Bitching about work

Hey friends...

I have a minute to breath... barely

This is a rant... feel free to ignore it. I just need to vent.

My experience with the Iowa group has been fairly limited. We try to support their software configuration management needs, but I was happy with just letting them stay status quo until we move them over to the tools we use in Denver. That's not happening soon enough. Their SCM server is crapping out on them. Locking developers out every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It is a Linux box.

A few weeks ago we decided we needed to change out that server. They wanted to move from a Linux box to Windows. Sounded easy enough, but me and my crew are not too familiar with the tools they use. We got it all set up except for one add-on that send e-mail out every time a file is checked in. I told them they may need to go without that tool. They said "NO WAY!", they had to have it. About a week or so ago I asked why getting spammed from the source control tool was so important... that was a big mistake.

Well they use this tool in a VERY unorthodox way, and also do software releases in a very odd way, I came to find out. Apparently, when a customer finds a bug in the software and declares it an emergency, the group in Iowa fix the code and check it in. This generates these e-mails that identify only the lines in the code that are changed. The Iowa group then forwards that e-mail to the client. When I was investigating this I though "Why the hell would they care what lines of code were changed?". I came to find out that the customer has our source code on-site (This is bad, VERY BAD!), and when an emergency bug needs to be fixed they take this e-mail and make the changes on-site instead of just getting a new release from us. They then rebuild and redeploy locally. I think the words that came out of my mouth were, "You got to be fucking kidding me". Not only that, but the client has the "option" of making changes we don't know about, or not implementing all of the fixes we send them.

Let me explain something here. My title is Manager of Software Configuration Management. It is my responsibility to be able to control and recreate any software that has either been deployed internally or to the customer (ESPECIALLY to the customer). I had no idea this was going on. The project manager that told me this said she knew that this was a bad way of doing it, but this was needed due to customer expectations. I told her this was going to have to change.

I could not keep this to myself. I wrote this up in an e-mail to my boss, he is the head of Systems Engineering, and to the head of Product Engineering, and the VP of Software Engineering for our division. What suprised me is the speed in which I got a reply. The first came from the VP. She was in shock. So much so that she followed that up with another "less volatile" response. Unfortunately she told me that I had to get that fixed.

This is an issue way beyond my group, which is way I threw it up the ladder. I don't interact with the customer, and if I was to tell the customer that this practice is no longer going to work I know I would have my head on the chopping block. I let everyone know that the customer relationship needed to be worked to get them to understand the change to the process, and it should be done by someone that already has an on-going relationship with them.

I think the VP agreed, but she never told me. I was trying to understand how to unravel this mess when my boss came by. He was laughing and shaking his head. I told him I don't want to look under any more rocks in Iowa, "can we just nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way to be sure". That was a movie quote (I know... such a guy thing). Can anyone guess the movie?

Well the responsibility is no longer on me to fix this. It has been handled at the VP level. More than one VP had to be involved because a different VP handles the customer facing stuff (I was right... YEAH!).

Sorry for all the process talk. I know it's not exciting.

So now we're moving them over next weekend to the Windows box without the e-mail add-on. Another weekend ruined with work. There are going to be a number of ruined weekends coming up shortly. This was just one of the things stressing me out.

I haven't even been playing much as far as computer games go. My BF2 installation needs to be redone. So I've been playing a little World of Warcraft. Sometimes with Chrissie. I like how her character dances for mine.

Little League is over, but Kevin is also on the freshmen team at the high school. That goes for a couple more weeks. I've been spending a lot of time at the ball parks.