Olympus Has Spoken

Once a quarter, NerdHaven has its big to-do with the higher ups. The All Staff. In the normal run of things I accept the invite and put it out of my mind until one day I come into the office and all the managers are dressed up.

At Nerdhaven, casual is the way of things. Atlas, who use to be the boss of UXDir, typically stalks the halls in a faded tee shirt and jeans. Until recently, Atlas has been showing up in a button up shirt - so there have been more than a few jokes about them bucking for a promotion.

But really, when you see all the managers dressed up, it's an All Staff day.

This All Staff was different. This would be the first one since Olympus assumed the role of GM. The first one since NerdHaven had the first layoff. Six FTEs were just let go and this would be the meeting that laid it all out. The how and the why.

Not the who, though. I've never understood this, but the one piece of information that folks want most is the one that does not get brought up directly. Who got canned? I can't imagine there is a lower thing to do that to just put up a list of those who were let go, but honestly - folks want to know who will no longer be around. It's not like we won't find out eventually. Might as well pull the scab off now. But that's not how it's done. When CorpWorld fired 86 people on Black Wednesday, all they did was send out an updated org chart - which made technology scrape the text of the new one and the old one and run Beyond Compare to see who got axed.

UX knew Heater was canned, but nothing else. Prior to the meeting, Olympus sent around a powerpoint deck with a revised org chart, but it wasn't a lot of help. First off, it looked to be the product of several different authors, each with a different way of looking at the organization. Some groups included their contractors, some didn't. Some represented hierarchies among people who reported to the same person, some didn't. Our group's chart made it look like I was at the same level as Gumby or Devil - and that was definitely not the case. Gumby used to be my boss for Chrissake, and yes, we both reported to Product Actual, but they clearly ranked me.

Org charts are documents fraught with all kinds of unintended meaning. I'm fairly certain that whoever put the chart for UX/Product was just making sure all the people were connected to Product Actual. Runner seized on some subtext that I'm convinced was just oversight. "Why is Dash at the top of our group?"

Which is a good question. Dash was new. If we were going by rank and seniority, our group list should have looked something like:

• Product Actual
• Gumby
• Devil
• Pogue
• Sprint
• Runner
• murph
• Dash
• Red
• (Open)

Instead, it looked like

Product Actual

Gumby - Dash

(Open) - Sprint

Devil - murph

Runner - Pogue

Red

Which sends entirely the wrong message to people like Devil and Pogue (and Runner, apparently). So, by this chart, Dash is up on the food chain and Runner is down. 

Powerpointers of the World, hear me: Thou shalt not phone it in on org charts - all kinds of wrong stuff happens.

I digress.

So the All Staff is going down today and there's no avoiding it. What we'd originally thought was clipping Heater for poor performance was actually part of an organizational earthquake. Today we would get all the why we could handle.

*   *   *

The morning was a blur - I owed Sprint two stories RFD that were hot on the heels of the four stories I gave Dragon yesterday. We review the work with the devs and they clear it, barely. I went way too fast on one of them and missed a few items that I was cleaning up until a few hours ago. I get the lunch notice and happened to be en route to the breakroom when I get it on my phone.

Ahhh lunch. One of the good things about an All Staff. They figure you are essentially missing lunch for a two hour meeting, so the office springs for food. Typically, it's just subs, chips and cookies, but it's free. This time, no cookies. I run into Pepe and they laugh, "Cookies are for people who make their numbers!!"

That's sure to be a part of today's meeting. NerdHaven is not shy about spelling out the economic picture to everyone. Everyone cares because everyone's bonus depends on us making our commitments. The buzz up until now is not good. I'm thinking we might not get a bonus this year.

All Staffs are on the ground floor, in a common space used by other businesses. I file in late and end up sneaking into the back row seconds before the show kicks off. I'm next to Runner and Dash, just behind Gumby. UX still hanging together, even though we are Product people now. 

Olympus is at the podium and launches into an apology for having to talk at length, but it has to be done. Olympus is a polished speaker, does this kind of thing all the time. And they fire up Powerpoint.

God, I hate powerpoint. Tufte is right, Powerpoint is for presenters, not for audiences. But Olympus is restrained and sensibly avoids most of the common mistakes of tiny fonts and overly dense slides.

They get right to the point. We have made organizational changes that will, as most of you know, affect six of your colleagues. Not too passive, and everyone knows what they are talking about. This does not represent a downsizing, this is truly restructuring. As a matter of fact we will be adding eleven positions to our company. Between additional staff and other investments, we will be adding [x] million dollars of investment in the company this year.

This is a relief. Nobody wanted to think NerdHaven was in trouble financially. We didn't make our numbers, but our numbers were for growth targets. Yes, we'd all be happier if we hit those, but growing slower than plan is a hell of a lot better than shrinking. And we are not shrinking.

Whew.

Olympus reviewed the good and the bad of the past year. I note that Arwafn is slotted under the bad. There is no other place it could be, but seeing (again) that my signature project is an open wound this far along in its existence makes me squirm. We have months of work with PofC to fix Filter B. And that's just to get us back to a baseline of what folks wanted. I have at least four other features to add to Arwafn to get it to a point where I would feel good about washing my hands and moving on to the next thing. That's assuming I get that work prioritized and...

I look up and Olympus is on to the org charts. 

GMs get to do a lot and Olympus has moved swiftly to reorganize the VP level of NerdHaven. Their protege, Juice, is a new VP (has been for awhile now) and others in their favor have neatly moved up. Data's prediction came true: Remote is now the VP of Product at NerdHaven. They were part of our temporary "sister company" but now that we are no longer conjoined at the hip, Remote is still with us - officially. 

Atlas looks to have been demoted. My memory of org charts is always suspect, but Portal and TheDude used to report to Atlas, and now they are peers. That just makes me sick. Atlas is the most hardworking, generous person I've known in tech - and they were gunning for higher office in NerdHaven. They've been denied promotion twice now, and this was them actually moving down the ladder. I worry about them. We've had some tech challenges lately, and if all of them are landing on Atlas...

...well, that would just be sh!tty.

Olympus wraps up with a view downrange of where we are headed strategically and at the end, I'm convinced that the Heater thing is not the ominous thing I thought it was. I believe NerdHaven was looking to get rid of Heater for performance reasons and a re-org came along and allowed them to do it faster. That's crappy, but really - Heater was not getting it done. 

Listening to Olympus lay out their vision for the company, it is clear: they have a plan, and they have been busting their butt to get things moving so the market doesn't get ahead of us. NerdHaven is well positioned, but there are always threats. We got complacent for the past few years, this will not be allowed to happen again.

Next up is Juice. A lot of resentment has cruised through NerdHaven about the meteoric rise of Juice, but the fact is - they are smart, driven, and they get stuff done. Juice lays out their team's accomplishments and responsibilities - which seals the deal for me. Juice's team has a brutal schedule of ramping up clients and keeping them supported. If they can do that and live, they get my vote.

Then comes Remote. Today's meeting is Remote's coming out party for officially joining NerdHaven's org chart. They will run Product, and so they are now the boss of my new boss in perpetuity. Remote's love of Powerpoint does not translate into effective delivery of visual information. The fonts are small, the graphics - impenetrable. Remote is a good speaker and gets most of their points across. For some reason, they believe that Noddy's last project was a success. Oh, and UX will be working closer with the SMEs. 

I don't know why this makes me unhappy, but it does. The SMEs are a smart bunch, with highly technical degrees and experience in the field. Working with them should be a no-brainer. But we've always managed to step on each other's toes. The SMEs have the expertise to inform our designs, but they are not designers. But design is fun - and everyone imagines that what they want is what everyone wants. One of our SMEs, MontBlanc, is particularly headstrong. They have been proven right enough to be dangerous, but the mindset of "just do what I want" is a dangerous thing. Sooner or later you will pay. I believe regular contact with the SMEs is the cure for our social differences, but procedurally - adding more cooks to the kitchen will not increase our velocity.

And we are not getting it done as a business unit.

Finance steps up next to deliver the news that everyone is sweating at this time of year. Bonuses depend on our unit and our corporate unit hitting our numbers. Finance tells us that our corporate unit has failed. At best, our bonus this year will be half of what it could be. Odds are, it won't be the best scenario. Finance goes through the rest of the numbers which show us not hitting our growth target, but still growing. Its not good news, but not truly bad.

