Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Quick update!

A couple of things have happened since 4:40 AM this morning.

1) Elizabeth's teacher has offered to have the children re-do Elizabeth's skit in the classroom. They won't have the stage sets, but she said they can do the costumes. OMG, I've got to stop crying at work. This is awful (but now in a kinda good way.) I've looked at my calender and there is no friggin' meeting on there that is more important than this so I just told the teacher to tell me when to show up! I'm thinking I'll bring cupcakes or something to thank the kids and maybe flowers for the wonderful teacher!

2) I talked with my boss. Oh yeah, she was pissed. We're getting into a game of telephone gossip - you know I said, you said, he, she or it said, etc... She said that she was under the impression that I had told / demanded that OGC HAD to demand that the vendor file. You can read my account of what really happened below. I explained that to her and she calmed down - at least towards me. She's still steaming that OGC wants to do something she doesn't agree with... I hope she's really, honestly believing me. Oh well... what can I do if she doesn't???

Really, really bad night...

My original plan was to title this post with some reference to winning the bad mommy award - but as I've thought about it, I realized this is much deeper than making light of a screw up. Today - particularly this evening - has been down right awful. Some might even say f**ked-up.

It started a couple of days ago. There are a lot of story lines that come here, so I hope I can explain everything without causing mass confusion. But if you do find this hard to follow - please be patient with me. My mind is racing... I'm going to try to pull this apart as best I can.

As you may know, this is the last full week of school for Elizabeth. There are all kinds of activities. Tonight the first grade put on a play for the parents. It was in the auditorium with costumes and mics and lights and set design, and everything. They put on a series of Aesop's Fables. Elizabeth was the narrator for the Boy who Cried Wolf. Her skit lasted about 8 - 10 minutes, but she had the most lines in the skit. She spoke almost the entire time. She needed to be at the theater at 6PM to put on costumes, set up, and stuff like that. The actual play started at 6:30.

A couple of days ago the VP of IT sent an email to my boss. The two VPs had a meeting scheduled and the IT-lady insisted that I attend the meeting as well. This was kind of an honor that the IT-lady considered my opinion valuable enough that she wanted me there in addition to my boss. Aside from the pat on the back, there were also some political reasons why I needed to attend this meeting when summoned.

But here's the problem... this meeting was already scheduled for 5 - 6 PM this evening. I had it pretty much worked out - the SACC lady can only "release" Elizabeth to an "approved" adult. So, I talked with Elizabeth's teacher and she was willing to be the official person to pick up Elizabeth. But she was going to be swamped with set-up so the SACC lady agreed to take Elizabeth to gym. I even brought in a frozen dinner so Elizabeth could have something before the play. I figured that if I left by 6:05 - based on past experience - I could reasonably be at the play in time for the 6:30 curtain. Things seem OK - right?

So, here's the other story... I'm supporting a contract negotiation. The contract is being negotiated by outside counsel, but our OGC (office of general council) is also involved. For the last couple of weeks I've been at the beck and call of the outside counsel.

There is this one particular thing we want the vendor to do. We'll call this thing "file." There is a regulation that instructs some firms to file. File isn't exactly what the regulation talks about, but I'm being purposefully vague so don't worry about. All you need to know is that we are currently "filed." A few months ago - actually many months ago I raised a concern... should our vendor file, too. A group of us went round and round on this question. The group was made up of my boss, another VP, and some other folks. The problem is in the wording of the regulation. There is nothing that is specifically on point for our current situation. But after lots of meetings, gnashing of teeth, and spirited debate the team decided that the vendor had to file. Right after that, I communicated this to the vendor.

On Monday the vendor's lawyer pushed back. They don't want to file. They don't think they need to file. Yesterday I confidently defended the position that the vendor had to file. But the vendor was still unhappy so they pushed back to my boss. My boss immediately turned around and said - "Oh no, they don't need to file. There is no good reason for it." But, the outside counsel had heard my arguments on Monday and he was uncomfortable that he as getting two opinions on two different days - especially since I had already said my boss had been part of the decision making team. (And I won't even talk about how under cut I personally felt at being contradicted in this curcumsance.)

The uncomfortable lawyer decided to call OGC. The OGC lawyer asked one of the other guys who was on the original team for more clarification. But that guy was not a computer guy. He specializes in the regulations for another part of the business. He had heard that my boss changed her mind but he didn't understand the underlying reasons. So when asked by OGC, he basically said the reason was, "because she said so." Being a rational thinker, OGC was not happy with this answer so she called me.

She had no history on the subject - she just knew that we had asked the vendor to do this, they didn't want to do it, and my boss said OK. So I gave her the whole history. I laid it all out for her. I told her that my boss didn't think they needed to file and I clearly explained why. The she pulled out the regulation and we walked through the regulation word by word. We used the glossary section to understand how the feds were using certain terms. We went through the same process that the original team did a couple of months ago. I tried my best to be impartial and to not unduly sway the conversation - but OGC came to the same conclusion - they have to file. So she said she would follow-up with outside counsel.

