On the eve of the big deploy

I have read, and damn near committed to memory, just over 600 pages of business requirements documentation.

60 pages of it seven times, due to “one last” change being made to it by the business team.

I have received 1,400-and-a-handful emails about it.

And written about 300 replies.

Plus over 6,300 lines of testing code.

I believe I have written more code to test this thing than was needed to, you know, make with the magic.

I have sat through a lifetime and a half of meetings.

A lifetime of which had nothing whatsoever to do with anything to do with my part of the project.

And naturally, not been invited to the scant handful that I really ought to have been around for.

In the name of getting it right, I have made so great a nuisance of myself to the business analysts, partners and development team that it is a wonder they are still speaking to me.

Fortunately, I can make scones. This, I find, goes a long, long way toward making people forgive you for sidling up to them going, “Yeah, uh, about this field? Should be a varchar. You’ve got an int. Oh. And you’re missing a source. Oh, also…?” fifteen times a day for two months.

Found three more bugs today.

Was not amused.

Thought about not reporting them.

Because, you know…really? The night before freeze? Really?!

Got a little (well, more than a little) irritated that nobody else had, because come ON, people…have you, or have you not, likewise been testing what we’re sending you…?

Realized that most probably, my irritability had more to do with a climbing fever than actual irritation.

…by golly, 102.7 and rising, yeah, that’ll make ya pissy all right…

Dosed up.

Dug back in.

Tomorrow? There’s a go-no-go meeting.

I do not appear to be invited to it.

So I don’t know when it is being held.

Chances that I’m going to get an !!!!EMERGENCY!!!! phone call at some weird, random time tomorrow morning or night to dial in, Now!!!!!, to explain something?

Extremely. High.

Chances that this is situation normal?

100%, kids.

Either way, we’ve gotten through it. Whether we go or not, we got through this psycho period.

I think we did good.

And I further think…that I am going to bed.

This haul has been long, and it isn’t over yet.

I’m looking forward to the end of tomorrow, and a return to (what passes for) sanity around here…

…where I have the flu, and Captain Adventure has a sinus infection, and the girls have been cycling in and out of school like it had a revolving door all week…