Last up is Olympus again. NerdHaven typically gives an award for great performance since the last meeting - an award where anyone can be nominated by a peer, and management selects a winner. This time, with Olympus head down cranking out the new business plan and the re-org - there hasn't been time. Olympus apologizes and tells us all they've selected some people for recognition for exceptional performance. They stress the usual disclaimers - picking these folks isn't meant to sleight anyone - but they wanted to point out some folks who have really done well in their opinion.

Olympus taps their deck and a gold star appears on the screen with a name in it.

And it is Data. First name picked! Which is awesome. Data has been doing battle with an insanely difficult government protocol for an insanely difficult client and has come out of it with a genuine win. The protocol will become easier for our client (and everyone else - this protocol has never been done before, precisely because no one did what Data did: TALK to the govt about it). I'm cheering for them. They have struggled in obscurity to convince folks that data stewardship is key to our product. With Olympus calling them out - it is clear that a rubicon has been crossed. The GM knows that Data is a key player now. This is good for all of us. 

But really, Yea! Yea for Data!

Olympus taps the deck. Another star. A name I don't know. NerdHaven has a lot of departments I never see - but Olympus makes a point of describing the person's unit and what they've done for the company.

And again, and again. I briefly hope that I'll be up there, but it's clear that the names are in alpha order and they are way past where my name would be. I'm hoping Olympus will tag somebody in UX or on BigDog's team. But there looks to be room for only six stars on the slide and the sixth one is someone in contracts who does the unenviable job of making sure our phonebook sized contracts are signed and sealed so we can begin taking the client's money. Olympus does a nice job of spelling out what this person has done for the organization, staying up until 3am to book business to make deadlines. Literally giving every spare minute to getting new clients on the books. 

Rockin.

Six stars called out by Olympus in front of the whole company. Yeah, it's not a bonus check, but knowing that the GM personally appreciates what you're doing has gotta be one hell of a shot in the arm.

Olympus taps their deck. Another star comes up.

Its me.

"Where is murph? I thought I saw them?" Olympus asks. Hands point to me and Olympus begins telling everyone about how they appreciate my efforts on Arwafn. 

I'm literally dumbstruck. I haven't been in a meeting with Olympus since Arwafn blew up - well over six months ago... Runner's giving me the "whaddaya know about that?" look and I manage to mouth 'thank you' to the GM.

They go to Q&A, then we file out and Portal gives me an attaboy. Portal. The cynic with a soft heart. They're happy for me.

And its about then that I realize what a freight train Arwafn has been. It is nowhere close to done - but it has been an all consuming thing. NerdHaven has promised to make it right, and even if they hadn't I sure have. This thing will work. I will make sure of it.

I'm just glad it hasn't been in total obscurity. Because this sh!t ain't easy. 

Managers, take note: taking the time to notice the efforts of folks outside your immediate circle is good for any number of reasons - but it does wonders for morale.

Yeah, I didn't get a formal award trophy - or the usual gift card.

But I got a Gold Star from Olympus.

That's pretty solid.

Carli Lloyd Willed It - Thus, It Is So

I'm just gonna put this here for now... because, DAMN:




Carli Lloyd can do whatever the hell she wants:

Götterdämmerung

Scoreline - June 30, 2015
USA: 2
Lloyd 69' PK; O'Hara 84'
Germany: 0

Biggest match up in women's soccer history.

Everything to prove - against Germany.

And we OWNED them.

Dream Team? Yeah, kinda.


Everybody was playing out of their minds: Holiday, Brian, Sauerbrunn, Krieger, Lloyd, O'Hara, Heath, Rapinoe, Klingenberg, Morgan, Solo....

Oh, and Johnston! Hell, yeah, Johnston - I'd say the player of the tournament - but Lalas said that, and I swore a blood oath to disagree with everything that man says.

Still - Johnston - what a game - offense, defense - and YES - she pulled down an attacker in the box, but the Soccer Gods decreed that this would not stop us.

Johnston: Clearly better than you.

And the crowd... Just magic - Morgan's first big shot wide had the place jumping outta their seats.

Lloyd? Flat out aces. Old Guard? I'm fricking DRIVING this bus.

Swarming midfield, Solo psyching out Sasic...

Yes, Germany can pout about the PK, but they had their chance and blew it. Crappy calls are part of Soccer - and lord knows, the US has had their share. (You think I forget? I FORGET NOTHING).

This was the culmination of the USWNT's campaign. They were on their game against the world's best and beat the crap out of them.

I feared for this team in the group play, but they are clearly on afterburners now.

Go USA.

Farewell to Megatron

I'm in our stakeholder meeting, a few weeks ago - presenting one of our new features done by the west coast devs and things are not going according to plan.

Being me, I blurt out "That's not right."

In front of a crowd is never the right time to encounter a new bug. Yet it happens.

I try a few more times, before realizing that the app is behaving fine, I've just completely misread what was happening.

I reset, and get the demo done and hand things over to Noddy.

Noddy launches into their part of the demo - a feature that was supposed to be RFD in January that is only now taking tangible shape in code. Noddy's dev's have endured missing requirements, late requirements, incomplete requirements - and late edits when they were still coding.

Noddy has created features with a single requirement - that is wrong. Noddy's feature work has spawned endless "fix it" stories, to correct some omission or other mistake. Each correction will require changes to automated testing, more time and additional expense.

But now, Noddy has landed the first wedge of their feature - and it's...

...it's a mess. The overall problem that this feature is supposed to solve - CANNOT be solved directly by our product. This feature's value rests on the dubious assumption that our users (who hate data entry) will enter data into our application, print out that data, and then re-enter the same data into the Nachen website.

This makes sense to absolutely no one.

Because Noddy has been on this feature, it is being built in incredibly small slices of functionality. Which is agile, but the fact is this feature is a webform. Something as basic as a webform does not need to have a lot of slices to be built by an agile shop.

Sure, you can say, build me the basic form without the ability to validate it. Then validate it. Then make the printout. Then show me how to find all the forms I've filled out. And so on.

Noddy has turned this into story pong, where features are added - then moved, then shifted to other stories, and finally landing in a heap right before a looming deadline.

Noddy's built their form, and it's maybe a third of what it needs to be in order to be a basic, dumb form. The stakeholders are not mean, but they ask pointed questions until Noddy starts deflecting in their usual way. Talking technical and promising future work until people lose interest.

Pinning Noddy down is just too much work sometimes. Even I've given up most of the time.

The meeting ends and I'm off to get a beverage. I meet HockeyTwo in the breakroom. They laugh at my struggles in the demo, but as they put it "at least you fess up to problems. If that had been Noddy? They'd have pressed on, never said a word, and hoped nobody noticed."

It's a remarkable how often a co-worker can (out-of-the-blue) break into a critical observation about Noddy.

*     *     *

The Noddy effect. It's amazing.

I've been in the hallway and been accosted by co-workers, "GOD, Noddy is just so good at pissing people off, huh?"

I've been at team building exercises that have turned into full blown Noddy venting sessions. One of my co-workers related the story where once, at a work sponsored family fishing outing, their six year old child had caught a fish and wanted to catch-and-release like everyone around them.

Noddy had intervened and told this child (mind you, someone else's six year old child) that "No, that fish is invasive, you need to kill it."

Now, I can imagine saying something along those lines, in the absence of thought. I might do that. But faced (as Noddy was) with a weeping six year old asking Why? Why does my fish have to die? 

-most of us would reconsider. Not Noddy. They insisted - to a six year old - that the fish must die.

And on and on. Ad nauseum to anyone unfortunate enough to be near an employee of NerdHaven. Everyone has a Noddy story.

*     *     *

I leave the breakroom and head back towards my desk, then I remember I have something to check on with Dragonman.

On the way there, I see Atlas talking to Noddy. Atlas wants Noddy to meet with them in their office. Noddy is begging off, they have to do something, but Atlas is insistent, "Right after."

Now, I know Noddy's been on the hot seat for a while now. In fact, most people on UX know that as well. Noddy gets regular meetings with the boss, and a host of performance monitoring activities have become the norm for our entire team.

