Be responsible for the best...

Yesterday, when I came in to work early in the morning..I checked my email..there was one email coming from my Tech Director with "Works Order 2216" as the Subject...This WO was allocated to the recently married-man a.k.a developer ("Akad-nikah" was on Monday)...I thought he was asking me the details of the report that had been developed by Malaysian developer, instead he was asking if I can continue or try fixing the fault on the report...the idea was proposed by my manager as I've told him weeks ago that the report is quite straight forward and should have been developed and ready for shipping a week ago..unfortunately, the man who was supposed to provide the end result wasn't able to do so....main problem was...he wasn't focus (due to wedding preparation)..he wasn't aware of all the requirements given...and he wasn't responsible enough to make sure all his works are completed prior to his 2 weeks leave....

I had already developed the report earlier myself (2 weeks ago when the WO had just been allocated to me for Malaysian developers to look at) to determine how difficult it could be to work around its requirements..I came up with the expectation that the report should be ready for QA within 2 days at max for him with his skills...I wanted the report to be ready for shipping in 5 days..means that he had a week..but he wasn't able to achieve the decent target of 5 days..he spent 2 weeks until last Friday..still left in progress and he's already in his 2 weeks leave... My manager called me on Monday saying his worries that the developer would not be able to get any appraisal this year around due to his own attitude and performance...Sorry but it's a reality he has to accept!

Receiving the email from my TD was an opportunity for me...well when the HQ planned to hire Malaysian based developers (early 2007)..I was offered to be one of them and was interviewed (informal) by the TD himself during my appraisal....but due to lack of experience in development itself (For the record..I don't have a proper computing/programming skills as other who've graduated from Comp. Science School etc...)...furthermore, I've just started learning Crystal Report at that time...I was just a mere beginner who begins by exploring each tools..each icons by the help of the "Help" menu and some e-books downloaded via internet...further story and journey, I'm sure most of you knew already.....the TD advised me to improve my Crystal Report skills within the next 6 months....which I really did and on the 4th month of that period..I was appointed as the Team Leader of Malaysian Development team...I see what he was trying to do..

So, back to the email..the TD gave me a day to try have a look at the current state of the report...since I'm the Team Leader, I should and already knew about its current fault..my first impression looking at the present report was...it was a mess!!!..formulas fields all over the report and lots of formula fields were created but never been used..naming formula field is another issue...lets take a shot on this...requirement is to show the "total hours duration of confirmed visits" which it would help if we rename it as "TotalConfirmedHours"..instead he renamed it as "HoursDuration" then there was another one named as "VisitDuration"......I started by tackling the fault directly...get familiar with his formulas and after about an hour, it came out correctly but another fault appeared..darned it! I spent another an hour tracing what was causing the problem but failed...I ignored the report and continued QA'ing another custom report and testing the latest candidate release version...before lunch time..I managed to clear out my mind from 2 of my tasks for the day...then continued looking at the report....Yeah!! I found it!!!I was happy but again..life is never easy huh..ha.ha..another glitch appeared, inaccurate output for one of the hours for certain scenario..I really can't stand it anymore and decided to re-develop the report which I did in 2 hours...when trying to load the report...Authentication Login window was displayed (due to Windows and SQL login permission)..I really can't continue further..so I updated the WO with my progress and replied to the email of my attempt and went home..at home..I developed a new report using my own machine..and managed to get it all worked as required within 3.5 hours...see!!! It was that easy but that guy took 2 weeks and the TD wasn't really happy about that..I spent another couple of minutes performing unit/smoke tests and done..sent an email to the TD updating the out-of-hours progress..(we can check email from home) he was happy and delighted to hear the good news then suggested me to perform as much as QA at my end prior sending over to UK for another final QA as this would avoid bounce back and waste more time...Today, done all I can...tested all possible scenarios that customer could come up with when using this report...found several glitch and fixed them straight away (I'm the developer and the tester)...I was so happy that it has passed a QA at the UK an hour ago..I was monitoring the progress via email for more than 2 hours since my return from work to ensure my colleague performs a good QA at her end and she really did well...Thanks..

I always mention to people..whoever you're..what ever work you're doing...love your work and enjoy doing your job...if you can't then look for another job...most of all be the best as you can with what's been given as a responsibility to your job as well as to yourself...A good day at work...I'm a little concern what would the TD thinks about the developer but it was his own fault that he has to endure and get over with..grow up!

Another day another experience..

In relation to my previous post "I'm having a bad day!!"...I'm quite grateful that I can always rely on my DVDs collection..whenever I feel sad or down..I'd watch any of my DVDs collection...last night I was so serious+pissed..why so serious?...It was due to 'letupan gunung berapi'..which occurred once or twice a year...maybe la...I didn't really count la..he..he..as expected, I came in to the office today...logged in and checked my emails...I received several emails from my manager..advising and thanking me...well last night I called him (the developer), explained to him about his current leave application and the manager's situation then advised him to send an email to my manager explaining in details his situation..which I he did..how did I know? well, one of the email from my manager, he was thanking me of this quick move....he was speechless and didn't know how to help his staff as well as saving his as* in front of the Tech Director....I was just trying to help him and that was... least I could do at that situation...his advise includes...to apply leave 2 weeks earlier than actual dates..well that's the T&C for us actually but..for some reason this guy thought he could just apply 3 hours-became-half day leave the next day on the day before...due to that, I applied 12 days leave in total..I'm still looking any specific dates in Nov and Oct as I still have 9 days...the longest leave I applied today was during Christmas season..it was 2 weeks commencing on 22nd Dec up until 2nd Jan 2009...well it was almost the same period I applied last year...the only different was...last year I only worked for a week in Dec 2007 and the rest was honey moon... I randomly selected these 12 dates from the calendar thinking that something might happen or come up on these lucky pick-dates...so I really hope they do.....and I haven't got any plan for these 12 days...still thinking and looking...perhaps I'll be in Sabah during the Christmas season..

