It never used to bother me, but now it does. Why is it that some men think it’s okay to “wink” at you as a sign of greeting?

Do they think it’s “cool”? They seem to think it’s acceptable & appropriate. I can almost forgive people I’ve known for a while, but those I’ve just been introduced to?!

I get winks in pubs, clubs or bars. That’s fine, the place is a virtual meat market.

If boys happen to read this please remember the following points:

You do not wink at your interviewer.

You do not wink at your colleagues when you pass each other in the hall.

You do not wink when you’re introduced to someone.

You only wink when you think you’re so fucking hot that I’d be weak at the knees I’ll hire you.

You only wink if you’re the hot guy of my fantasy.

You only wink if your eye has an involuntary reflex.

If you do not have a condition, then stop.

If you cannot read minds & don’t know what the heck women think of you (in that way), then stop with the winking!

Hubby’s been complaining that his sides hurt. He managed to go to work on Saturday. We went to church on Sunday, did a little food shopping, he even did the ironing (yes, he doesn’t shy away from housework).

Then I got a voicemail from him, he said he didn’t go to work today because he’s in too much pain. Thankfully (!) he got an appointment from the GP and even more fortunate it was with the “better” doctor. He got the BUPA referral and a scan request for his gall bladder. Now if he waits for NHS that will mean weeks for the results and weeks, if not months, for the consultant.

He’s due for his scan tomorrow and the only consultant near our place is available Wednesday. Hubby says if his pain becomes worse he will go to A&E (that’s the British ER). I asked him if he wants me to be there with him tomorrow. He doesn’t answer straightaway & I don’t look at him.

Deep inside me, I know he wants me to come. I want to come. BUT our Phase 1 release is this week, Friday. It’s problematic and I am needed at work. I feel responsible. BUT I am feeling horrible just thinking about it.

Hubby releases me and initially ventures the scan will be over by 10am. I know though that since the hospital is 2.5 hours away, I will not be in the office until high noon. I will be missing at least 3 meetings and the leave of absence will be without warning as the appointment was only made tonite.

So I asked him in vain really. I feel rotten, my priorities are skewed and the worst thing is I do this almost every month. I feel horrible when I can’t be with my family every time they’re sick. I cannot tend to Kelvin every day. I cannot tend to my husband every day.

Times like these, I really feel that I did bite more than I can chew.

At least that’s what I wanted to tell our supplier. The nightmare that is our software vendor continue to haunt me.

I was not meant to be involved until the UAT phase, but now I’m supposedly running the show. And as I pointed out to the CTO my hair is turning grey even faster because of this disastrous relationship.

It started well last year, hot guy came around bearing 4-5 brollies (umbrella po) bigger than my son. The “supplier” courting the prey, us. They came around at least two more times. By the third visit, I have enough brollies to last a lifetime. Now I want to shove them up their puckered ass.

They’re not only unprofessional, they’re liars, too. Is that one and the same?

Thursday night I snapped and sent out an email containing some words that when transposed read like “you’re a pain to deal with” and “you call by 9am on the dot or else”. What else will be I had no idea. I just felt so much better. When I hit the Send Button, I was ready to rip out his heart from his throat and eat it.

If you were in my place, you’d feel the same thing. First of all, it’s not my effing job to be chasing them for status on their progress. Our last call at 4pm their project manager said they found a bug and they were correcting it and will be bouncing their site. I went to my school run and attended to my son, logged in at 8pm and what do I see?? NOTHING. Did they fix it? Did they bungle it? WHO KNOWS?

Who do you think my bosses will look disappointingly at for being ignorant?? If I am running the show, I want to know right here, right now where the heck I stand.

Friday morning I read their top honcho’s email and I nearly had a fit. The nerve of this jerk telling me, the representative of their client, to tone down my email!!! He had the gall to tell me that I am impeding the project’s progress with my incessant need for information. He even implied that I may not have enough software development experience to understand that the “drip drip” kind of delivery will make things work than alleviate them. He ended to say he will contact my CTO.