Hearing Atlas wants to meet with Noddy is filed away.

*     *     *

The day goes on. I'm back to my desk. Runner, Dash and I have our own little UX Shangri-La, separate from our team, and a genuinely nice setup. Windows, natural light and plant life.

Plus? No Noddy.

Our team hired two more devs and there weren't enough chairs for everyone, so Runner and I volunteered to move to the next room.

Noddy offered to move as well - and BigDog was about to go along with it, logic being move all of the UX crew at once - but Runner shot BigDog a look that could maim.

And BigDog pivoted on a dime. "murph and Runner will move over to the other room." Noddy would end up staying in the team room. In a way, this made the most sense. Noddy would be creating work for the team, while Runner and I were doing work exclusively for the west coast devs.

But mostly, we were sick to the brim of Noddy.

I've thought long (way too long) about what I think of Noddy as a co-worker.

They are not:

1. Honest
2. Hardworking
3. Diligent; or
4. Professional

Above that, they have a disastrous personality and virtually everyone hates their guts. 

Runner deserved a break, and I was happy to get one as well. With the new UXer, Dash - we've got a great thing going. Dash is cool - and a pro.

I miss our devs, but I love our new digs.

I ground out some work for the rest of the day, and was on the way out when I run into OneTwentyEight. 

"What's up with Noddy?"

Huh?

"After showcase, they came back, groused something about 'might as well hand in my resignation' and left in a huff."

!!!

This news is positively electric. Nobody wants to call it out as fact, but everyone is thinking it.

Noddy is gone??  

*     *     *

The next day, Noddy is nowhere, and their laptop is missing. Questions are asked at standup, but no one has solid info. Someone thinks that Noddy's child was in the hospital. This is greeted with a certain amount of disappointment. 

Later that morning, we get an email from the boss: Noddy has a family emergency and will be out until the next week.

So that's it. 

Runner is jubilant. Noddy is gone! But family emergency has me wondering - if they are gone, the boss would just say so. I remember all the crazy with H, that dragged on and they ended up coming back. I don't want to get happy too soon.

But days roll on and Noddy does not come back. Frankly, with Arwafn blowing up and damage control in full swing - I don't notice their absence. 

The next week, Gumby tells everyone that Noddy will be gone "indefinitely." This gets all the rumor mills flying, but there's still precious little to go on. Noddy's not here, and we don't know when or if they will be back.

*     *     *

I speculate openly with HockeyOne & HockeyTwo - towards the end of the week, I'm feeling flip and launch into "I think this may be it."  HockeyTwo is skeptical, but clearly thinks this would be great news. Noddy being gone has created a news item, and more than a few water cooler discussions stray into what if?

*     *     *

And then its Thursday, and I walk into standup late. I've been in some catchup session with Gumby or something or other - I've been running late for everything lately - and I blow into the team room right behind Runner.  They look pissed.

The team goes through the standup routine and BigDog is going through their list -

- And I see Noddy back into view. They'd been standing right behind Runner such that I couldn't see them at all. 

And there's the answer. When's Noddy coming back? Right now.

And they are back with a vengeance. We get the story on their child being hospitalized - they are okay now, but it sounded like quite an ordeal - and then Noddy is back onto muddling their way through their allotted work. They have meetings with Ihaq, and are working with Ahhh, the new UX in the west coast office.

Ahhh is a special case, and I'm starting to think that Noddy and Ahhh are on the same page. Noddy can wield a firehose of bullsh!t and I'm afraid Ahhh is starting to think Noddy is credible.

For that matter, I'm worried that Ahhh & Dash are going to need the talk about Noddy in the near future. Runner and I have studiously avoided talking to Dash or Ahhh about the Noddy situation. We'd hoped that the situation would be sorted out before it became necessary, but that hasn't happened.

Dash and Ahhh deserve to know that Noddy should not be relied on. That their pronouncements on Nachen work should be double-checked - always. 

They need to know that Noddy is borderline useless in a great many ways - but...

How do you start that conversation? I want Dash and Ahhh to make their own conclusions. I don't want to just start in with "Noddy's a useless hump," but I don't know a middle ground. I've punted and avoided the issue.  When Dash needs to work with Noddy, Runner and I try to assist.

Dash is no fool, and they have to know that there is a schism between Noddy and the rest of UX - but watching them struggle to collaborate with Noddy is hard. We want to jump in and say "Forget what Noddy is saying, do what you think is right."

The devs hold their fire as well. They are pros, and they are focused on getting work done, not smoothing things out for the new UXers. Sooner or later, they will figure it out on their own.

*    *     *

I'm running late on a Wed and want to check in with the boss before standup. Gumby's in their office meeting with Portal and Noddy on something, so I head to the desk and chat up Runner.

BigDog strolls into UX Shangri-La.

"One at a time, I need all of you to come to BigSad." BigSad is the main conference room.

Runner & Dash are confused - thinking we are each to go to BigSad by ourselves and then come back before the next person goes.

I took it to mean we were all to go to BigSad, but one by one so as not to make a big deal out of things.

I have a momentary flash of panic. OMG BigDog is leaving! Which would be biblically bad. BigDog is awesome and they are about to have another child. Why would they change jobs? They can't do that to us!

*     *     *

We make BigSad together, contrary to orders. Most of the team is there. BigDog tells us to close the door and starts in.

"No other way to say this, but to say it..."

Please, no.

Just no.

I love working with BigDog, they are awesome. They are the most supportive dev I have every worked with - and they kill it in the dev space. Their status as team lead has taken them away from the coding they love and they've been clearly frustrated by it... And they've been fed a steady diet of crap work by Noddy.

OMG, Noddy - if you've cost us BigDog, I will personally-

BigDog finishes in a rush.

"Noddy is being let go today. Portal asked me to get the team out of the room so it won't get awkward."

*     *     *

When the moment finally arrived - it was a total ambush. I was exhausted from the Arwafn grind, terrified that BigDog was leaving, and frankly - numb.

Of course. Portal. Duh. They always do the reaper work.

And today they showed Noddy the door.

Noddy. The person who has caused untold misery and wasted hours - will burden us no longer.

I made an excuse to go to the breakroom and get a beverage. Before coming back, I swung by HockeyTwo.

On the down low, deliverance is at hand.

HockeyTwo nodded somberly. They were totally on the same page.

Back in BigSad, we are told the information is close hold until we hear specifically that it is not.

Oops, already blew that. Odds are good HockeyTwo has at least told HockeyOne.

After a brief stay in BigSad, we are allowed to go back to our desks. Noddy has already been shown the door.

*     *     *

Official word comes during yet another Arwafn meeting. Gumby sends out an email to our team announcing Noddy no longer works at Nerdhaven. 

I'm sitting across from Teacher, who utterly detested Noddy - and have to share. With Gumby's email maximized on screen, I spin my laptop around and offer it to Teacher.

We're on a phone conference, so Teacher keeps composure, but leans over to Juice and relays the news in a whisper. Juice looks at me, eyes wide and I make the touchdown sign.

Somehow, spreading the news makes it real.

This has really happened.

*     *     *

The team went out for a celebratory lunch, and we read Dash into the situation. Dash took it well. "I guess I don't have to feel bad about wanting to redesign all of Noddy's work, then."

Nope!

Later, I'm in the hall and I run into SnT, a wonderful human being who does great, high stress work and yet still finds time to be amazingly nice. 

Did you hear?? I want to say, but SnT's clearly clued in. This news has whipped through NerdHaven like a shockwave.

SnT and I swap Noddy stories for a bit and they're all like "I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after that whole egg-kicking thing, I just knew they were a total asshole."

To hear someone as generous as SnT launch into profanity is no small thing.

I laugh and share our nickname for him "We called them Noddy."

SnT blinks.

"Because they were always falling asleep."

SnT busts out laughing. "We called them Megatron."

(apparently, Noddy was fond of using a particular buzzword that ended in '-tron' - thus, Megatron).

I bust out laughing, and we stand there laughing in the hall until we have to explain ourselves to a passing co-worker. And then they start laughing.

*     *     *

And before folks start accusing me and mine of being mean spirited, I would like to offer the following justification.

I tried for over a year to be sympathetic to Noddy. I gather their home life is not easy. But I have watched this person bring misery and additional work to a team I am very fond of for a very long time. 

