So I'm settling down in my new digs at cobb.typepad.com and so far I'm doing OK. I thought I might give an update about what's going on daily.
Project Hell
First off, I've been in project hell. The job is just murder. White collar murder which is like third degree manslaughter with depraved indifference, but still deep in felony territory. We've gotten to the point where people are acting like there's no tomorrow, literally. We've got text in memos flying around like this:
It seems a shame that we can't assume professional peers would understand mutual needs to complete an application. The project seems constantly bogged down by this "you didn't get the request right...try again...repeat" situation. I will require that xxxx personnel try their utmost to explain (and document) their needs the first time. I would ask that the recipients of that information identify any gaps immediately.
As I said in the call yesterday, xxxx no longer has any room for schedule "flexibility". We will from this point forward maintain detailed documentation of delays occurring from activities beyond our control. This documentation will serve to engage and support change request procedures as specified in the statement of work. We (xxxx) will make every effort maintain productivity and effective dialog, but will not be held responsible for negative schedule impact due to third party delays.
This basically means questions like, "What have you done for me in the past half-hour?" are no longer off the table. We have meetings where the first thing out of people's mouth is: "Where specifically in the requirements document did you specify that I do precisely this, and please forward all emails pertaining to the matter over the past three months." Project hell. It has given me an appreciation for my lunch break that I haven't had since I was a Teamster in Local 232. Not since San Francisco 1995 when Starbucks was still considered hip, have I taken so many coffee breaks.
I gripe because I'm a professional consultant, and we're supposed to earn our high priced salaries by telling people how they're screwing up, but damn. As usual, it's nobody's fault in particular but just a confluence of bad luck, indifference, incompetence and shortages of time and money all sprinkled together here and there.
Skipping A Beat
Doc was hospitalized for a day a few days back with almost precisely the same deal that hit me. Sharp pains in the chest. His EKG came back a little abnormal at first so they did blood work and in the end came up with the same diagnosis. You're fine.
Such matters have a nice way of scaring the ... hmm how can I not turn this into a cliche... You know what I mean. The old stomach & jaw drop combination; that thing that actors in B movies do as they stare at something monstrous up and behind the camera before the cut to the 2nd unit film. Oh damn, Hollywood speak.
Spider Roll
Speaking of which, I took the Spousal Unit out to a fancy, pricy, trendy dinner the other evening. This is the kind of thing I will very much miss and not miss at all if I move to NC. See you take one very high priced architecturally provocative building in Venice, CA and stuff it with a bunch of chefs, none of which is from New Orleans and you have the nerve to sell Gumbo. Oh wait, did I mention the 40-something guys with soft shoes, nice watches and sweaters thrown over their shoulders? It looked like a casting call for 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. I'll say one thing for this joint, it had a normal cieling, which is saying a whole lot considering the huge number of trendy joints with the exposed HVAC and long suspended halogen spots. It's a good thing we had plenty to talk about because if I would have had to listen to any of the conversations around me, I'm sure I would have puked up my lobster enchilada.
Yes I said lobster enchilada. Delicious. Then we had a spider roll, which is as you all know a soft-shell crab maki. Then we had a big ole pile of carpaccio. She says it was beef carpaccio but I swore that I ordered salmon carpaccio. I couldn't really tell the difference because I was on my second martini. I couldn't believe that the waiter had no bleu cheese to stuff into my olives, but I decided to be nice about it. Still, when he told me he had a boulliabasse special, I had to turn my neck to check for somebody Creole looking in the open kitchen there. Nope. Just Mexicans and Japanese. You know, one of these days Mexicans are going to start cutting sushi and that's going to be the end of an era. I don't mind the fusion so long as it's legal, but I'm really wondering what's up with my peoples in the kitchen.
See, my waiter knew, and the SU had ordered the steak-wrapped scallops, that when I ordered the boulliabasse that I was going to be a harsh critic. So he said that it's not going to be like my grandmother's. Damn right. This thing cost 50 bucks. It had crab. And lobster. And shrimp. And scallops. And fish. But nary a bay leaf. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious. But it was red, like a lobster bisque. It was still a roue, but not clear and dark. No fowl, no sausage, no file and of course no rice in the bottom of the bowl. And suddenly I missed New Orleans and wondered if we're all going to lose it, not the place, but the memory of the food. That's what fusion is. Food for greedy sybaritic people, and this was a luxury dish with all the luxury sweet seafoods... It's not enough to be at the top of the food chain and be satisfied by a deep tradition but you've got to consume the whole world at once, Japanese, Creole, Continental and Mexican with fine Russian vodka.
Fortunately we had coupons and the whole thing only cost $65 bucks out of pocket.
The New Crib
I'm ranked 1.1millionth in Technorati's sweepstakes. But the old blog is around 4800th. So I've got to get off my butt and start notifying people to head over here at Typepad instead of my old domain. It's going to be impossible to delink the old archived docs but that's the way it goes. I care about rank only to the extent that it serves to acclimate folks to the Old School. But I'm very satisfied with the Typepad service so far. It turns out to be a bit more sophisticated than I thought it would be.
Since I'm a Waffle, I've added subordinate blogs (from Blogger) in the left column. I need to take the leap and get completely custom so I can add raw html and javascript into the main template. That way I can add Blogrolling and other stuff, showing off my blog seniority.
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