to the 21+ or 25+ nights. Everyone is more relaxed and easy-going.
14. Don’t go to bars or clubs by yourself. It’s fucking depressing to look at. If you do go alone, at least mingle with people. Don’t sit at a booth by yourself. You can sit at home in your underwear and drink if you want to feel depressed. You really don’t need to see everyone else being happy to get you to that low.
15. I love ear plugs.
16. To hell with everyone who said steel-toed shoes were a bad idea. Drunk people are clumsy, and I’ve had my foot stepped on a lot considering I’ve worked two shifts.

On top of all that, working this job also has the added bonus of working out some muscle groups that never get taxed. So by working this job, I should technically end up in better physical shape.

In other, not Rev related news, I’ve almost finished reading Wicked, and my review should be posted some time this week, assuming I have the time to finish it. It’s a good book so far, though I won’t give away my thoughts just yet. I’m also going to try and finish Mario: Thousand Year Door. I have a horrible habit of getting through games to about the 80% mark, and then just dropping it. I’ve done that to at least three games that I can think of off the top of my head. I’m also going to try and get some more writing in. By my figuring (which involves a very complex equation that factors work, laziness, and drive) I should be finished my “book” by the year 2016.

Oh and before I forget, I got the chance to see Van Halen in concert on Thursday. Free tickets given to me by a co-worker. I’ve never listened to Van Halen actively, so this was basically a crash course in their music. It’s pretty good, if not a tad shallow. Everything was from the 1984 album or before. What really made the concert for me were the two solos within the show. The drum solo had me smiling throughout the whole thing, and the guitar solo left me stunned into silence. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in my feelings as the entire stadium (and there were a lot of people) was utterly silent throughout the guitar. I’m happy I got to see it, though I’m a little sad we missed The Tragically Hip.

That should wrap things up for now.

I think we’re alone here you and I
I think we’re alone left wondering why
I think we’re alone here you and I
I think we’re alone in the universe tonight

David Usher – Alone in the Universe

Corey signing off.

I have however been busy with life, being lazy with updating this, and other lame excuses that I cannot fathom at the moment.

I’m not going to bother with all that because quite honestly I was just lazy and had no drive to update this site. No real reason, but I’m back to take another stab at it.

The reason for this is two fold:

1. Theresa (who I am still with thankfully) is back in school, so I once again have too much time on my hands.
2. I’ve been feeling somewhat depressed lately, and though I wont get into specific reasons as to why, I am wondering if doing this blog will help me with/through it.

Worry not faithful readers (all zero of you), I’m not suicidal or emo or any of that kief, I am simply feeling a little down.

I may as well get back into the swing of things with what I have been doing for the past… lets say… week. Yes, a week sounds good.

Alright, so I recently finished watching House: Season Three which was, as usual, amazing. I love that show dearly and I am overly sure that I will own all the box sets as they come out. On the up side I have finally caught up to the current running season, so I can actually have a reason to watch TV again. Granted it’s only for an hour every Sunday but whatever.

I recently picked up the new DS: Special edition that comes with Brain Age 2. It cost me a little bit, but I’m glad I finally have one and when I get the extra scratch I’m going to get my hands on the Opera Browser and possibly some home brewed programs like the WiFi Phone app I’ve been linked to. I don’t know where the link is at the moment, but if I find it, I’ll post it. I’ve wanted a DS for a while, and a special edition was just the excuse happenstance I needed to make the purchase.

I also recently crash-coursed my friend in both Venture Brothers: Season 2 and Clone High. He’s a big guy, so it’s funny to see him rendered helpless as he struggles for breath between fits of laughter. Sure he tries to kill me after, but it’s always so worth it.

Second lastly, I got a job Friday and Saturday nights working at The Revolution night club doing I don’t know what yet. My friend Danny pointed out that I am “fucking crazy” for doing so, and he’s probably not that wrong. I hate the place and the music, but it’s a guaranteed job, and I wanna pay of my car. Shrug, who knows what interesting stories may come from it all. More on this as it develops.

Lastly, I’m swinging in and out of writing, so we’ll see what develops with that.

Like romantic roadkill,
M heart is all splattered.
And your ego got fatter,
And I hope that you’re flattered.

You broke this down.

The best thing that you never had.

Butch Walker – Best Thing that You Never Had.