An untold amount of work was wasted cleaning up after Noddy and stepping up to do stuff they should have done. 

Noddy added stress and uncertainty to the team - and very little else.

Everyone at NerdHaven gets to be happy that those burdens have been lifted from them.

I can separate any feelings of empathy for Noddy and their family from that. Yes, I hope things don't go too badly for them. I genuinely hope they land on their feet. That they find work that inspires them to actually do the work and not just phone it in.

And I sincerely feel sympathy for Noddy's family.

A family whose chosen breadwinner decided to surf Ebay for collectables rather than do their effing job. 

Who, when faced with the prospect of imminent professional death, chose to continue the same half-assed everything that landed them in hot water in the first place.

That family deserves sympathy.

But mostly, I'm happy for my team. The UX lost a staff member and productivity will increase. Morale will improve.

And we will do better work for our customers. 

We get to be happy about that. 

Free and clear.

Derailment, part IV

That's not Agile!

I cannot tell you how often these words are uttered these days. Arwafn has gone over the cliff, and Nerdhaven has had to publicly walk back from its launch posture of "Wow, look at this!" to the less inspiring message of "Watch this space."

Upper management is involved to an alarming degree.

Faced with the possibility of completely shutting down Arwafn, dev effort was flung at the TURN issue to determine which customers could retain the feature and which could not. The SMEs drew a line in the sand and in the end, about a third of our customers could keep the feature.

Which would be encouraging, if it weren't for the filters. Arwafn has more than a few, and two of them in particular are near total flops. Both are based on fields that customers have never been required to supply. We'd assumed they were, and our limited beta tests looked promising. Data flowed in, and the filters acted on that data.

Trouble was, that data was crap. For some customers, Filter A's key field was being populated only 20% of the time - or was co-mingled with another field, rendering it unusable. In beta, these filters appeared to work, but what they would show was wildly inaccurate.

In beta - our users were not doing a rigorous comparison between their system's data, and what Arwafn was showing. Our users viewed the beta sessions as a preview - play time. And while they surely care about the accuracy of the report - they evaluated Arwafn based on what they imagined it was doing.

Fellow UXers of the world: learn from me. Spell out exactly what you want your beta testers to do. If you need them to do system testing, you need to tell them that. Regardless, you should ensure that your feature has system testing with live data before you green light it for wider release.

But some customers had good data. And there were options for us to explore - an alternate key field might get us there. It would mean an immense amount of re-tooling, though. The thought of it made my mind hurt.

Filter A was the good one.

Filter B was based on a field that not only had issues with being populated only some of the time, when it was populated it was almost always the right kind of data - at the wrong point in time.  Filter B is supposed to present its value as of a specific moment - and it was showing a value that was a few days later. And those few days were killing us.

We had a few customers who were happy to get the data at all - even asked for Filter B to be left on despite the time shift - but Arwafn is supposed to follow a standard. A few days later was not the standard. With over 100 clients active on the report, we only found 1 who had a working Filter B.

Worse, when I spoke with Data about our prospects for getting Filter B working, I read out the point in time requirement and Data just groaned. "If we ask the customers to send us an entirely new set of data, we could get closer to what is needed. But the literal criteria for Filter B does not exist in any data element that I know of."

For the millionth time, I ask myself - How is it I am learning this now? How did we get to the point where we have code in production, and I literally just found out that the data point I need does not exist?

And I don't have a good answer for that.

UX was primarily focused on the front end stuff - what the user sees and touches - and the back end stuff (where the digital bodies are buried) was supposedly the realm of other smart people. Our former UXDir encouraged us to provoke the change by asking for things without looking under the hood. "We'll figure it out," they'd say, "we can't design based on just what we have now, or we'll never make new things."

And there is a point there. If every design is vetted against the current codebase, legacy code limits what your customers get.

Fellow UXers of the world: learn from me. If a feature is dependent on a lot of user supplied data, design it to fail gracefully when some or all of those elements don't show up.

That's pretty basic, but its one thing to nod at a good idea in principle, it's quite another to realize that your feature is built on a house of cards while you are working on it. When all of this was happening, it all seemed so...right. And now Arwafn was a pile of roadkill in the middle of the road.

*     *     *

And everyone was rushing in to help. Which is great, but with upper management calling folks out, the agile culture in NerdHaven was beginning to crack.

Upper management said: Turn off Filters A and B. NOW.

And NerdHaven jumped to obey. Devs created branch code, stopped all other feature work and slammed two shutoff switches for Filters A and B into production. Devs were up in arms, because upper management never tells NerdHaven to work on this feature or that feature - and now they were.

But a fire was burning and this would put it out, so everyone got it done.

Next up was the TURN problem - and dear God what a mess. Telling upper management that the key value for Arwafn is being adulterated by our product was the easy part. Management realized there was a problem and TURN fit that bill. Resources were allocated to fix this issue and commandments were given.

FIX THIS. NOW.

The problem was, as we fixed TURN for Arwafn, we realized that TURN was used all over our product - and fixing it for just Arwafn would mean that other features would be out of synch with Arwafn.

Mind you, I'd always thought of Arwafn as a modest feature - and it is. Just a little report in one corner of the product. But TURN is a value that is used in the NumeroUno feature, and Nachen work, and more besides.  I spoke with Sprint when we started fixing TURN and they gave me the full list of what they knew would be affected and it was alarming.

Then, in the middle of one of our situation room meetings for Arwafn, I started spelling that out to the group.

This launched another round of anxiety telephone and soon fixing the TURN issue for Arwafn, became fix TURN everyGoddamnWhere.

Which meant the scope of work just ballooned - which naturally had to be reported up the food chain.

Upper management's response was predictable:

FIX EVERYTHING NOW. AND SWEAR IN BLOOD THAT THIS WILL BE THE LAST OF THE TURN PROBLEMS.

Now, you're an agile dev shop and you get this kind of directive. What do you say to that? There is absolutely no guarantee that we will get everything in one go.

The SMEs are being asked to sign in blood that everything is fine from their perspective - and they are already anxious about the current state of things. They don't see everything and now they want to see EVERYTHING.

We've got SMEs crawling down our necks asking for more access and more analysis. And then Gumby's asked to provide proof that UX has discussed our designs with SMEs (in a meeting, with no warning - so they don't have that information, which itself becomes a thing)...

...and now we're careening towards Waterfall.

Waterfall: an epithet in dev shops. Shorthand for let's add more analysis and more documentation and more signoffs and when that doesn't result in a perfect product - slow down and add still more analysis/docs/signoffs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

All the UX folks hate this idea with a passion, and I pointedly ask if this change is the new way of things going forward, or just until we get Arwafn/TURN fixed.

Gumby is direct, "this is going forward."

I feel like throwing up. Yes, we steered the company in the ditch, but we learned a boatload and absolutely nobody wants to go through that again. We will be more vigilant, and we don't need more goddamn documentation.

I point out (for the umpteenth time) that more SME contact in our process would not have caught our data issues. The SMEs don't go under the hood any more than UX does. But we have experts in house who do, and we will be joined at the hip with them the next time we roll out features driven by client data.

Let's do that, I say, before we get all process heavy. We are already getting berated for being slow, all this bloat is not going to make software happen faster.

Wasn't this why Agile was invented? to prevent this kind of stuff?

But the powers that be are unassailable - we will add process and hope this will get better  - or blow over.

Or something.

*     *     *

Today was a day that threatened to be the end of all things. I was roped into three meetings in a row, one about some future data issue I knew absolutely nothing about, one with the SMEs to discuss their (well aged) laundry list of desired features (that have absolutely nothing to do with Arwafn/TURN), and one that I was dreading most of all: a review of all our Arwafn/TURN work with the SMEs.

The laundry list meeting was a total bust - the SMEs want us to build what they want (as opposed to what Product has prioritized, or what the customers want). Their list of wants will solve issues that the SMEs have experienced, but may not do much to address root causes of user pain. And it is very unclear if all the items on the list should be solved with more computer code. Some might literally be user error. And all of the items are broadly worded concerns that cannot be vetted without specific examples of the behavior in question.