(more…

I took over a project when the manager tasked to oversee it went on holiday. The handover was smooth and I thought it’s no big deal. Yes, I’m neck-deep in work already but I didn’t think the project will take much of my time.

The only only truth in the above is “I didn’t think”.

The project is really a simple web portal. So simple that it’s biggest feature is AJAX and all I need to do is conduct a UAT (User Acceptance Testing). Please ignore the techno-babble. The point is it’s not supposed to be frustrating me this — MUCH (((arms wide open))).

The supplier is a small software house, who we’re looking to be Partners with. So I’m stuck between reaching down their throats & pulling their guts out and being diplomatic but stern.

The third-party’s project manager got sick and didn’t notify me. How inconsiderate of this guy to fall sick, I’m now thinking. He managed to email me late in the day that he was in fact ill and I should email someone else. He failed to say who the effing elf is taking over. I trawled thru the contact list from the handover sheet and called each one. No one knows what’s happening.

Then one worker ant told me he’s just a “grunt” and as far as he’s concerned his job is done and he doesn’t know what happens to the other 90% of the effing project!

I emailed bossing, should I really be chasing these a-holes?!

Every other person in their company, including the CEO seemed to wash their hands off the entire affair. I’m not even sure why they’re bothering to be software providers when they don’t effing deliver. None of them seemed to care what happens with their relationship with us.

You thought this bahala na attitude is unique to Pinas? I’ve had the misfortune of actually working with foreigners like these even in the past. Patumpik-tumpik lang. I hate people who slow me down.

One late meeting, hot guy announced we need to make it short as he needs to pick-up his dry-cleaning. The CIO joked hot guy should find himself a woman and sort out his domestic issues.

I am the only girl in these meetings - most of the time. Without meaning to, almost by reflex I blurted out “What did you say?!”

Laughter, guffaws then CIO  backtracked and said “I mean find someone, a woman, a man… here” pointing to the office manager, who is a guy! Which of course made everything worse if there was a PC police insight.

As soon as I spoke those words though I regretted it. I’m not the most PC person and I knew his words were not meant to demean. In fact, I’m sort of glad… Now I know hot guy is not only single, but also available. *Meow*

We were looking at the change control requests when our German director came in. He saw the application we’re using and made a joke about its name. He said it should be called our CIO’s first name instead.

Of course, all of us smiled but I’m pretty sure the joke is lost to everyone, myself including. Was it a private joke? Who knows.

When he left, the Belgian CIO said “you guys should laugh when he cracks joke”. We laughed then.

Perhaps we laughed for different reasons because I laughed at the absurdity of what he said. Perhaps some people laughed to kiss ass. Perhaps some laughed and wished they were dead.

In any case, I’m not taking it against our CIO. I like the guy. And after a year of working here, that really means a lot coming from me. Normally, if my direct boss(es) are assholes I’d be bolting by now.

Still I’m not sure whether he was serious. The good thing is I don’t interact with the Director aside from hi-hello, so I don’t think I need to find out whether I ought to practise some canned haha hoho.

Just got out of a really frustrating meeting and now I have a thumping headache.

My request for my team got bumped off the top priority and will not be done until tomorrow morning. I understand why it so, but when the person said sorry to myself, I felt even worse. I *think* I smiled and shrugged but knowing how bad I still feel about it, I looked either sad or mad.

The thing that’s really bugging me is I should have caught this problem before. I keep banging on about data-driven testing, parameter-ised test scripts but my review focused solely on test scenarios. I kept my faith on the members to implement the framework we talked about, I didn’t check it myself.

Now it’s biting me on the ass. And it hurts.

Maybe I really have ESP because is the sort of thing I fear most, and the reason why I wrote this.

I know we need to correct our current implementation once and for all. My call is to continue with what we have for the week and spend a couple of days next week correcting this mistake.