I'm feeling good today..I watched the Korean Drama Series of Full House again last night up until 1am..then when I woke up at 5:45 am later...I felt OK and not moody at all....from the moment she (the married developer) came and ready to start her work..I worked with her trying to figure out another alternative solution to resolve an issue we were having with one of her customised report..I came up with a good suggestion..well it wasn't that great actually but it was more likely a logic kind of thing... I asked her to explain to me how the report works from the moment it reads, transfers then outputs data on report onto the white board.....if anybody who's familiar with Crystal Report software you may already knew what is this all about....the problem was, she created 7 sub-reports with conditional formulas to each recurrence pattern of data and she made the sub-reports to read, transfers and outputs data onto the main design report...that's OK but the process within the sub-reports was causing the report to load longer than it was supposed to..so I suggested to her to change flow of the report...how? simple actually....remove all that sub-reports then create a global conditional formula onto the report page footer.....suppress the formula (hide) and that was it...each fields on the main design report then collect their respective formulated data using that hidden formula...and amazingly it worked great...load faster..no more performance issue..when it comes to massive data..loading a report wouldn't be as fast as you might think..although 1 or more filters were applied..sometimes it would take couple of minutes...depending on machine spec's and how massive the data is...

At around 1:45pm...he came in and he looked OK to me..I then advised to avoid and not to forget about their responsibility then shared with them the current impression I received (through my manager) relating to their performance....told them to be more sensible and focus..I then re-assigned the customised invoice report that was given to him yesterday (not 100% OK)..gave and explained him all the faults I found...his sql script needing amendment as it causes an error whilst producing invoices....I told him this can be done within less than an hour and thankfully he did great...fixed the report in 20 minutes..unfortunately not the script...as I had already made the amendment on the script and QA'd OK earlier in the morning....I then released my QA'd script as well as the newly fixed report for another QA in UK without letting him know that I've released them.....sorry but I'd usually do this and it is another way to know how far and how brilliant some people are with their work.....

That was basically what I did today in the office...almost routine but not exactly routine huh...well, yesterday incident already been put behind..and today is another new chapter in my life..why would I want to torture my head and life for something that had already happened?...we need to keep on growing, keep on learning, keep on moving, keep on rolling in order to find that something in life that really makes you happy and worth to remember when you were 50 years old, watching your snobbish grandchildrens..who doesn't really care about you because you're no fun no more.....well I wouldn't hope for that though...I might not have the energy but I still got the blues..still have the 'beiolman' mind..he..he...bawa main lastik...kesian oh tu kan..budak-budak sekarang pun inda tahu suda apa tu lastik...and lastly..thanks to my dear bloggers and my friends who have been wonderful to me....all your supportive comments, your based-on-true-experience stories...cheers! untuk mereka yang bergelar ahli kelab tin/botol hijau kegemaran ramai...

While I was gone...

Yesterday I was on holiday and today I went to work hoping that everything would be fine. Well, all were fine but I was a little disappointed when I found out 2 days were spent to figure out how to make a simple amendment *sigh*...that can be done within an hour or two including QA...Then when I was informed (by my Manager..because all development works need to get through to me).....they have not finished anything yet..it actually became worst than expected..my first respond to my Manager was something like this..."oh..isn't that simple...it only involves the script.." then my Manager explained what had happened earlier...(I think he didn't really believe what I was saying)..we received a request from one of our customer in Australia to amend their report...(customised report..) The plan was...if the development work itself is not over than 2/3 hours..we're not going to charge them..which I think my Manager also believed our team can do it within a reasonable time scale...unfortunately..with their kind of approach and thought..they failed..not 1 day..2 days and came up with nothing..

So..my Manager wondered then asked me how..I then explained to him (and the team..)..what and where should the amendment took place..it has nothing to do with the report file (Crystal Report) .... because it was delayed for 2 days..I offered him a hand to do it myself including QA and at the same time (diam-diam) asking our team to continue.. my first 30 minutes in the office today was spent on this stuff then passed over to my Manager..he will do another QA prior to release tomorrow... Frankly speaking, this kind of stuff should have not be a problem for my army to figure out then provide a solution..it just that they have this typical kind of Malay habits..lackadaisical..with their skills..it is unacceptable to not be able to do this simple task..because of the habits of being discourages and un-committed..their willingness to learn, their effort to master in-out about the company's product have created a huge gap between people with skills and people with experience... I hope they would not be reprimanded by the Manager tomorrow regards to this avoidable weakness...usually people with experience wouldn't have a sophisticated solution compared to skillful people of whom have a brilliant imagination also mind then make something out of the extra-ordinary...*difficult made easy*...If you were a Manager who is given the power to hire a new staff..would it be somebody with experience or skills?

Before my Manager left..he asked me if we should charge them or not..well..obviously we shouldn't..mistake was at our end...wasn't it.....He also said that he would probably go to UK earlier than expected (16th June) which indicates it's not going to be easy anymore for me to apply leave...the Management had planned earlier this year that he would be there for about a year to contribute in the User Acceptance Test process...