Sprint is in the meeting with Gumby and I and (heroically) volunteers to vet the list for the SMEs. I say (as diplomatically as I can) that this list should be given to our support staff, who can explain the inner workings of the application and perhaps get to the root of the matter without us trying to build a solution based on a speculative issue. I'm not sure the message took, but Gumby and Sprint are clearly way ahead of me. They want to do right by the SMEs, but route support work to support resources.

And then the review meeting. I wanted to keep my hackles in check, but this had all the hallmarks of being a "why did you put the button there?" kind of discussion. One of the SMEs, Ihaq, had ridiculed our design of a new form and I was dreading a new session of "Move that button, because I want you to."

The lead SME was Voldemort: brilliant, hardworking and overworked beyond all reason. They started out with a few probing questions which Gumby fielded for the first few minutes. Ihaq was there and clearly confused about what we would be running through. They had a few questions they wanted to run through before we got started. Ihaq's questions are never brief, and usually involve follow ups.

It was getting awkward.

When we got to the list of feature work, Gumby gave me the podium.

At the risk of appearing arrogant - I am pretty good at explaining things. So long as I understand something, I can transfer that information to pretty much anyone.

And the work we've been neck deep in for the past two months is stuff I can't help but understand. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about this stuff.

Grok it? Hell, I wrote it.

And I go to town. You have a question, Ihaq? I got you. Voldemort wants clarity on the hideously technical matter of historical TURN values?  I got you, too.

And as soon as I realize that the SMEs are (rather predictably, I might add) solid professionals trying to do their jobs - the tension goes out of the meeting. The SMEs are not there to grill us, or re-design our work - they are literally trying to understand where the work is now and where it will be when we are all done.

Gumby asked our new UXer, Dash, to study our stakeholder demos and they pointed out a host of issues with how we present our work and how it is consumed and retained.

Predictably, shortcomings in our presentations leave lasting misunderstandings in the SMEs as well as others in our organization.

Having this Q and A session allowed us to close that gap for Voldemort and Ihaq at least, and at the end of it - it was a really good feeling.

Voldemort was exultant "That was awesome."

And I cannot tell you how much better that made damn near everything.

Yes, we have a metric sh!t-ton of work ahead of us, but we are beginning to round the corner and we've started to mend things with the SMEs.

The technical work is in flight, the release date is set. Our culture has taken a massive hit to the jaw.

But if today was any indication-

We can do this.

A Nearly Perfect Feeling

OneTwentyEight is back - shaken a bit, and doubling down on a healthy diet - now that they are back. DKA is no joke - and they were being treated for sepsis.

NerdHaven is teaching me about a number of medical things - and sepsis is one of them that stuck with me. Once it starts, your odds of surviving drop by about 10% every hour or so.

OneTwentyEight knows this - they learned it at the same talk I did. Thankfully, the treatment for it is simple and effective. Once treatment began, OneTwentyEight was in the clear.

But they are not indulging like they used to - and our team is trying to do the same things as before (bringing in bagels, running for take out) without being insensitive. Hey! Who wants stuffed crust?

Things are stabilizing.

Noddy has reached a new level of annoying. So much so - that Runner, Sprint and I have regular meetings where we b!tch about Noddy. It's starting to affect productivity.

In the interest of not annoying the crap out of people I will skip over Noddy's latest entry into the D-bag Hall of Fame - and point out a small something that made me smile.

Today, we were meeting with Product - in kind of a big deal discussion of an upcoming project. And - as they have in countless meetings before - Noddy starts dozing off.

This has become so commonplace - that Runner and I share a brief eyeroll and get back to the meeting. Which is sad - shouldn't we do something? Say something? But what would we do? Hey, Noddy! Wake the hell up, huh? That would go out over the teleconference and into the recording.

I'm thinking.... well, I dunno - that I don't want to go there.

About the time I've forgotten about Noddy, I look over at Product and they are looking at Noddy. Then they look at me, feign like they are passing out and give me a look as if to say "Is that really happening?"

Runner and I just look back at Product. Hellyea that is happening.

It's petty of me - I know. But somebody outside of UX is noticing that Noddy sleeps on the job.

But that's not the good thing I wanted to talk about.

Back when I was bailing out of CorpWorld - I was contacted by the President of UX Candy Land. One of those "I hear music" kind of contacts. Full on awesome and (naturally) I'd just taken another job that would implode on me in seven months.

Thanks, but no thanks, PerfectJob...I'm gonna climb aboard this sinking ship. Bon Voyage!

I'd pointed Candy Land's president towards Stimpy - who was on professional life support over at CorpWorld - and let PerfectJob slip away.

Now, of course - Candy Land wouldn't be the perfect job for me. The commute's longer and - aside from Noddy - my current job is just awesome.

So today, out of the blue - the President of Candy Land contacts me again. He's looking for someone to do UX work for him. Short term - with the possibility of turning into a full time position (yeah, I know. Contract gigs always say that, but I'd lay good odds on this one).

Anyway. I'm genuinely flattered to be contacted again. The President isn't really asking me to apply - they just want to know if I could refer them to some UXers. I'm never going to be well connected - but I got to feel like a known entity in my profession.

In a ridiculously small way, I know.

I can't do this job, and most of the UXers I know are placed, but I ping Stimpy. Stimpy never got a shake at Candy Land last go round. I figure I'l ping them and see if they are up for some short term work.

Stimpy's just back from overseas and they are off CorpWorld's payroll. Not only are they interested, but they've already been contacted by Candy Land. Turns out, Candy Land's President remembers my earlier recommendation of Stimpy and contacted them directly.

Stimpy is so happy - and I'm practically radiating.

I mean - it's going to sound dumb, but no way I get where I am without the help of folks like Sensei, Anjin-san, The Artist, Ruby... hell, everybody in the old crew.

And you say 'thank you' when you can, but it's nowhere close to adequate.  You've altered the trajectory of my life, made it possible for me to better provide for my children... so here's a card I bought in a drugstore.

There's no way to square that.

-But I can help Stimpy.

Its still early, and it may not work out. Or the gig may not go permanent. But the thought of finally being about to do something to help one of the old crew out...

Well, it's the best feeling I've had in a while.

Last One Out, Close the Door

Back when I was in CorpWorld, Ruby called a meeting.

Ruby was about to be let go, but was good with it. They'd had an opportunity come up that they could take only if CorpWorld would let them go.

Almost on cue, Smiler lowered the boom on them. I'd have loved to be inside Ruby's head when they got the news they were free.

I'd imagine some kind of dramatic scene, but these things were handled remotely - by staffing companies.

Ruby probably did a victory lap anyway, and then settled down to be a pro. They wound down all their project work and - since they were part of a now extinct wing of the UX group - they handed over the keys to all the testing and legacy UX files.

Which was what the meeting was about.

Stimpy and I were given access to a raft of directories containing the blood, sweat and grief of a bunch of people who'd been canned - or were about to be.

Ruby guided us through what the files had been - but basically threw up their hands. "There's no one to keep these files anymore." 

The UX group had websites - detailing standards and design patterns - that were seriously good. These used to be maintained by at least four people. Ruby had been the lone caretaker.

Now the files were passing to Stimpy and I, and the fact that neither of us had the dev skills to maintain them was the small issue. The real problem was neither of us could get buckets - nobody would pay us to do the work. 

The three of us were sitting there in the room realizing that the bulk of the UX group's work product was sitting idle and aging into irrelevance. None of us had any illusions that this handoff of files would change their fate. These files were going to get archived - then deleted. We were just changing their "notify next of kin" data.

After the meeting, I spent some time poring over the files. I tried to remove the clearly unneeded files - maybe a smaller overall file size would help save the archive - but there was just a staggering amount of subdirectories. I moved around a few things - and then I renamed the parent directory.

I called it 

/Last one out close the door/ 

And I was.

And I did.

*     *     *

Today was a strange sort of encore, although for very different reasons.

Last time, I was leaving CorpWorld. 

This time, I was going back.

And while I truly feel I've made the right choice, I can't say there aren't a host of regrets.

My colleagues at this gig are an odd bunch. 

BigMac is my favorite. A veteran engineer - loud and unabashed about everything. Days when BigMac was out were the loneliest days at this job.