For now, I am going to take another paracetamol and I am going home where my husband can soothe my aching heartd.

——————–

updated 5 March 2008

Got home and found out my monthly visitor’s just arrived… So that’s why I’ve been loony the last couple of days.

I knew it! I knew that when we seal the deal with our test consultants my work will spike and I will not be able to blog as much. I couldn’t even bloghop. Hirap talaga nang walang maid. Please let me be true to myself and to you. Mahirap po talaga especially if I want to sit down and write instead of cooking til late at night.

Thank you to everyone who left me comments and dropped me emails. Thanks for repeatedly checking for new updates.  And apologies for missing out on so many things that you’ve been writing about.

Sabi ni hubby, magsulat na daw ako dahil baka akalain nang mundo patay na ko. As if the World will really notice.

So what happened? Well all my chilli plants are dead because of the cold season. My daffodils are sprouting up early because Global Warming is here to stay. Kelvin has had cough-cold-ear infection in a vicious cycle since December. Hubby and I are still fighting like adolescents. And my work will lock me up for the rest of the year.

Everything’s just as I expected, except for the fighting-part. But to be honest, I’m too tired to really care. I’m already stressed enough at work when I come home, I just want to chill. So I fry my brain with film after film. I have not gone back to baking, I’m resting my hands. I have not gone back to my exercise regime because most of the time, I’m not home until 8-9pm.

I’m enjoying myself though. It’s real wonder considering I’ve been working in the place for a year now and I’ve barely complained. In fact, just this week I was almost cheek-to-cheek with hot guy and he smelled really nice. You know, just-out-of-the-shower nice? I guess with little perks like those I can ignore my little whinges.

Anyhow,  I’m back & thank God it wasn’t depression that made me stay away. My brain is bursting with topics to write about here and for PMN. So please keep watching this space and I am sure to be more visible in the coming weeks. Salamat uli sa mga paalala at nakaalala.

You’ll find most offices will have signs in their kitchen saying “tidy up” with varying intonation & colourful languages.

Our current office space share the kitchen with 2-3 companies. So the building admin keeps on posting laminated & professionally written notices as above. Then one time I saw a sign that made do a double-take (picture to follow), it says: “STOP USING MY STARBUCKS MUG!” (excuse me but I have this strange feeling I mentioned this before, deja vu?)

It was handwritten & I could feel the “irritated” tone screaming at me while reading it. Not guilty, sorry. Why bring a personal mug anyhow when the kitchen is communal? You’re asking for trouble.

Then we received an email from the Building Admin this morning that says “polite notice - milk”… huh?

The email says…

“Unfortunately we had to move to another provision for the milk due to the fact that numerous people were using the milk for their breakfasts and not for teas and coffees. The milk we provide is on the understanding that this is used for teas and coffees only and this has been abused to such a point that we moved to the milk jiggers.”

Honestly, I can’t imagine writing that email with a straight face. But then I actually saw a guy using those “milk jiggers” to fill a cereal bowl! He must have used at least 10 of them in one go when he could have nipped out & bought a pint for less than a £1.

I would like to think I’m not an axe-wielding feminist but a liberal and enlightened modern woman. I do not expect men to stand up and offer me their seat. I do not expect to be passed over for a promotion because the competition is a man. I expect equal rights. But I know we don’t live in a just World.

Because I work in IT, most of my officemates are men. That’s okay, most of the time I’m more at ease with men anyway. Most of my friends are male. And I am enjoying my current workplace. We’re busy up to our necks with deadlines but that’s life.

What bothers me is the number of doors we have to go thru to go from place to place within our office. The first is the main building door, then the secure door on our floor. Then there’s a door that separates the Technology and the meeting rooms from the rest of the floor, then there’s the actual Technology team’s door. Then there are the meeting room doors. And if you need the admin & marketing people or some stationeries, you go out the Tech room, thru the separating door thru another door. (more…