Adv

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Reliving a nightmare

Two years ago I was assigned to a project in JB. (This was when Sheryl was still working in JB and we made plans to meet up but never did.) The customer is one of our toughest. It was the only project where I had to redo hardware testing a few times, just because the customer was not satisfied with my installation forms.

Besides the customer, the project team was also tough. There were two ladies in the team, Mrs. S and me. The rest were stubborn, impatient and not so gentle men. Miscommunication was our everyday issue. Many things were delayed, certain things had to be redone and most of us had to travel back and forth, KL-JB, KL-JB, a few times in a month.

I was in no position to criticize the whole team, but I think it could have been managed a lot better.

The messiest unfortunate event happened after I have completed my hardware configuration and was about to schedule for handover with the customer. It was a huge misunderstanding caused by miscommunication between the stubborn guys. Well, the guys scheduled a major configuration change in the middle of the night without warning the rest of the project team, me especially. Mrs. S and I were always being left out when it came to ‘strategizing’. Perhaps the guys thought that we’re such a pain in their asses, thus we were not informed about that night’s plan. Yeah, it was one of those back door solutions they decided to apply in order to correct some mistakes they realized a bit too late.

So, the guys’ secret mission caused my server and database configuration to go haywire, I woke up the next morning greeted by my customer's scream on the phone. I had to spend the next day to recover everything. At one point I was in tears for I had to redo things that took weeks to complete in just 4 hours. I didn’t take lunch or drink anything the whole afternoon and held my breath many times while praying each component would work again. I managed to recover the system at 7.30pm and decided to just return to KL that night and postpone the acceptance test.

While I was recovering the system, the whole project team didn’t even dare to come near me. I didn’t look at them in their eyes. They bought me drinks and snacks which I didn’t touch. I just let them swim in their own guilt. I heard a few of them ‘sok-sek-sok-sek’ behind the cubicles but I just ignored it.

That night, before I headed back to KL the stubborn and not so gentleman guys decided to ‘belanja’ me. Predictable, kan? That’s what every other guy would do to ‘buy’ your ‘jiwa’ back, lah. So, during dinner, one of the guys apologized profusely for their stupid secret mission. I punched their shoulders - not in a friendly manner. Luckily it was not their faces. (Can you imagine how does a size 16 woman's punch feels like? Naaaah, you don't wanna imagine it.)

I managed to handover the hardware 2 months later as a result of that stupid mission that made the customer decided to inspect and re-evaluate the whole implementation. Thank you team mates.

I must have been the happiest woman on earth when the project was finally concluded.

Well, that was before I received a notification last week that I’ve been assigned to a new project with this same customer, upgrading the equipment we delivered 2 years ago. This time with a whole new, blurry eyed, grief stricken looking group of guys as my team mates. This time, I'm the only lady in the project team.... *sigh*

The old project team members were laughing their asses off while wishing me luck for ‘tercampak kembali ke lubuk yang amat dibenci.'

10 comments:

Azer Mantessa said...

how is size 16 and size 16 of what? this is very difficult to me as i have to remember what cup, what alphabet and what numbers of the ladies in the house but size 16 is something i have never come accross. please do explain dear wise one. (i'll be back for this ... and i thot women hate numbers ... geeeeezz)

damn ... i forgot ... did my daughter asked me to buy the slim extra absorbant or max wide wing ... or am i messing the whole thing up? oooo man :(((

Anonymous said...

ahhh... jawab soklan comment kat atas tu dnas, jgn tak jawab... ;)

*teehee* -- told ya that stats (read: numbers) and married women don't come together-gether one... very the buat orang konpius je... :P

and oh... i think we just differ dlm setahun je kot! i'm of the same age as that kadang2-selalu-takde blogger a.k.a. your ex-dormie, diella. seriously, i'm starting to give up on that hangat2chicken waste blogspot blogger person that she is... hik hik hik... <-- this is how confident i am that she does not have the time to bloghop sebab tgh dlm confinement mode... hahaha... ;)
-- but ahem. just-in-case...: diella, if you read this, jgn mare! sape mare kena jual... ekekeke...

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of the time I was heading a project but the Indian engineers were always telling me that their advertised-as-superb PCs crashed on the eve of every deadlines...in the end I crashed into the Intensive Coronary Care Unit of the Damansara Specialist Hospital.

After that I rediscovered my love for scuba diving and quit work. Now almost two years being technically unemployed.

BTW, which part is size 16?

Sarclover said...

well babe, at least we met!

hihi... so i think there will be a lot more dinners and late night coffee session la ni??

D.N.A.S said...

azer,
16 is the dress size, lah. I wear UK 16. Malaysian size is XXL.

Buy the maxi with wings for yr daughter for the first 4 days. The slim ones are for the last 3 days of her period.

Ada apa-apa soklan tambahan? Saya sedia membantu. Hahahaha.

D.N.A.S said...

Che'Nah,
significant numbers for married women are her bank account balance and her husband's bank account balance, boleh tak? kekekeke.

SD,
i pun teringin nak jadi technically unemployed and look virtually busy but have bottomless $$$ to spend.

D.N.A.S said...

sarcy,
thank you sesangat for coming to see me. After going through 3 hours of contactor-bashing session, it was such a great relief to see a friendly face and have nice chat with u.
After the coffee, I terus tido pengsan. Caffeine has no effect on me anymore lah...

Azer Mantessa said...

ooo ... i thot 16 is the size of the fist but the fist goes by alphabet not numbers. never have i thot of dress size. i wear 32 and that's M ... so i guess dif country have dif scale.

thx for the 4-3 day thing too.

Lily G said...

i hope the raving idiots bought you a huge expensive meal and not some gerai tepi jalan.

D.N.A.S said...

azer,
32 tu European size kot.

lily,
it was a huge meal (but not expensive) at a gerai tepi jalan, tepi laut. A few weeks after that I demanded a meal at Manhattan Fish market.