You know how Homer Simpson sometimes gets confused about what he thinks and what he says out loud? I did that today. When the cute guy at the curry place gave me my curry-to-go, I meant to say "thankyou" but instead I said "oh god, you're so cute".
When I first starting working for my first job in multimedia (and I've probably told this story before, I have a habit of holding on to moments and torturing those around me by retelling them over and over) we had to deliver part of a CBT to a client. I had only been working there for about 8 weeks as an assistant, doing this thing and that thing as required. We delivered the product - me along for the ride to "experience" this phase of the development. The client ran the program on site, with their production team and my boss all puffed-out-chest-proud. And the errors started.. and the files didn't run.. and there were spelling errors, and then it stopped working all together. I looked up and my boss who had been snuffling and edging towards the door had suddenly found somewhere he needed to be and there was I, his assistant, alone with the unhappy client and a very broken program. It was horrible. I vowed that would *never* happen ever again if I could help it and there would be more control about testing before a product left our office and I also realised, I wasn't the assistant if anything was going to get done to any degree I would just have to try really hard to make it happen.
Today, it sort of happened again - but not to the same degree - but not far off it. And for all the same reasons - tight deadline, rushing, not enough checking, the team not all on the same page. This time, some of the blame can lie on Macromedia's woeful documentation but only a little bit because we should have tested on a client similar machine before we even got to site. Understandably, the client isn't very happy. We have a "plan of attack" to sort out the problems, but it's a real shame they exist at all, and hopefully I'll remember not to let them happen again. Often, when budgets and timelines are tight, testing is the first area to be cut back but it is *always* false economy to do so. You lose time and face and neither can be regained.
I am very busy at work. We're all very busy - staff numbers are low due to a couple of different reasons. I've hired a person for a week to do my job because I just don't have the time to do it myself. It's going to be nice having another designer in the house. For a little while, at least: I will be a department.
And Rosie? (the project I'm talking about in the paragraph above isn't your big one, its my little one) and James too for that matter... I've been meaning to write and I will I truly will. I miss you both and hope you're having a wonderful time.
--------