^^ i just have fantasies of putting both hands in the air and saying 'stop. or i quit'.

he's not just a tantrum artist. that's what's so difficult about him. i've worked with some real prize-winners before, and some people who are just aggressive self-indulgent infants. there was this giant serbian at the last place i worked . . . he's not one of those, which is what makes him such a piece of work. he's winston churchill's idea of a fanatic, can't change his mind and won't change the subject. and is utterly, completely convinced that he's right and he's angry for ideological reasons that we're being peasants and spoiling his beautiful plan. yer average *kitten* is in it for reasons of ego. this guy's in it because he has got an Idea.

heh. last friday the minion/business analyst had on that ministering angel face and was saying that she believes 'his feelings deserve to be heard.' i bit my tongue but i was thinking well, good luck with that, because imo it isn't about his feelz in the least; it's about his believez. but i think the project manager still wants to believe she's the pourer of oil on all the troubles, which is just going to lead to a lot more trouble if you ask me. she was in there with his door shut for an hour or so on tuesday, nothing coming out but his nagging-grievance-voice and her murmuring monotone . . . so i semi-assumed she puffed enough sunshine up his butt to give him a new lease on life and just prolong all of this agony. most probably conceded after all that he can build his damn 'prototypes' since obviously he's on some kind of sit-down strike towards anything else.

why they put up with him . . . hell if i know. a) government and therefore probably collective agreement of some kind, b) he knows everything there is to know about the application and wrote at least half the code. and c) most probably because we work in a microcosm, physically. it isn't as if there's anyone else around to witness any of this, and literally the only people that he affects is this team. and finally too - it's a groundbreaker, within the organization. it's not like there's any gold standard or process already in place out there that he's supposed to follow, at least not as far as i've heard.

so he's invested in it AND he gets away with it because this is a trackless desert. it's not like he's trying to change a qa/project policy that already exists. there IS no policy. he thinks that we're laying some corner stone for the whole organization to follow and he's utterly determined it has to be 'right'. of course, the idea of an entire zone of government following along for ten years in the byzantine maze that he wants to lay out for us all . . . that might be part of why i'm so determined not to let him get away with it, on my side.

what boggles me is that in all his years as a developer, and i think as a freelance to boot, he's had ONE job - ONE - which had actual full time qa. so he really, seriously doesn't know what he's talking about. and he's got four separate seasoned practitioners of software process lined up against him ALL saying they've never even heard of the kind of structure he wants to impose . . . and he dismisses it all. we 'don't know what we're talking about.' and/or we're 'not listening to him.'

Canadianlbs your situation sounds impossible. I admire your resolve to not give into the insanity! And I'm convinced that you are a lot nicer and patient person than I am. :-)

just stopping by to say, oy. for all the times i've complained that i don't know if i'm doing rows right because i never 'feel' them the following day . . . yeah. i think me and my 10-pound jump up to 80 last night just found the answer to that.

Do you ladies ever actually LOSE appetite? I'm not hungry these last few days, feel a little tired but workouts havnt suffered at all. What gives?

Canadianlbs - May your 6 months come speedily...

Congrats on all fronts Crabada!!!

We are looking into getting our siding and windows redone on the house. My husband said he was going to "take care of it" and I am just sitting here trying not to micromanage it. He isn't doing research and getting the quotes the way I would and it's so frustrating. I just wanna do it myself, ya know so that it gets done right and sometime this summer...

Honestly most of these windows are so old/in such bad shape that anything we do would be an improvement. It is more in how he is handling getting quotes. I prefer to be informed then call for quotes but he wants to "hear from the experts" and is just sending out very vague emails.

Enjoy your day off canadianlbs (and more importantly scudge-less). Hope it heals quickly and it's good to hear that you don't have to immobilize it.

^^

Good to hear you didn't break your middle finger @canadianlbs! You never realize how important it is until you can't use it (that's a joke and a serious thought at the same time lol). I broke my right middle finger two years ago (dog leash, combo spiral fracture and crush fracture). The first few days in a splint were hilarious, flipping everyone the bird and all, but it took 3 hours of surgery, 2 permanent screws holding it together, some permanent nerve damage and 6 months of occupational therapy to basically be able to use my right hand again just plain sucked. All that just for a finger!

katro111 wrote: »

it took 3 hours of surgery, 2 permanent screws holding it together, some permanent nerve damage and 6 months of occupational therapy to basically be able to use my right hand again just plain sucked. All that just for a finger!

sheesh. that's the kind of thing that i fear. especially since i make my living via a keyboard, basically. and if you're a freelance it's hard to even tell what the ethics/rights situation is there, because being required to keep it immobile would have had a serious effect on my productivity. .

so yeah. i'm extremely relieved. i never have broken anything . . . well, except for a fractured toe once. i vividly remember the particular awfulness of the way that that felt. but i don't have enough experience of breaks to know whether a break is always supposed to have that particular sickening feel like your bones are teeth and they're chewing tinfoil.

soon as this finger is better enough though, believe me. i'm giong to go around for a few weeks crossing it over the one next to it. two crashes in not even two weeks, after years and years since the last one i had - that's not good.

So I am a pretty hardcore introvert. As such 97.6% of the time I am perfectly OK with having a couple of hi/bye friends at work and my hubby for companions (and of course the casual online relationships on forums). But ever once in a while I wonder about how to make some closer friends in person, mostly because every once in a while I feel like I might want to fit into some kind of social norm.

I always hit the same road block. How do you meet people? Like there needs to be a friendship app of some kind (like on line dating but for friends). If there was an app for that I would totally use it.

Having a few close in-person friends can be nice. The times I've enjoyed those in my life were most always initiated by the other person. I rarely am the one doing the reaching out. Maybe that's the somewhat introverted part of me or maybe the whole fear of rejection or probably both! Are you a programmer? Maybe you should write an app!!!

^^ i made some good friends hanging out online on parenting boards when my kid was young enough that i was still a parent in the functional sense. a couple of them i still have, and one is now my longest-running friendship ever at 17 years.

the only kind of advice that i have is to let your actual self hang out in places like that and see what it attracts. i kind of suck at approaching people myself (and maybe retaining them too).