Working late
Things at my new job must be going well. I found myself in the office still at 7pm. I was just completing something which I hope will be useful to my colleagues during the week-long absence next week, when I attend a course on C# and .NET.

Today was also my first opportunity to demonstrate the fruits of my labour (and that of some of my colleagues). We scheduled a demo for 3.30. At 3.29, the software build had only just stopped the 40 minutes of errors that had set it. They set in pretty much the minute after I sent an email round inviting people to see the demo.

So, despite the fact that I had a bunch of automated tests telling me that everything should probably work. I hadn't actually seen the end result working myself when I set out to demo it. I was quite confident. I had seen it working with some of the missing bits "mocked up". But the reason for the 40 minutes' worth of errors was that we realised that we could attach the real things. The re-integration wasn't as simple as it should have been. It wasn't my fault. I re-integrate frequently to avoid such huge problems.

Anyway, I managed to make the demo as convincing as it wasn't slick. I thrive under performance pressure.

Despite the fact that we were meant to have 4 weeks to do the work, lost one week to design overruns and then subsequently lost another week to this forthcoming course, I think that over 80% of what I personally set out to achieve has already been achieved. When I get back from my course, I'll have some loose ends to pick up, but that's all it should be. Just loose ends.

Unless I'm wrong.

I've been wrong before.

Not as wrong as I could have been. I'm not, for instance, the sort of moron who puts their most talented colleagues into the corner and watches them rot.

Freedom!