Stretched

[sobrique]

I'm feeling a little stretched. Like butter that's been spread on too much toast.
Problem is, as a result, I'm also feeling like my ability to DO stuff is depleted.

There's kind of a satisfaction in knowing you're hosed, regardless. Because then you do what you can, and ... well if you blow it, well you did your best. You feel like there's no further need to push, beyond the limits.

I'm feeling that way now. I have until the end of the month to finish doing 'some stuff'. (SAN migration). It's doable, but ... very marginal. Our contingency time is almost gone, and we've still a lot outstanding that's ... well somewhat high risk.

We also have another project, that I will generously refer to as a cluster fuck from start to end. It's one of these Ultra screaming bitch high profile projects, that we have 'politics' piling the bullshit up. That's not a good start. However, it's also a house of cards infrastructure. 1 thing going 'ping' means it all falls apart. It's running on 5 year old servers, because the bastards were too tight to put it on 'new' stuff. Several of which only have one power supply - In servers, the bits that move fail. This is power supplies (well, their fans) and disks. Disks I can deal with, but if it's only one PSU ...

Oh, and the licenses for the software for the 10 servers it's on, costs about 100k each.

However, the real mammoth task for the next two weeks, is to build and 'make ready' as SAN attached Oracle veritas cluster.
Absolutely by the weekend of the 13th/14th. Because this political bullshit project is dependant on it. And they want 24/7, no downtime ever, because they're really important.

This project is also the one which I mentioned previously, that _has_ to have data coherency across all the servers, otherwise the backup is effectively corrupt.

The quantity of data involved takes _about_ 9 hours to copy. And they want it done in less than 30 minutes. Again, this is doable, as our new san can snapshot disks. Implementing this is going to be ... shall we say non-trivial. Especially as since project instantiation, I've not had a spare week or two to go on the 'how this stuff works' training course, that's really supposed to be a prerequisite.

Sometimes it's refreshing to know you're doomed to fail.

Comments

[mcnazgul.livejournal.com]

No downtime ever? These people live in cloud cuckoo land... still, they'll probably find out the hard way.

It's reassuring to a point. Make sure you are doing all you can but don't get too crazy about it - I've seen some people get wound up, be less effective and have someone sail in and take all the credit for the ground work done by the gibbering heap in the corner.

I've always found flagging the lack of training before implementation on your project manager's risk log always a good way to get the metric grazers stirred enough to give you some room... though I have been accused of manipulating project manglers for fun.

I couldn't possibly comment...

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

The problem is, they live in cloud cuckoo land, but when the shit hits the fan, then it lands firmly on me, as 'failing to deliver'.

I mean, it worked so well on the powerpoint.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you taken the time to document all your misgivings and give it to the head of the different projects/your bosses

I really think its worth doing. As from my companys experience the feeling you really want when gouing in to do these doomed
projects is called "ass covered". Ie. if it goes tits up then you dont get shafted.

However that may just be me being overly paranoid as I work for a SH&T company.

Peter

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've hit the point where if they sack me, that'll just be a relief.

I've been 'expressing concerns' right left and centre from day 1, as has the project mangler.

(We have an official deadline, and a 'real' deadline)

[(Anonymous)]

I know how that is, most of my department is of the opinion that if the new boss fires them then it'll just be a relief.
Of the department who our department is merging with all but two want to get their redundancy and go. But the boss
isn't being that generous. Instead he's doing the equivalent of putting you on email helldesk. ie not what
your directly trained for and a job that you know should be payed 7-8 grand less than you're getting, and not only that
but one that is specifically designed to drive you to quitting.

ps he's billing this as good for their CV's (downgrading their job from technician to callcenter, yeah right!)

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

That's called 'constructive dismisssal'. If you're prepared to take it to industrial tribunal that is...

[malal.livejournal.com]

Is that on their job description? If not then they've got good grounds to tell him to go jump IIRC...

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Most employment contracts include 'and other duties as deemed necessary'.

However, if they push it too far, then you end up with an employment tribunal to argue the case.