work work work + Béla Fleck & Edgar Meyer

[gusl]

Today was my hardest day of work ever. I am under pressure to finish this conversion of databases. So today I finished the code, and to make sure it was right, I refactored it to death. But it doesn't work because some of the methods that I call were written by somebody else, and don't work on my connection.

After that, I went to see Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer play classical music with Cantab regulars Greg (banjo player), Aoife (singer) and Rushad (cellist). By complete coincidence, we sat next to Sam (guitar player), who had won his tickets on the radio. The performers were brilliant, and it was clear they were improvising / faking some of the pieces. They are that good (in fact, Edgar Meyer is by many accounts, the best bass player ever).

After the show, we hung out, and Greg spoke to Béla about his new 7-string (yes, 7) banjo (which probably goes together with his invented 4-finger style), and did some musical networking. This dude is getting a PhD in biology, and when he's done he wants to live off the banjo. Aren't my friends interesting?

Comments

[selfishgene.livejournal.com]

Make sure you don't get the blame for other people's inadequate methods. This is what they don't teach in school - how to cope with someone's screw-ups affecting your work productivity.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

so how do you learn that?

[selfishgene.livejournal.com]

Experience. The least effective method is to directly challenge the person who screwed up. Unless they are already unpopular you will stir up enemies against yourself. Normally I just work around the problem even if it is more hassle for me. Concentrate on getting the project done even if there is a slight loss in efficiency. If you really can't achieve your part of the project you will probably have to set up a meeting. Keep the meeting focused on the technical issues and don't say anything to belittle someone else. I know this is hard to do, when you think they are useless morons, but it works. You can approach your boss for assistance but always try to look calm and reasonable otherwise they will think you are the moron. I know this doesn't sound like the 'honest' approach but IMO real honesty is not encouraged in most companies.

Re:

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I don't know the person who wrote the problematic code well enough to judge her like that. All I know is that it's not working with my code. It could be because she (or the boss) didn't specify how the class should be used, or it could be a problem with the database.... either way it should give me an exception when it doesn't work. But sometimes people have to write sloppy or incomplete code.

Anyway, I think the boss understands that I can't do anything about it.