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.