Night Shifts

One of the new things that I really love about working the night shift is driving to work in only 10 minutes. This really puts true geographical distances into perspective and goes to show how very near everything really is in Metro Manila if not for the infamous traffic. Let's not forget the consequential effect on your gas consumption. Sweet!

Second is the ability to park anywhere in Makati for free. If you consider that parking rates are so fucking expensive here, then it really is a big thing. Of course, I have my own parking slot at the back of our building, but it really is nice to know that I can drive to a 24-hour resto within Makati and be able to park right at the streets.

I think I'm getting a bit used to being up at night. I beleive the key is really to treat the weekends as if you were still doing night shifts and resist the temptation to go back to normal hours. If you don't, then you have to adjust every goddamn week. It's nice if you're out with friends drinking or whatever... at least you tend to last longer. But if you don't have anything planned, what the hell are you supposed to do all night at home?

Twas the week before xmas...

This week will really go down the books for me. I dont remember working like this the week before xmas. The POC is finally over, and we had great results. Specially if you consider the fact that the guy I was arguing with was a powerhouse. He turned out to be the CIO of 2 companies, and they're not mediocre IT companies. We were working all through the weekend trying to get everything tested. Was only able to complete it late Monday afternoon around 4PM. And then I had to report for my first day at my new job at 9PM. Good Lord!

About 2 hours through my first night shift, I recieve news from my cousin that my Aunt just passed away. Talks with the wife and brother who rushed to the hospital to be with my Mom ultimately led to the need for me to drop by around 4AM to help in coordinating the funeral arrangements. So I leave my shift early on my first day, drive all the way to where they were to pick up my wife, and then inspect the funeral home before I head back home. We close the arrangements and call my Mom to confirm, then I finally arrive home around 8AM. For the first time in 24 hours, I am able to finally take a nap. I close my eyes and it takes a few minutes before my engorged eyelids really relaxes.

Two hours later, I haul my ass out of bed and I meet with my team around 11AM and do some last minute testing. Turns out the POC demo had to be pushed to 3PM, so we wait as my body quietly continues to eat up all but a few more ounces of energy. I take this time to draw up some slides to aide me later. The POC finally finishes at around 5PM, and I arrive home at 6PM. My body collapses in bed. I am supposed to be reporting back to work in 3 hours but I really can't take anymore. I ring my new boss and call in a family emergency.

I've actually been deprived of sleep for longer periods of time, but they were mostly if not all, simply doing nothing or perhaps waiting for something. This one on the other hand required me to actually work the whole time. I was atteding meetings, I was talking to people, I was driving, I was bloody reviewing codes, and then presenting to the committee inside the boardroom, while entertaining rigorous questions. Christ!

And now a couple of days into my new job, I have still yet to adjust my sleepig patterns. Feels like a really bad case of jetlag. Now it's Dec 24th, and we're supposed to be preparing for Noche Buena and do some last minute shopping for gifts, groceries, and whatnots. The saga continues...

Got what I wished for

I am swamped! I've been extremely busy preparing for my last POC demo next week. We are waiting to hear from my first proposal to Agency X (more on that later), meanwhile this last one has been pushed and pushed until now we are scheduled for the latest possible day, Dec 20.

How ironic these last weeks have been. A couple of months ago I was wallowing in utter boredom and idleness. Courtesy client call this, client call that. I missed the action. And now I got what I wished for. I'm not really complaining that much. Just yesterday I had to trace bugs in our Visual Basic DLL that was being called from a PowerBuilder app. It's been a while since I've actually done some actual programming and debugging and I am very happy I got the chance to do it. Found out that PB didn't really handle NULLs the same way as VB. It wasnt really that much of a surprise, since I've experienced this before with C/C++ and VB param passing when I was still a programmer. For some reason, I also found out that parameters being passed by reference were not effective in a PB/VB setup. Had to use COM public properties for that. It just felt good to remember the old days and actually relive the "fun" experiences.

It would've been great if I got to be busy some months ago, and then be slacking around today. It's already mid-December and I've barely even done anything remotely connected to what we usually do during Christmas season. My mom is also here and I can't even spend some time with her. Can't even drop by until maybe late next week.