BankVet was great, too - but they were all the way at the end of the hall and didn't seek out a lot of conversation. If you had a reason to chat with them - the chatting was good - but there were days I'd come to the office - do my stuff and never see another soul.

Which is why I was on Twitter so damn much. I've come to realize that a certain amount of social behavior is required to keep my mood up. At CorpWorld there was no escaping other people. It could be isolating, true. But you would always be dragged in front of your peers. My requirement meetings would always devolve into a good amount of shooting the bull.

Getting to yuk it up with the group doesn't seem important until you find yourself truly isolated.

At the MacShop, the IS group is based in a secured wing of the basement. Each team member has their own office - with doors that lock. Most of the doors sit open - but nobody other than BigMac ever comes out. 

SilentOne spends the entire workday in their office with the lights off. Standing. You can just see their eyes over their monitor. They are nice enough, but the overall appearance is not welcoming.

BankVet's office is lit, but they are either in it or off at a remote site. 

The Prospector's door is always closed. No one knows what they are up to. When I asked BankVet what Prospector does, they replied "Hopefully... nothing."

Morlock's office is outside of the secured wing, owing partly to a desire for a larger office - but no doubt because there is a lot of bad blood between Morlock and the rest of IS.

Morlock comes in after lunch and works well into the night. Communication with Morlock is on their terms and can obliterate your schedule once it starts. 

Morlock. 

Cannot.

Summarize.

Truth? If I had a lot to do, I tried to avoid them. A simple "Hello" could turn into a three hour encounter.

And then there was the Boss. I like the Boss. A lot. But they are almost never around and there is no way that I've found to track their schedule. They show up like weather. Which led to some odd dynamics - the IS group would swarm on them with every deferred need they'd stored up over the past week. And then - poof! - they'd be gone again.

All of this added up to a lot of alone time. Time I should have used to do development work. The Boss asked me to do a single development project during my tenure. And while I'd been assured that nobody would push me to get it done in a hurry - I surely was behind schedule.

Getting the new Corporate gig forced me into the deep end. I couldn't let the Boss down on this. So I would try to learn a host of things I knew very little about.

Like Unix.

The Boss had asked me to do a relatively simple thing like automate some file transfers between a brace of servers. But to a UX guy, this is like asking me to build a bridge. I'd taken exactly the wrong approach - which was to be SERIOUS.

I would buy books and learn about Perl. I would buy a book about shell scripting. I would read them methodically so that I would understand the subject before I just waded in and did something stupid.

From the outside, Unix is a sick beast. A cryptic landscape of /bin/ and grep and awk. 

Read the man page!

Seriously, anytime I see that on a 'nix help forum I want to kick somebody's teeth in. Save your smug RTFM BS for your wargaming buddies, kay?

Man pages are crap. As in 

Here is every possible option for this command explained as tersely as possible. You will never need 95% of these options, but read them all anyway and try to guess which 5% are worth knowing.

Let's begin. 

Command [filename] [option1] [flags] [location] [underlined text] [pointless elipses]

And so on.

YES. Once you know what you need from a command or why the hell you would use it over some other command, then the man pages are invaluable. Does the flag get set by default? And was it Capital R or lowercase r?  These are things man pages help you with.

How will I parse out my log file? is not something a man page can help you with. Man pages are not for people starting from zero.

Me? zero - rather:

ZERO.

But I'd tried to grok the whole of these kinds of things before starting. Read an entire chapter about grep before having the slightest idea what I would be grepping. This was worse than man pages. These were man CHAPTERS - and knowing exactly nothing about what I needed - getting hooked up to the how-to firehose was paralyzing me.

With three weeks before I left the job, I was forced to plunge in and start scripting.

Which is what I should have done in the first place. Once you have some bits that do something, it becomes easier (at least for me) to see what other bits I should reach for next.

And I had spend a bunch of time defining the problem - requirements analysis was my thang. Now, I just had to search for the commands and syntax that would make those things happen.

If I were cooking - this would be getting my ingredients together. What I had been doing before was like trying to make tonight's steak dinner by reading books about animal husbandry.

I'd stupidly tried Perl first - which is a fine choice, but required a lot more rampup - and had the added danger of being Morlock's language of preference. If Morlock would bend your ear for two hours about how you should be doing a home improvement project you'd mentioned in passing, they would be positively omnipresent when they found out about your perl script.

Shell scripting seemed more approachable and - as it turned out - a hell of a lot of fun. Yeah, it's not true programming, but you can do a truly SICK amount of things with shell scripts.

Next thing I know, I'm grepping like a total dork and getting jazzed on making a multipart email work with an MD5 boundary. Oh yeah, I'm on this... Which I'm sure is hilarious to true unix/linux types. But really-the first time you see your tiny blob of text turn into a perfectly formatted email that arrives in your inbox, you feel like a sorcerer.

But this is Unix, so there is always hidden lore lurking in the wild to make you humble. No two servers are alike - so after I get things working on one machine, I find the other machines turn their noses up at my noble little script. I spend days trying to figure out what kinds of permissions I need to do what, and where this key should be stored and howInGodsName I can get sudo on a remote box when I'm coming over as admin without a password?

CHRIST.

But eventually I wrangle together something that does what I've been asked to do. And none too soon. I'm literally getting the first scheduled use of the update two days before I leave. 

And it works - mostly. So I spend the next day cleaning it up and polishing it.

Which leaves today. My last day.

I'm writing up the instructions so that other people can use this thing. I've had several successful tests, but one thing that MacShop is truly bad at is documenting procedure. Information does not flow freely and each worker is an island.

I want this script of mine to be something people understand and can use. So I spend a stupid amount of time illustrating exactly what people need to do to make it work. Then I have BigMac test it out. Then I revise it because there are all kinds of mistakes.

I'm four hours away from being done with this job, and I need to wrap up everything with a bow. The scripts are done, the documentation is done - I need to get my files cleaned up.

I chuck all my digital cruft. Move all my spreadsheets into common locations so they can be used by the IS group. I zip archives of my scripts (we SO need git) and then I'm doing all the follow up work for the database scripts I ran in the past week. BigMac pops over to say goodbye. They leave in the middle of the afternoon, and their day is done. 

I wish them well. I'll miss them. And not just because they throw chocolate at my head on a daily basis.

Back to the file cleanup. Running low on time. The Boss was going to be back at 3 but they never show up when they say they will. I need to give them my keys and badge. 

I start a checklist.

Timesheet! I need to get my timesheet sent in. I'd managed to get it signed, but forgot to send it in.

Boom, done.

I start the ssh-keygen process for the next stage of this process. Stuff I'll never get to do, but stuff that will help the Boss when they take the next logical step.

And Morlock walks by. I make a point of speaking to them. Yesterday was my goodbye lunch and - naturally - the IS group neglected to invite them. As Morlock is utterly paranoid, this is not only hurtful - but is guaranteed to figure in their next round of calculations about who is out to get them. This was a willful omission by IS - and I should have thought to ask them to come. 

I have failed Morlock. And they are verbose, blunt and hard to deal with - but they deserved better.

I chat them up and soon we are half an hour into a discussion about database record locking. Morlock urges me to put my keys and badge in the Boss's office, and I do. Morlock abruptly wanders off in mid-sentence like they always do. At least I got to shake their hand. 

I'm still thinking about that when I realize SilentOne's door is closed. They went home. BankVet didn't come in today. I guess I made my goodbyes with them at lunch. The Boss sends me a text to tell me they won't be back until after I go home.

Which is sad, but leaves me with a more immediate problem: with my keys and badge locked in the Boss's office - I'm now a prisoner of the secure wing. Every door is now a one-way door.

Packing up is now first priority. I bin all the printouts I'd pointlessly made and kept. All my gear goes into my bag. Coat, scarf, hat - all on the bag. Everything in one place. 

Simplified.

I scour the office three times. Anything I leave behind I won't get back. Just like a hotel. There's always something obvious you forget...

Mostly satisfied, I begin drafting the epic send off email - Here's where I left things. Here's where all my files are. Here's all the things that are done. Here's the one thing that isn't. Here's how that should be handled. It was great working with you.

And it was. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of learning and doing. Sh!t got done and I made it happen. I'm about as on top of things as I have ever felt at a job. 

Wrapped up in a bow.

I send the email and look up. It's 5:01.

