2004-03-10 - 8:40 p.m.

Same old treadmill

I'm nearing a dangerous decision. I'm almost thinking maybe I need more sleep.

It's scary how tired I am at work these days. Okay, not tired - sleepy. However, I wasn't really serious about the needing more sleep thing; I doubt that would help. I'm sleepy because I'm bored out of my tiny little mind.

I just got prescribed allergy medication a month or so ago. It has an antihistamine though, and the couple of times I've taken it at work, it just about knocks me out. That's all I need, for someone to find me sleeping at my desk.

Not like I'm not doing stuff. I'm busy all day. But for the past... oh, two months... the project I'm working on for PHB is just the most mind-numbing, useless thing I can recall doing in a long, long time. Not to mention it probably will never come to production. My actual boss has said as much. And yet I still continue to put in time on it... hey, don't ask me. I just work here. For now. The thing that bothers me the most is that I hate putting out crappy work. I know how to build good databases. The one thing keeping me sane at this job is I know I have built good ones here, for other projects.

This one's driving me nuts.

Weird thing is, everyone seems to know that this project is going absolutely nowhere except PHB, and no one seems to care. I've been told by several people that this is part of the Big Important Master Plan. Well. Last time I got put on something that was part of the Big Important Master Plan, I got physically whisked away to a new location (well, I walked, my computer was whisked) and asked to work beaucoup overtime. And people knew exactly what they wanted, and I told them what was and wasn't possible, and then I made what was possible happen. And it was challenging and it was FUN. The other projects weren't as high-intensity, but they had a beginning and an end, and people cared whether or not the databases functioned, because people were actually going to use them to do their work.

This one is weird. No one seems to expect to use it. New databases need to be tested by the people who are going to use them. Not just by the designer who really has been given no clue what the thing is actually supposed to DO. Several people have been given access to a test version of this database. Some of them have had it since November. Until two weeks ago, no one had even looked at it - not even PHB (he still hasn't). Two weeks ago, we gave six more people access to it. Three of them have now looked at it and played around a little. Nothing I'd really call testing - and zero feedback. I'd like to think it's just perfect and meets every need, and everyone is unable to find any flaws. But yeah right. At least there would be a typo someone would find, or they wouldn't like the font color. Zero feedback. This screams to me, "Yeah, whatever." I would have thought that these people, looking at this new, ponderous, difficult, incomplete (I'm guessing - but it has to be) database which presumably is going to replace a database they currently are happily using, would be screaming blue murder and saying, at the least, "You have got to be kidding - this thing is crap."

Nothing.

Which I can't figure out. Does that mean that they're all just that sure it won't ever go live, or that they can't wait for it to go live in this condition, and they're just all waiting for PHB to fall on his face, since this whole thing is his idea? The thing that doesn�t ring true about those scenarios is - if this many people know it's not going to work and/or that PHB is an idiot, why doesn't management? Yeah yeah yeah, I know. But if management really supports this guy, all the other folks would be pretending to support him as well. Then when he makes the leap and the bungee cord turns out to be 20 feet too long, they can all profess to be shocked. That's what my boss is doing. But these other folks - I guess when it doesn't work they'll say, "I didn't have time to test it - I was busy doing my job." And they feel confident they won't get in trouble for that. Me, all I'm going to be able to say is, "I TOLD them it wasn't tested." Which will either lead to, I should have worked harder to get enough information to make this work; or, PHB should have listened to the expert opinion he was getting from me. Depending upon the mood.

Oh well. Either way I know I'm going to be incidental. I'd just like to know whether to expect incidental indifference, or incidental shrapnel. Guess I'd just like a hint whether I'm going to be let go because I was incompetent, let go because I was ineffectual, or kept around because I was irrelevant.

I should have sent out r�sum�s this weekend. My boss has been constantly reminding me since the moment I got here that I am a temp, but the reminders seem to have stepped up a bit lately. I let myself weasel out of it with the oldie but goodie excuse, well, no point in looking right now, what if I find something and this job doesn't end, then I have to turn it down, blah blah. As if every time I go job hunting, I get all these fabulous offers (not). But I shouldn't be living quite this much in denial. I should at least update the r�sum� and read the ads.

I know I've talked about this before - I'm not as obsessed about it as it may seem. But pondering all these useless things during the day today at least woke me up a little.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -