The Working Girl Blog #8: High-tension team meeting, or Having trouble with my contacts, so just call me Bobbie Four-Eyes

Stayed up a little late last night. Well, I actually go to bed at around one a.m. usually. But given the long couple of days, maybe I should have gotten more Z's. Plus the fact that I kept waking up. Guess I was just worried about the meeting in the morning, plus I was tired.

Anyway, I tried to get as much sleep as I could, and got up at around six. Did my usual morning routine - bathroom, shower n shampoo, brush teeth, clothes n makeup n hair. But I skipped my usual breakfast so I could make it to the office by eight. Plus it wasn't my weekly (Monday mornings are my weekly), so I was able to leave early enough that I made it to the office by eight.

Thing was, I guess my eyes were a little swollen from lack of sleep etc. and I had a real hard time putting my contacts in. So, reluctantly, I decided to wear glasses. I couldn't find them though, so I had to use my old pair, which I call my "comfy glasses."

Those of you who regularly wear glasses know that it can be uncomfortable to be wearing glasses continuously, and if you've gone through several pairs like me, you'll know that some of them are more comfortable than others. I've always needed glasses since high school (my prescription is now in the high 600's, and can't get by without any corrective lenses), and have gone through several over the years. I have one pair (must be over ten years old) that was my most comfortable one, so I've held onto it and upgraded the lenses regularly. My "comfy glasses" are now my emergency set. After transition, I decided to change my image some more and wear contacts, only wearing glasses if needed.

My problem is that my comfy glasses aren't exactly high-fashion. It's one of those big n round thin-wire-rim ones (pre-Lisa Loeb y'know), and looks woefully unfashionable now. But they ARE comfortable. Anyway, I looked at my reflection in my dresser's mirror and I look a bit like a little girl. Grrr.

Anyway. I got into the big conference room, and our department secretary had everything set. On the side were pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon, orange juice and big pots of coffee. On the side were paper cups and plates, and instead of plastic forks and such, she had laid out real ones (the company really was serious about the earth-friendliness thing). Pretty plain spread, actually but just the ticket for this meeting. Lots of chairs, a projector and a screen. Great. She went to me proffering a big cup, apologizing that they didn't have hot chocolate, so she got me a couple from Coffee Bean.

I mentioned that some of the managers and bosses might want to drop by, and she said that she made sure there was extra. She also said that the food came from one of the canteen concessionaires so it didn't cost much. I have to give her props for her thoroughness.

Anyway, I gave her a hug and started the meeting.

The meeting started almost on time, and everything went okay, and there was a lot of good-natured bantering, but on the whole, it went pretty tame and pretty smooth.

So, my team leads and I showed everyone what we got, and we got a lot of "ohs" and "ahs" and "so that's what they meant" comments. I think our trip was very worth it. I insisted, though, that we not talk how to handle the requirements yet, but to concentrate on understanding their operation. Everyone brought out notepads, laptops and netbooks, and we finished with a lot of questions asked and answered.

I then opened the floor, and a lot of tech-talk then ensued. There was a lot of talk about applets and some call-outs to external routines to accomplish some of what the customer needed that Domino or Sharepoint couldn't manage, and Mr. Personality and his team more than earned their keep, having ready suggestions and plans to manage them. I suggested using what's called a "wrapper," which puts a lot of api's together making just one multi-purpose app or api that other routines just need to call. After a short beat, my suggestion was greeted with some claps and a lot of enthusiastic murmuring. Anyway, enough geek-talk. Suffice it to say, the meeting was just about a lot of IT guys talking about a lot of IT stuff.

That was a nice time for a break so I called everyone to the little buffet, and to grab a bite while we continued the meeting.

The meeting was more leisurely after that, sort of a working brunch thing. I asked the team leads to present their teams' pre-work. Everyone showed what they had done, and we looked at a pretty nifty set of user manual templates, pre-structured test script skeletons, and pre-structured routines. No one noticed some of the other managers had come in, so we were surprised when we heard a manager from a different group make a comment that these templates weren't standard.

This was greeted with silence. Someone in the middle of the room sub-vocalized, "oooh...” and there was a lot of nervous murmuring and giggling. The guy who said the offending comment felt compelled to explain himself, saying that these weren't according to standard company specs.

One of my guys (whom I later found out used to be part of that manager's group) stood up and asked me if he could plug his laptop into the projector. I was a little worried but I nodded. Anyway, he popped up a set of specs and one MS-Word file. They looked very similar to our stuff. My guy said that these were from a recently-completed and signed-off project, whose format and style was the basis of our stuff, and were in fact from a project that that manager had run himself

I decided to cut it there, thanked the guy and he took the file off the screen.

But the manager, face very red, wouldn't let it go, saying something like, regardless, our stuff was not standard. One of my girls then said something like, of course it's not standard, because the company hasn't mandated any standard yet.

Before it could escalate further, our department head (who we didn't see come in) stood up and said that, perhaps it's time that we did start making a standard. She then turned to me and said that, while the company was still deciding on standard specs and methodologies, my team will document how we did our project, and to come out with a set of standard documentation, design and programming templates, because, if I was successful, our department will start using what we have as it's standard.

She then said congratulations and good work to the team, and adjourned the meeting.

Well...

Anyway, after the meeting, we all went back to our cubicles. I went to Mr. Personality's cubicle, where his team was clustered around. I said congratulations to them, and had a hushed talk with his team, and especially the guy who stood up. The guy pre-empted me, saying that that guy has had a reputation as an asshole ever since he got promoted as a manager, and was leaving the company in a few weeks, anyway.

In any case, I said that we should go easy on embarrassing anyone, not just managers. But what happened was a good thing in a way, in that, now the entire department will be looking to us now. (By that time, I noticed most of my guys were clustered around us, listening in.) Everyone murmured at that, but I said we got everything lined up and we can do it.

On that positive note, we all went back to work. When I went back to my office, I found our department head and our department secretary waiting. My boss said congratulations and said that, if I needed an extra hand for the documentation work, she was assigning our department secretary to me for the duration. She shook my hand, gave me a light hug and left. Without asking, our department secretary handed me her resume. We sat down at my table and we talked about her background. I found out that she was eminently technically capable. I said that we should meet again on Monday so I could sort out her work. Well... I was shell-shocked to say the least. No wonder everyone thought highly of her. She actually sort of reminded me of Texas Girl.

Anyway, for the rest of the day, it was run-of-the-mill. Except when I heard a bit of an argument outside. I heard some guy loudly saying to my people how can they work for a kid like me. One of my girls said I wasn't a kid and that they were lucky to have me, and the others invited the guy to leave not too politely , and he skulked off. The guy would probably not have said anything if he realized I was in my office.

I don't know if I was polarizing the office or not. Hopefully not, coz I was liking it here. I was actually wondering why this was happening, as I hadn't said one cross word to anyone, and was unfailingly polite the whole time since I started working here.

"Kid." I've always had that problem. At least, after transition, I've realized being "kid-like" wasn't too much of a disadvantage for a girl as it was for a guy. At least I don't get beat up for it anymore.

Still - better not wear my comfy glasses to work again.

Anyway, better shut down and get some sleep. Nite-nite to everyone.

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