My phone bongs with a text from my Boss. They are great. They thank me for my work and apologize for being absent on my last day. They say a lot of nice things.

It's after quitting time, so the place would be barren anyway - but it's a Friday. So there's double-nobody here. Add to that, the schools are closed - so anybody who was fool enough to think of being here killed that thought weeks ago.

It's dead quiet. I close all my applications, shut down my ginormous iMac monitor, and get my things.

By chance, I notice my name plate - the one I've lugged through three jobs - is still sitting on my shelf. That nagging part of my brain relaxes and I put the name plate in my bag.

Coat, scarf, hat, bag. That's the essential four. The notepad and pens they can have.

I leave the secure wing.

Morlock went out to get food - so the MacShop is quiet as a tomb. The lights are off and I stand there for a while, thinking about the life I could have had at the MacShop. The Boss could surely use the help. 

But idle thoughts aren't doing anything for me. I've done everything they asked me to do here and next week I'll start full time UX work. Rusty or not, here I come. I put in the earbuds and click. 

Leave your past at
   the front door
      and run away like
         you did before...

Blood Red Shoes. Go figure. It's got a good riff, anyway.

I'm standing there, looking at the way out of MacShop - thinking the obvious thing.

And I was.

So I did.

Somebody Call Glenn Greenwald

'cos the US Mens team's gonna need a place to crash in 2014.

World Cup 2014, baby!

Sure, we looked like total crap - and Beasley tried to score on his own team.
Never mind Fabian can't seem to cross for sh!t and we're missing our stars.

We had this guy:

Eddie freakin' Johnson IN THE HAUS!!

Pay attention, team. Eddie has just demonstrated the proper technique for doing something useful in front of goal. This is a skill that will come in handy in the coming months. Learn it, know it, live it.

I cannot fathom what the hell is happening to Mexico. Dos Santos looked ready to shred us in the first half. Once Eddie headed in his winner, Mexico just seemed to crumple.

Yeah, we tried to play like crap some more - long balls and craptacular passing, but it just wasn't enough. So when Eddie went out with a head injury, that should have been a turning point.

But no, in comes Diskerud who promptly demonstrates that - yes, Virginia, you can cross the ball properly, even if you play for the US.

Clint Dempsey fanned the ball, thinking (as a forward should) that every ball was meant for him - and then Donovan slapped it home with a reckless disregard for the lives of millions of Mexican soccer fans. Their blood is on your hands, Landon, I hope you understand that.

Dempsey even had a chance to make it 3-0 with a penalty, but whiffing on things seemed to be his thing and he shot the ball into the crowd like a total feeb.

Whatever. None of that matters now.

Head up in triumph, or backwards and propelled by the deeds of others - it all adds up to a slot in the finals in Brazil.

I figured we'd get there. I mean, we're in a group with Panama for crying out loud...

What's that? Panama is currently ahead of Mexico, you say?

Now, that's just cruel.

Perhaps the self flagellation occurring south of the border can be blamed on Panama... It's good that they have accomplished something.

I wouldn't want to coach Mexico for all the pesos in TJ. Owch.

But I would cheerfully step over their shattered hulk on my way to watch the US play in the finals...

Whoo-hoo!

Go USA.

The Gods of Irony are Swift and Merciless

Not two minutes after I published my last post, I smugly walked out of the cafe to discover my car had a dead battery.

...and I was between two parked cars...
...so my jumper cables could reach no passing motorists...
...and I was late to meet Sensei and the Artist.

But I found a willing helper who was willing to push my car back so I could connect the jumpers....

...but my car refused to come out of park.

-Really, you have to admire the creative sadism of the irony gods.

You thought you'd be happy, but now...

My Samaritan leaves, so my only choice is to find the owner of one of the two cars that bookend me.

It takes canvassing two nearby businesses, but I find the owner of the car on my right.

He agrees to give me the jump and if all goes well, I can still make lunch.

We connect the cables, and nothing.

Not even a turn from my car.

In desperation, we reset the cables again.
Still nothing.

I try calling Sensei. No luck.

My cables have side pull extensions, which make normal connections worse.

I reseat the connections a third time and start thinking about running to lunch. It's about a ten minute run...

And the car starts.

Psyche!

I thank the man and bolt.

Sensei and the Artist are waiting, and lunch is awesome. They are such great people- and we swap stories of CorpWorld like veterans do.

Nice try, Irony- but I beat you this time. Yeah, they needed to jump my car after lunch - and I'm stuck in Sears dropping $100 on a battery, but you can't stop today from being great.

I met with the old gang and my smile is immune to anything else.

Boo yah.

Now I am Become Hipster

When you're looking to make a statement, picking a venue stocked with the self absorbed is probably unwise.

But, y'know - screw it.

Took a long while to get to this point, and the roots go back farther than I realized.

I guess it started with an article on Wired. Something about that Temple bag stuck in my mind - but good. Now granted, I was never going to blow $500 on a stinking bag, but this was all about the idea.

I mean, I work in design. The ass-end, boring side of it to be sure. But there's this idea that if I'm supposed to be making things that are awesome, I should try to surround myself with some of that.

The Temple bag was all the poser crap writ large. You see, they build them out of surplus WWII duffel bags and (if you believe their video) are assembled by male models using a vintage sewing machine in some old loft apartment.

Y'know, because - bullshit.

But If I'm honest, that's where this idea got started. A cool bag, full of technical toys that will be my personal Bat Utility Belt.

Y'know, because I fight crime.

Anyway, ages ago, I got a license to shop on ThinkGeek.com and I stuck a toe in the water. Got me a Bag of Holding because it's a bag I can relate to on several levels. Next birthday, I bought a bluetooth keyboard for my phone, got the BookBook iPhone case from TwelveSouth and had a few trial runs at a local diner.

But it was not the full blown experience. The keyboard fit in my coat pocket, so I really didn't need to bring the bag. And there is a sad truth about wireless keyboard accessories - the sweet spot for use is a lot smaller than you might think.

For a mobile device, most times it's enough to type a quick reply with your thumbs. Unless you plan to write an epic email, getting out the bluetooth keyboard, syncing it up (and dealing the with odd stuck key moment) is a lot of hassle to support the edge case use.

Plus typing on a portable keyboard to support a iPhone sized screen looks (and feels) a bit dorky. I did manage to write some worthy emails to family, but my idealized blogging on my phone was sabotaged by Blogger's crap mobile UI.  I can only write in HTML? and your autosave always tells me my tags aren't closed? F- you Google.

So meh. A failed attempt. But I was never going to get there - I'm not buying a pen sized document scanner anyway. Especially when all the reviews talk about how its construction is so lousy.

But I got an iPad mini and its BookBook case and tried again. A worthy combination, and to any iPad types out there, I totally recommend the iPad BookBook. Solid case, stylish and very functional. If it had a spot to store earbuds it would be even better, but I can deal.

Still not the full blown jet-setting UX poser look I was gunning for.

But now the new gig wants me to work on a Mac, so I've bought the Mac. And it fits in the Bag of Holding, nicely - thank you.

I'm between jobs for today at least, and so I'm in a - gasp - Starbucks, making a full on poser out of myself. I'm re-connecting with Sensei and the Artist, 'cos they're awesome, and nothing to do but...

Whip out the laptop. I think I'll blog a bit - like you do.

A latte? What?

Don't mind if I do.

I might even push up my shades, slap some earbuds in and spool up the iPhone.

"Play Song - 'South Tacoma Way.'"

And there it is.

Blogging in a cafe on my laptop. The caffeine's wailing on my synapses and Neko's crushing it

It's the twilight of our old home...

Yeah, I'm shaved and mostly cleaned up, but I'm about as hip as I am capable of becoming. A look around confirms that nobody else around me knows I'm alive.

I'm part of the ambient cafe vibe.

But if the me of two years ago walked in right now he'd take one look at the now me and think.

I hate you so very very much. How are you sitting here on a weekday? Why don't you get a job?

And they'd have a point, and in a day or so - I will get a job, and go back to being responsible. I'll put all the iToys back in the bag and resume being a person who does useful things and could give a flying F*$% about what vibe they're throwing off.

A month ago I was a desperate wreck of a man.
But today, I get to while away some time in a cafe like some pain in the ass youngster.

