Another pain-in-the-ass "Roll-Out"

This project has been ongoing for the past 2 years...last year I had sacrificed much of my own time staying late (as late as 16 hours working straight with the help of cigarettes) and now it all started again...I was the one who wrote the entire test plans and now I'm using them against the "roll-out" release version that we had planned for this particular customer....still, we've not been given a full contract agreement although we had worked and fulfilled their requirements and this could worth possibly AUS$1.3 million to the company for at least 2 years of contract...

Today,I came in the office....bear in mind my manager is on 2 weeks leave and for that reason our Tech Director become so hyper tracing and reviewing all works performed by me, my manager and one particular senior developer in the UK....to my surprise, mistakes that were not meant to be mine become mine...."missed update" issue...I was pissed off but looking further at the issues, I realized there was no point to be mad at and as the only resident expert in Malaysia that they can rely on at this stage, I responded to the blame by making a phone call and explained the details professionally to the Tech Director...I'm left alone to deal and response to these issues to our Business Dev Manager in Aus, Tech Director and of course our CEO in the loop.....

I couldn't give better answer to the late update of the current "roll-out" version status although I had one particular reason where it was already been planned that another 'hot fix' will be deployed later on Monday (UK time which I was not in the office to confirm the fix) I explained what I've found and what I personally think needing further investigation..thankfully, the Tech Director was alright with my action...well, I'm doing what had been told and I didn't expect this would happened...today I've spent almost an hour documenting my findings and passed it over to them...then opened several more HITS issues as record of faults...the Tech Director has reviewed them and allocated me to work with the senior developer for another 'hot fix' ASAP...

Few minutes ago, I checked my web mail and read the emails received from the Tech Director...I'm a little relieved reading his response to my documented findings...still, there seems to have several HITS issues left not being updated and they are now becoming my next task, tomorrow to investigate then update them accordingly....noting down these tasks and time I might need to spend on investigation, I would not dare to say I would be able to complete them within 8 working hours.....I'm talking about a massive data as big as 9 G byte (SQL) needing investigation to why and where it went wrong to show wrong output..from where those extra outputs coming and to why they're not being output correctly...I provide the inputs and the senior developer would use these inputs for his fixes.....is this another re-play of last year? Challenge comes with prize and hopefully I can get that prize again if I could pull this off well although I now had 4 not-so-good-working-weeks......Thanked God though....

I think I've been complaining since my return.....forgive me....

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!