Ride or Die

There's not a lot you can do after working 10 hour days at your current job.  But there is some.

Well, really, its 10-12 hours days, plus often 1 day on the weekend for the day job.  Then I spent whatever is left of my brainpower on the startup.  Then, we are also trying to get around to unpacking boxes and buying more shelves.  I literally don't have room to unpack more objects until I buy shelves.  And then, also, we are trying to build a social life, starting almost completely from scratch.

Fortunately, I'm pretty damn sure I can do this.  My current situation at work...well I'm the one who got myself into this.  Yes, we have a demanding client that expects bullshit from an invisible spec, and teammates who didn't know you couldn't really put mutable fields on enums (FUCKING HELL), and yes we have some project managers that seem to be in constant denial.  However, well...let me make an analogy.

Picture yourself coming up to a yellow light on a motorcycle.  You slam on the brakes, stop way faster than a car could, and come to a rest just before the line just as the light turns red.  You watch the cars about to cross the light when BAM some idiot in a car (and not a duck boat--if it was a duck boat...fuck those cunts) runs you over.   Whose fault was it?  It was your fucking fault (again, unless it was a duck boat, in which case we should trade information so I'll have more incidents to report the next time I proactively contact another victim's lawyers).  The universe doesnt care who was legally at fault, and its not going to unsnap your spinal cord just because you followed the rules.  No.  You got on a fucking bike and drove on public roads, with all the idiots in cars.  You should have known better.  You should have checked your mirrors and possibly ran the red instead of stopping.  You should have tapped your brakelights on and off when you slowed down.  You should have sat with your hand squeezing the clutch, the bike in gear, and your eyes watching the car behind you approach in your rear view mirror, ready at any second to punch it and get the hell out of there.  It was your fault.

In the same way, my project situation is my fault.  I knew that Shitty Customer #1 was not going away, and I knew that the mediocre dev who is barely able to absorb their interference was going on my vacation.  I also knew that my predictions were falling on deaf ears.  Still, I made a schedule that would assume I could dedicate all of my time to Customer #2.  Yes, the schedule was padded generously, but generously wasn't good enough.  What I should have done was push my estimates to the breaking point, padding them to such a ridiculous extent that my manager almost overrules me, and everyone--or just the test guys--think I'm  full of shit but can't prove it.  That is what I will do next time, because I will learn from this, and this isn't happening again.

My current predicament will last until the end of July.  That's when my code is supposed to be done for Customer #2.  So, yeah, I fucked up and it cost me more than a month of my life, but you gotta learn from this and move on.  So the schedule after July can be fixed.

Until then, we're gonna have to keep it pretty damn simple.  The programmer I contracted for the start up is...sadly...not quite good enough.  I trust him with small, easy to code features, and that's about it.  So I guess I don't have a great plan for this one.

However, the social thing...that's simple.  Obviously I'm going to continue playing volleyball, and then whatever sport comes next, and after July I'm going to find a salsa or bachatta class.

July is not going to be fun.  I'm going to be overworked, and I'm going to be alone, and every time I feel sorry for myself I'm going to remember that I'm the one who didn't pad my estimates enough, I'm the one who made the schedule, and I'm the one who is about to make overestimating tasks an art form.  Of course, "overestimating" isn't really the right word if the end result is simply working a reasonable 8 hour day.