Another work related one, and given that's all I've seemingly been doing lately (as per my last post), then that's what you're going to get.

Ran into this bit of code today:

.p-noborder > .p-tabview .p-tabview-panels {
  border: 0 !important;
}

.p-noborder > .p-tabview .p-tabview-panels {
  border: 0 !important;
}

Exact same code, and right next to each other in the file. According to GitLens, one was from 2 years ago, the other 3 years.

Job security, am I right?

I didn't want June to slip by without a post, but when realizing I hadn't written in some time, I also realized I didn't really have much to say. The biggest thing is work. We had a huge project at work whose deadline came and went (We all waved at it as it went zooming by), and I've been dealing with the mop up (re: bugs) for the past six weeks. Starting towards the end of April, project management let us all know that we needed to get this project done ASAP as they were going to present it to our government client for free, as a way to "grease the wheels", as we were up for recompete.

It was without a doubt, one of the most poorly planed projects I've been on. I won't go into details, but to put things in perspective, we had not one, but two post-mortems about what could have gone better. There might have been a third, but management threw in the towel.

There's finally light at the end of the tunnel... I'm down to less than twenty bugs, so yay. They would be easy enough to clear out but I have normal sprint work as well. So, they sit in the backlog and I get to them when caught up on work.

But yeah... that's where most of my focus as been. 60+ hour weeks, some weekends, too many meetings, and blah.

I think it's time to take some days off.

After my recent post about getting out and engaging more, I found myself coordinating a team lunch for some co-workers in the area. As a few of the people were going to meet in the office beforehand, I decided to go in, even if it meant driving past where we were all meeting for lunch, and then backtracking.

It was a bit surreal to be back in the office itself. And, I realized with a bit of a start, it was almost exactly four years to the day that we'd gone remote full-time. Most of the desks have been removed, along with some of the conference tables as well. Right before we'd all gone home for good, I'd been reassigned to a different office and desk (we have three suites in this particular building), but, to be quite frank, I didn't remember what desk was mine. Ended up sitting at a table in the kitchen area.

Some of my co-workers and I discussed coming back into the office, for one day a week, or month... not sure where everyone landed on that. But honestly, I would be ok with going back once a week. I do really enjoy my setup at home, but it's nice to get some face-time in with co-workers as well. It was great catching up at lunch, and more than one person thanked me personally for arranging for all of us to meet. Seems I'm not the only one who was grateful for a bit of social contact again.

A year ago today, I started working remotely full time. That day, I walked into the office and started my morning routine; drop off the laptop at the desk, wander into the kitchen to put away my lunch and fill my water bottle, then back to the desk to setup the laptop, and start with the business of the day.

Little did I know, I’d be packing it all right back up within minutes.

The email stated that management had decided to err on the side of caution, and was sending everyone home to work remotely for two weeks.

The two weeks became a month.

The month stretch out to three.

By June, it was very much a “play it by ear” situation. I don’t think anyone realized how quickly Covid-19 would spread. When I read the news that there were 10,000 deaths attributed to the illness, it was sobering.

As I type this, we’re sitting at just over 530K deaths. At this point, I’m nearly numb. The 10K was followed by the 50K, and then 100. And it just kept getting worse.

Thankfully, there’s a vaccine. A few, actually. And they’re slamming people through the process. The government stated they were hoping to have everyone vaccinated by the end of July. Now it’s been moved up to the end of May. Something like 2 million people are being vaccinated a day.

I don’t want to consider what it might’ve been like if he had been re-elected.

I consider myself lucky, given that I’m able to work remotely full-time. Because of this, and the generosity of a very good friend, I was able to emerge from the gray walls and tiny window of my basement, and setup house on the shores of Lake Winnipesauke. The tiny basement window has been replaced by nearly floor to ceiling windows that look out at the currently frozen lake. I spend the days pretending to work while staring out at that frozen landscape, watching snowmobiles and ATVs trundle across the ice. While my friend’s office -- which I’m working out of -- is in his basement, the basement itself is warm and inviting, full of natural light. Pretty much the whole north wall of his house is windows, facing the lake.

It’s made for a very nice change.

There’s no hard timeline for when I’m going back to my own house. Probably when I get to missing the wife, or, fingers crossed, I get a notification that my vaccination appointment has been set. Of those two reasons, I imagine the latter will happen much later. I’m in the C class, which they haven’t even started scheduling for.

But there’s a vaccine. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. There’s (hopefully) a summer of gatherings with friends and good times ahead.

There’s hope.

It's gotten busy at work.

I mean... BUSY.

For a few months there I didn't have much to do. Mostly bug fixes here and there. And then we had a new project start and I was given the Bootstrap/UI duties for that team. And then a second project spun up, and it was decided I could be a "shared resource", and I was given the Bootstrap/UI duties for that project.

And then third project came about.

And a fourth.

Currently, I am on five scrum teams. Yes. Five. Now, I don't always have work or bugs for all teams at any given time, but there are days when I'm heads down for a solid 8-10 hours.

It shouldn't (hopefully) be for long. If it is, I'll burn out. Thankfully I have a good scrum master who's always checking my point totals and making sure I'm not going batshit crazy. Two sprints ago I was given a total of 13 points. A full sprint's effort is typically 8. That was a crazy week.

But hey, at least I'm not bored.