(I'm backfilling the dates. Sue me.)

I hate my job. Those of you who IM me hear me say that often. I hate it. I hate that our group has no sense of process, that our product was accumulated, not designed (or at least feels like it.) I hate that senior people are leaving. In the past year, we've lost 30 person-years experience with the product. At least. If it turned out to be 50, I wouldn't be surprise.

I hate setting commitments. Commitments, my boss says, is just you writing down what you already do, if you're doing your job. How the heck do you write down 'working around stupid design' or 'trying to figure out what the heck's wrong when i don't even know what it looks like when it's right?'

They were due two days ago. Well, two days ago, I was close to falling over, so the cardiologist told me to call in sick. That's as close to a note from the doctor as I need. The day before that, I was busy trying to get an impossibly fragile and convoluted configuration file to do something that was akin to telling it to stick one end up the other.

Or rather, that was my morning. My afternoon was spent beside SpouseKitty during her endoscopy. Fortunately, the 'end' part of 'endo' isn't as bad as it might suggest. I think those are turn-your-head-to-one-side-and-cough-oscopies.

Oh, whee. I turned 40 last year. The joy, the bliss. Or, to put it another way, "Now I know how a muppet feels."

But, back to being allegorically rogered instead. Commitments. I couldn't get them in on time because I was on fire Thursday morning, beside SK Thursday afternoon (she was heavy on Valium and I was good. I did not ask for a 50" television while she was impaired. I asked for a 42" instead.)

I think I got them in Thursday night, which explains why I was dead on my feet Friday. Either that, or I got them in Friday, when I should have been un-deading myself on my feet. Or something. All I know is, Saturday, he sends it back with a note that basically says, "They look good, but how about these." Note, no question mark.

So, it's Sunday night, I'm trying to get them done, and our counterparts in India IM me. Yeah, work IM. Being paid to IM. What a world, eh? They IM me because one of the comptuer clusters is not functioning properly. You know what anyone in either the military or IT think of when they hear 'cluster'? Yeah. Well, I am responsible for 4 meta-clusters (clusters of clusters, making it a real cluster-**** of cluster-****s).

I spend two goddamfuckingishityounot hours trying to just log in and keep it logged in long enough to look and try some basic troubleshooting. Two are non-linear, of which one I had a P0 'act like your ass is on fire before it truly is' bug ticket in on. The other I poked and peeked, but couldn't get it to unwedge. I didn't have to reboot the systems. I did tell the services to go snuff themselves, though. Didn't work.

Oh, and just before this fun, I got an email from my boss, saying that my (his) commitments looked pretty good (at least to him. Me, I don't get the good drugs. They look like I'm going to run a marathon. At sprint speed.) They look pretty good, but there's one addition to my (his) item #5.

I compare the two, the before and after. What was the special item, just for me because I'm special? To keep critical test resources available and up-to-date. And what are my critical test resources?

Those four meta-clusters.