The Good: Accolades & Unexpected
Aug. 16th, 2021 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The software which my team was developing and testing since January went live a couple of weeks ago. The end of the development cycle felt like Kermit trying to keep things together on the muppet show. Go Live was rough for us, with the usual too many deadlines in too short a window, long hours, many details which got missed and had to be accounted for late. The process was rocky for us, but smoothed out quickly (which is a good sign). Most of the problems which came to light we dealt with same day, sometimes within an hour. So although there were a lot of small things, the world wasn't falling apart.
Last week I set up a meeting with the boss to get feedback from outside our little bubble of fixing problems. The short version is, though we felt every rock in the road, our users are happy and really have no complaints. Which, considering our user base, it nothing short of miraculous. My boss was very effusive with gratitude. The CEO wants to have a meeting with my team and walk through some of the features of the system. For an introvert like me that is both scary and gratifying.
On the home front, last week I was finally able to get caught up on the lawn and finish mowing everywhere in one week. It was really only possible because it didn't rain at all in the evenings, so I could work on it an hour every evening after work. I did skip Friday because it was so damn hot and humid. It had been hot and humid all week, but Friday was just too much.
As I was mowing I noticed some more volunteers below the barn. In the spring Derien spread compost from our bins into the holes around the ash tree stumps (we had to take down several old dead/dying trees). We now have delicata squash an tomatoes growing around two of our tree stumps. The one above the barn has some really happy squash, with good size fruit and some green tomatoes on the vine. The one below the barn is more shaded, but there are tomato flowers. I'm quite happy to have volunteer veggies. It looks like we may get more squash from the lawn than we get from the garden this year, which I find quite funny considering how much time and money has gone into the garden.
I got a three day weekend week before last, worked five days last week, and have vacation scheduled this week. I've spent the time so far just trying to get caught up on all the little things I haven't been able to get to over the last few months. It's actually really nice to have a few days off to work around the house and yard. The wood is now all put up for this winter and next. With one more brush burn we should have all the brush from spring cleaned up (we produced a lot this spring and didn't manage to get it cleaned up). Still tons of things to do, but there are always tons of things to do.
Last week I set up a meeting with the boss to get feedback from outside our little bubble of fixing problems. The short version is, though we felt every rock in the road, our users are happy and really have no complaints. Which, considering our user base, it nothing short of miraculous. My boss was very effusive with gratitude. The CEO wants to have a meeting with my team and walk through some of the features of the system. For an introvert like me that is both scary and gratifying.
On the home front, last week I was finally able to get caught up on the lawn and finish mowing everywhere in one week. It was really only possible because it didn't rain at all in the evenings, so I could work on it an hour every evening after work. I did skip Friday because it was so damn hot and humid. It had been hot and humid all week, but Friday was just too much.
As I was mowing I noticed some more volunteers below the barn. In the spring Derien spread compost from our bins into the holes around the ash tree stumps (we had to take down several old dead/dying trees). We now have delicata squash an tomatoes growing around two of our tree stumps. The one above the barn has some really happy squash, with good size fruit and some green tomatoes on the vine. The one below the barn is more shaded, but there are tomato flowers. I'm quite happy to have volunteer veggies. It looks like we may get more squash from the lawn than we get from the garden this year, which I find quite funny considering how much time and money has gone into the garden.
I got a three day weekend week before last, worked five days last week, and have vacation scheduled this week. I've spent the time so far just trying to get caught up on all the little things I haven't been able to get to over the last few months. It's actually really nice to have a few days off to work around the house and yard. The wood is now all put up for this winter and next. With one more brush burn we should have all the brush from spring cleaned up (we produced a lot this spring and didn't manage to get it cleaned up). Still tons of things to do, but there are always tons of things to do.