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So, these past two weeks.... Wow.
Every year at work about this time it becomes a death march to some degree. For some reason the company seems to have recurring collective amnesia, and then one day in late spring they wake up screaming "Oh my god, Travel Mart is coming!" Every year I tell them the time to start planning the tech side of it for the next year is in September, and every year it doesn't really start happening until March or April.
This year, things were pretty well on track for the staff tool side of things. But they went dangerously off the rails on the web side. I blame myself for a good part of it, because as technical lead I should have been monitoring that progress much more closely. In any event, once we realized the full magnitude of the crisis, two weeks ago today, we went into overdrive to deal with it and to close the deal. We all worked 110-115 hour weeks. That is not an exaggeration. There were at least three points in which I worked for 36-40 hours straight in order to get the job done, and the rest of the team was right there with me. It is also worth noting that there was no undue pressure or hostility coming from higher up. Whereas two years ago we were getting a never ending stream of condescending abuse from the NZ a-hole that was running the department, this time around we got nothing but support from the very top. Yes, there was unhappiness about being in the situation, but every single public communication to the team was very supportive towards keeping team morale up, and for that I am very appreciative. On the home front, Kris was also amazingly supportive as I pretty much slipped into a black hole for 14 days. As much as I appreciate the support at work, I appreciate the support at home ten times as much.
So anyway, we went live with staff registration a week ago, identified several areas that needed attention, and went live to the entire membership about an hour ago. At every point along the way the business owners have expressed a great deal of pleasure overall with the end results. Yes, there are still some minor issues. Yes, there are a bunch of things still on my checklist to get done before really calling the module done. But on the whole, it has been a successful project. As tiring as the last two weeks were, there was also a great deal of satisfaction when the entire team was right in that groove and firing on all cylinders. I am proud of every single person on my team and what they have achieved.
So yeah, a fun couple of weeks.
Every year at work about this time it becomes a death march to some degree. For some reason the company seems to have recurring collective amnesia, and then one day in late spring they wake up screaming "Oh my god, Travel Mart is coming!" Every year I tell them the time to start planning the tech side of it for the next year is in September, and every year it doesn't really start happening until March or April.
This year, things were pretty well on track for the staff tool side of things. But they went dangerously off the rails on the web side. I blame myself for a good part of it, because as technical lead I should have been monitoring that progress much more closely. In any event, once we realized the full magnitude of the crisis, two weeks ago today, we went into overdrive to deal with it and to close the deal. We all worked 110-115 hour weeks. That is not an exaggeration. There were at least three points in which I worked for 36-40 hours straight in order to get the job done, and the rest of the team was right there with me. It is also worth noting that there was no undue pressure or hostility coming from higher up. Whereas two years ago we were getting a never ending stream of condescending abuse from the NZ a-hole that was running the department, this time around we got nothing but support from the very top. Yes, there was unhappiness about being in the situation, but every single public communication to the team was very supportive towards keeping team morale up, and for that I am very appreciative. On the home front, Kris was also amazingly supportive as I pretty much slipped into a black hole for 14 days. As much as I appreciate the support at work, I appreciate the support at home ten times as much.
So anyway, we went live with staff registration a week ago, identified several areas that needed attention, and went live to the entire membership about an hour ago. At every point along the way the business owners have expressed a great deal of pleasure overall with the end results. Yes, there are still some minor issues. Yes, there are a bunch of things still on my checklist to get done before really calling the module done. But on the whole, it has been a successful project. As tiring as the last two weeks were, there was also a great deal of satisfaction when the entire team was right in that groove and firing on all cylinders. I am proud of every single person on my team and what they have achieved.
So yeah, a fun couple of weeks.