So fast forward to my 5PM meeting. It was a mess. There was a location miscommunication. The meeting was actually in a building two blocks from the building where my boss and I were waiting for the meeting to occur. When we figured out the screw-up, it was already late and the IT-lady said we could have the meeting as a conference call. But my boss said it had to be face to face. So by the time we got to the real meeting place it was after 5:30. I said I had a hard stop - that I had to leave. But the meeting didn't go as planned and I didn't get out until 6:15 and it was raining and there was an accident on a road near mine, so traffic backed up on my road... I didn't get to the school until 6:50 and Elizabeth's play was over.

I MISSED THE WHOLE THING! (I'm sure you saw that coming from a mile away.)

As I was running in I saw a girl from Elizabeh's class and I asked if the Boy who Cried Wolf had gone. Before she could say "yes." I had burst into hysterical tears. I went into the theater. Elizabeth was supposed to sit with her class, but I called her over and just hugged her and cried and apologized. She didn't seem that upset... but that's just not the kind of mom I want to be - and hell I'm crying again.

But Elizabeth kept saying it was OK and she said I would enjoy the other fables so she wanted me to find a chair to watch then she went back to sit with her class. I found a chair, but I don't remember a single fable. I was crying so hard I'm pretty sure the people next to me also have no clue what the other fables were. After the play I cried when Elizabeth's teacher asked me if I got there on time and I wailed when one of the mother's came over to tell Elizabeth how fantastic she was. It was quite a spectacle. Finally I pulled myself together and told Elizabeth I would take her out for a desert.

Elizabeth is a pretty sharp cookie - as soon as I said I would take her out for desert she said, "Well, I think we should stop at Toys R Us so you can buy me a toy, too." Toys R Us is kinda far away so we settled on a toy from CVS. In addition to her desert (choc. chip cookies) and toy she also got a Sprite, french fries, a candy bar, cotton candy, and I feel like I'm forgetting something... Clearly she has my number - no wonder she wasn't upset I missed the performance.

But my story isn't over... as we were getting desert I got an email from my boss. She is majorly pissed at me. Through one channel or another she has learned about my conversation with OGC. Her email is fairly short and terse - her feelings come through loud and clear. She thinks I did an end-run on her and stabbed her in the back. She wants me to call her early in the morning she we can "talk" about this.

I am beside myself. I'm sure it's a timing thing. I'm sure if I weren't already a basket case because I missed the play I would be able to handle her email with more aplomb, but I did and I can't. Here it is 4:40 AM and sleep is no where near my little head. You know, if anyone should be pissed - I'm the one who was made to look like a fool after having been assured that we were all in agreement. I didn't call anyone - they have hunted me down. I haven't done anything wrong - but I'm surely going to get screwed. If not this morning, it's coming. I don't know when and I don't why... I just know it is.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Bug or Enhancement?

Here is a question for you: If you have a report - it can be a report about anything. Where there are enough records for the report to have multiple pages everything is fine - headers and footers are correct, page numbering is correct, there are exactly the number of pages required to show the data, etc. However, if there is only enough data for one page, then the report always prints two pages. The headers and footers are correct. The page number on page one says 1 of 2 and he page number on the second page says 2 of 2; but page two is completely blank except for the header and the footer information. Get the picture?

So let's say you want to change the report so that only one page prints when there is just enough data for the first page. Would you call this request to change the report enhancement request or a bug report?

I've been asking this question to several people. Here are the answers I've received:

A senior director of quality (that's not me) said a bug.
A software engineer / developer said a bug.
An administrative assistant with no IT background said a bug.
A naturalist said a bug.
A licenced, practicing MSW with no IT background said a bug.
A seven year old said a bug.
I say a bug.

It seems we have a consensus building around a bug. Right? Wrong!

I spent more than an hour arguing this point with a group of approximately 24 senior software quality engineers and their managers. Here is their rational... There is no requirement that explicitly states the report shall have just enough pages to print the data required on the report. Therefore, the second page of the report is a feature and changing that feature is an enhancement request.

My counter argument is that there is no requirement that the report be exactly two pages. There IS a requirement that report be CORRECT. The blank second page adds no value, is confusing because the user may be expecting data on the page, if you purchased any commercial software package that printed extra pages you would automatically assume the software was defective. Therefore, there is an implied requirement stemming from the "shall be correct" requirement that there will not be extra pages and therefore this is a bug.

I finally gave up... they agreed to make sure the report printed the way I wanted it printed but they never really understood why. The darned thing is still being called an enhancement. At this point, all I care about is having the report print correctly.

As an aside, I discovered another scary little fact. Here is another test for you... If you have a requirement that a field could only contain certain numbers - for example let's say the only valid values for this field were 1 through 10. How would you validate that this field were working correctly?

If I were writing the test cases I would check the following values: 0, 1, 2, 9, 10, and 11. It is commonly know in the software industry that in this type of situation the boundaries are the most areas where mistakes occur. I would test 0 and 11 to ensure the appropriate error messages are displayed. The other values I would test to ensure they were accepted as required.

During my little report discussion I discovered that the senior software engineers in question do not test 0 and 11 because there is no requirement for 0 and 11. The requirement is 1 - 10 so they do not see the value in testing 0 and 11.

If this weren't my life I wouldn't believe me!

Friday, June 01, 2007