The wife is complaining, the daughter is too. My mom is asking when I'm coming over, and my Dad is sending emails telling my brother and I to check on my Mom everyday. Meanwhile, I am starting my new job on Monday doing graveyard shifts from 9PM to 6AM Tuesday next day, and then go back to Agency Y for my POC demo to the Technical Evaluation Committee by 2PM. Of course, I probably need to be there by at least 11AM to prep a bit. The POC will probably finish around 4PM and then I meet with my team and partners for a debriefing. Hopefully, it won't take too long. I then go to work at 9PM for another all nighter and be at another meeting with a partner on the previous bid at 9AM the next day. I am supposed to already be changing my sleep patterns to accomodate my new shift. Just figured it out.... if you actually invert the timezone, that would practically mean that my POC presentation was scheduled at 2AM after working a regular 9-6 day.

Fucking A!

The only thing that's driving me to do this next week is the big, fat commission. You know what they say... money talks, specially if you have to feed a family AND feed your own ambition.

Drawing to a close

This week is gonna be it. I am currently working on winning 2 govt projects and the culmination of all effort to get both of them will be all this week. I actually allowed both presentations to be scheduled on the same day... only realized this Friday and so I had to call people to move mountains and reschedule 1 of them.

Tomorrow morning, I am meeting Managers from Agency X to try to convince them to allow us to only show 20-30% of a particular process for our POC. I dont really know why they would allow us to do that, them being ok with us waiting to finish what we have to. The issue here is really vendor B (which is who we are carrying in this POC) really badly needs this to close by year-end. Probably to hit some 4th quarter quota or something. In fact, they need this so bad that the local guy called his boss in Singapore, who then called my boss in Singapore to push buttons and inquire about why this thing was taking this long. I did initially tell them we could probably finish this by end of November... but that was before we really got a look at the details and what we really had to do. My faithful engineer then tells me 6 weeks. And I've worked with him before to know that this guy works really fast, and is really good. So what else can I do about it?

They're trying to pressure us to put more resources into it. Statistically speaking of course, if we put 1 more engineer into it, then it would cut the time in half, etc. But we didnt really have that option right now. Ergo, the move to try to convince the evaluating committee to only 20%. We are then supposed to present this on Friday, and my boss including my faithful engineer will both be flying in from Singapore for this event. I guess it's really ok as far as timing goes, since Project Y bid will have to be presented on Thursday now, and they can be there and show our commitment there also.

I am sitting in a cafe downloading huge Fix Packs for another try at installing the fucking problematic software on our POC server tomorrow. We are actually gonna do a remote access installation. Hopefully, they'll give us proper rights to do this inside their network so Singapore can monitor the installation. If not, then either they just cut the install image into a DVD and Fedex over, or they will have to fly in earlier to prepare everything. I feel like a useless fuck! I wish I could be of more help. What can I do? I dont know the crappy software from Vendor B really works. But then... everybody I've talked to has told me how difficult and extremely buggy it is to install the damn thing. Like I always say... you look at these big vendors and think how exciting it must be to work with them and their software... and then you actually do and all you can say is "Fucking Crap!"

I was working on designing the remote architecture diagram for Project Y the other night and when I finished 2 or 3 hours later.... I was so shocked at what little work I was able to accomplish. I used to fly through these things when the going was tough... now I'm like a fucking amateur. Too much slack time these last months...

My mom is flying in from Vegas this week. I dont really know how I can accomodate her this week with all the activities. At least I'll have more time after this week. Project Y bid would've been already in... and my engineer would be in Manila to help out on site for Project X. I guess I'm really out of shape... I used to be in worse predicaments and I handled them. Oh well...

I start at my new job on Dec 15. Luckily, my shift is on US East Coast time which is basically graveyard shift here in Manila. I've already told them to give me a bit of leniency in the first months or so but all I really want is to be able to ride this out and continue to work for my current company till maybe end of January. My Singaporean boss called me a few days ago telling me about possibly extending my tenure and letting me manage this 2 upcoming Projects. Of course, I didn't assure him of anything... but I didn't tell him NO either. I'll work it out with them soon enough.

I guess they'll all find out soon enough.. as soon as we know if we won the bid or not. I can probably help them hire a new Project Manager... but I am no longer interested in handling these 2 myself... I'll be fine with the fat commission