Yet another problem on the same classroom computers I dealt with yesterday. Straightforward, but tedious–I had to a make a change individually to each workstation in the room–immediately. The whole class was being held up. Again, not really my job, but I was the first person my boss could reach. Several senior people were present. It went OK. I left the classroom with a piece of cake and a round of applause.

…. from a project risk assessment document here at work, dealing with an issue that is quite controversial in the systems development world.

4.6.5 Mitigation Strategy

The […] project manager will assemble all project stakeholders, tie them to their chairs, and force them to listen to very loud Rap music until an agreement is reached..

Late yesterday, and again this morning, I was asked to do some software installation and configuration on a classroom full of computers. Emergency, top priority…. and somebody should have thought of it weeks ago. So both times I changed my plans and got it done. Better organization would certainly make for a smoother work environment. OTOH, if everything were perfectly organized I might be out of a job.

Our Divisional Administrator called an all-hands meeting on about one hour’s notice. Seems about 15 (out of about 100) people are being reassigned to a big high priority project. Everything else will suffer, including yesterday’s top priority projects. They will be looking for replacement staff, but that will take a while (This is the government).

I was not one of the “chosen”, for which I am feeling a mix of relief and disappointment.

Could be worse–a lot worse–in many places lately this sort of sudden meeting has been for announcing layoffs.