We've memories for matinees
And the tears come warm and heavy
And the cross streets bear your name.

Fuckin' brilliant.

I so love today.

Hope Beyond Hope

OK, having finally unscrewed myself from the ceiling - I can now state the obvious:

That was the greatest performance by a US soccer team that I have ever seen.

Scoreline – July 10, 2011
Brazil: 2
Marta 68', 92'
USA: 2
Daiane 2' OG; Wambach 120'+2

Solo to Melksham: You'll go home before I do

I mean, let's check off the setup:

High stakes? It's the World Cup Quarterfinal, duh.
Rivalry? Brazil. Yes, there's a bit of history there.

Hope Solo has a bum shoulder, or at least is taking great pains to appear to be in pain during warmups.

Tense? Yeah.

Kinda.

So, we have one of those dream starts where the soccer gods (who are a$$holes) gift us an own goal off Brazil's Daiane panic stab.

Hard to feel good about that - but given the US fragility through the rest of the tournament - it's almost divine providence. Brazil on the back foot and the US can focus on playing their game. Brazil drip talent from every pore, can score on the smallest mistake, and God help you if you get behind on goals or players.

But Brazil have a history of mental breakdowns. When they are winning, they are the Samba Queens. When they are losing, they turn into the Drama Queens - every bit as cynical as an Italian mens team.  Diving, Pouting, The pleading cous-cous gesture in front of the ref. Writhing on the ground for every imagined foul.

Vs. the Samba Queens, I'm thinking the US will have a hard time - but the US women can beat the Drama Queens any day of the week.

A goal down, Brazil is looking very dramatic - and the US, while not being bulletproof at the back, is playing a very solid game. Wambach is doing more damage by drawing fouls than anything else - but its a solid 1st half that any objective observer would have to cede to the North Americans.

But in the 62nd minute, the game reverts to type.

Enter the BS Red Card:

 Melksham: I will now utterly F#*k up the game

That's Rachel Buehler getting thrown out because - well, Marta did something clever that didn't work out. Buehler was the closest US player - so naturally she's thrown out of the game.

I'm sure a Brazilian would see that play differently, and you could certainly make the case for a penalty. But Marta was never going to get the ball regardless of Buehler - so the red card is just a load of crap.

The Drama Queens are gifted a PK and it's all onto our injured keeper, Solo. Penalty kicks become goals 80% of the time - so this will become a goal, and the US will play for the remainder of the game with 10 players.

Great.

Only Solo stops it. Incredible.The US is down a player, but they keep the lead.

Solo's screaming at the heavens and the US is in mid-exultation when the ref decides that she hasn't f#*ked up the game quite enough yet.

The Drama Queens will get a do-over - because (take your pick)

1. Solo moved off her line before the kick to a degree that is only perceptible to persons named Melksham; or
2. A US player was 1 step leaning inside the 18 yard box as the ball was struck

Reason 1 is total crap, and reason 2 is an incredibly tight ruling on a colossal play. Encroachment in the box is a big deal, but the merest step in the box is something forgiven in virtually every case unless there is some argument that it affected the resulting play.

It did not, the shooter was not distracted, and the resulting deflection was easily cleared without the encroaching player gaining some advantage.

In other words, much like the red card, the do-over call was total crap.

Marta steps up for the re-do and slots it home.

We're 1-1 with the Drama Queens - awaiting their inevitable transformation as our shorthanded team is ground down by their speed, talent, and (totally undeserved) numeric superiority.

Seen it before. And while I'm sure the US will be valiant, you just can't hope to contain and then score on Brazil while you're shorthanded. They'll lay back and burn you on the counter.

But then something strange happens - the US midfield steps up huge. Brazil is getting picked apart before they get deep into our end. Repeatedly.

We're getting chances in the Brazilian end. And the crowd has seriously turned. Every time Brazil has the ball in our end, the stadium erupts in whistles and boos. They start totally hating on Marta. I can't recall ever seeing a player of her skill booed so vehemently.

And the ref takes the hint. She's totally blown the game apart with her ineptitude, so a flurry of make-up calls start falling against Brazil. And incredibly, Brazil stays in Drama Queen mode.

Pouting, whining, diving - the whole act. Somehow they forget that they are a gifted side - and the USA hold them  until the end of regulation.

At this point - you have to be proud of the USA for hanging in there. But all that valor has earned is another half hour of the same treatment.

Extra time - and we're right on script. Marta gets an impossible ball and does something impossible with it to score two minutes in. It would be deserved if only one of their players hadn't been totally offside.

Brazil is insane, the crowd is not pleased and we're set for a grind down of the US until the final whistle. Down a goal and a player - this is about as dark a hole as you can find yourself in.

Still, the US plays on the attack - we get pressure up on the Brazilian goal against all odds - and the Brazilians are not grinding us down. There's a lot of takeaways in midfield - but no classic torching of the back line.

We lurch into the second half of extra time and I'm thinking we'll avoid the undeserved blowout score. The one critics will spout on about how we were "outclassed" and "outplayed" when in fact we were undeservedly hamstrung and hung out to dry.

[[Late Edit: Anonymous rightly points out another winning moment from the match - Ericka's laughably bad rendition of I've been crippled for life, get the stretcher. Naturally this was followed by her immediate and total recovery as soon as her erstwhile deathbed was carried over the touchline.

The crowd's prolonged outrage was satisfying enough, but the ref was apparently so offended by Ericka's cynical abuse of the game - she carded her. The look on Ericka's face was priceless.

Would that all recipients of the "magic sponge" were so rewarded. Or (as I've said to anyone who won't taze me) perhaps the rules should be amended such that any injury that results in a stoppage requires the speedy removal of the player by stretcher and a minimum amount of recovery time off the pitch. You wanna waste time? Waste your own team's time - the rest of us have a game to play.]]

Wambach is trolling for fouls and Lloyd keeps trying from distance. Morgan is doing her best but we're at the end of extra time and we're clearly going down.

Lloyd's getting run down in mid-field and Ian Darke is looking at the clock saying "She really has to get this pass off.." Literally two minutes to go and Lloyd guts it out to get a pass to Rapinoe, streaking wide.

Rapinoe taps it once, looks up - and fires an orgasmic-ly  brilliant cross into the box-
-and of course - late in the game - have we packed the box with players?

No, there's no one...

-No one except Abby-Freaking-Wambach. My brain starts into ...but she's been in a slump...

And then she heads it home like a guided missile!

Wambach to World: The Drought is Muthafu*#-ing Over.

It's unbelievable. I'm screaming Are You Kidding Me??!! as Abby roars towards the corner flag and the crowd blows the roof off the stadium. Brazilians are looking at each other with expressions of total defeat.

Too bad pouty faces and playacting don't count in PK shootouts.... Awww.

I don't know how Brazil managed to piss off the soccer gods, but the shootout was scripted by someone who clearly wanted to see them suffer full blown agony before death.

The US kicks first and - in a act of karma that is too perfect by half- Boxy's shot is stopped. And the ref calls a re-do because Andreia came off her line. 

Boxy's mulligan goes in - and the life drains out of the South Americans.

Solo's been baying for blood ever since Marta's do-over - so you better believe she's ready.

Daiane (of the I-kicked-the-ball-into-my-own-net fame) gets stuffed by Solo, and now Brazil knows they are doomed.

The US demands it, the crowd demands it- The goddamned universe demands it - and it will happen.

Today the soccer gods are d!cking with somebody besides us.

Alex Krieger steps up with the weight of the nation on her shoulders - and buries it.

• Boxx: Way to step the hell up. You were awesome.
• Rapinoe: All's forgiven for that perfect cross. 
• Wambach: You were just playing with us, weren't you? Waiting for that perfect moment to start scoring again? Well stop that, you're going to kill somebody.
• Solo: FIFA's calling you the player of the match, but only because they're sorry for how bad their ref tried to punk you. You're the player of the match by worldwide acclamation. Rock out and ride this to the final. You earned it.

I am literally dying to see the mash-up of crowd reactions to this match, because I think you're going to see some people seriously lose their sh!t.

Jaw dropping. No other words for it.

I've never seen the like.

Go USA.

Wambach and Solo: Do you see, Brazil??
Do you see how we crush your dreams??!!