wednesdays are lazy days

In a weird and honestly uncomfortably miraculous turn of events, the next build isn't scheduled to deploy until December. That's an entire two months away, and testing so far has been--dear God knock on wood--going well.

(I say this knowing that the next huge build will doubtless be assigned to us at the beginning of November, but--still. Since last year, it's been so ridiculously frantic a pace that this seems downright lazy.)

On the downside, we have auditors in the office. I am not clear on their function other than to watch us work--fun--and check our testing results. They are also on the other side of my cubicle wall which means I have been told, in small words (my God my coworkers know me) to keep my voice down at all times in hopes they won't hear my less than cheerful comments on the intelligence, ambitions, hopes and dreams, and probable non-human origins of the developers, the project managers, the vendors, and the entirety of the agency hierarchy. I'm actually more likely to cut the developers slack; they're programmers who have never worked directly with clients or in a capacity to understand what caseworkers do. But theoretically, the agencies high-ups have been caseworkers or at least seen one in the wild, so really, no.

I'm also having a bout of job satisfaction, which yes, it's weird, but there you go. Learning the program area I'm testing helped, but that most of that was due to the de facto head of that part of testing who a.) knows pretty much everything about it and b.) has an interesting habit not caring how many times she has to explain something, which makes her the only human being in history who doesn't mind doing that, and most of that, I think, is her understanding of the difference between being explained how something works and actually having to do it. Ie, explanations are good, but seeing is understanding.

Having skipped work (for legit reasons!) am currently loafing and resentfully noting it's still a month until my Kindle Fire gets here. Dammit.

Comments

[out_there]

I'm also having a bout of job satisfaction, which yes, it's weird, but there you go.

Awesome to hear. Lately, you've sounded so busy that sleep seems optional, so it's great that the job is slowing down for a moment.

[nagasvoice]

My goodness, the head of testing you talk about sounds like a resource of incalculable price0--so is it possible to keep coming back to her later on?!?

hi...

[name_les]

;D

"I have been told, in small words (my God my coworkers know me) to keep my voice down at all times in hopes they won't hear my less than cheerful comments on..."

I don't think you need to worry. Based on the ten years I spent as an Internal Systems Auditor for a mfg co, the auditors arrived with at least a tentative Audit Program. If these auditors are public auditors from e.g., one of the big four accounting firms, then they definitely have a canned audit program and DO NOT CARE about anything else (yes, Internal Auditors generally feel very superior to their over-paid counterparts who are notorious for shallow audits). Either way, they'll be concentrating on accomplishing the AP in the allotted, probably too-short, time-frame and are used to tuning out background noise anyway. So unless you repeatedly and loudly proclaim something specific like "X put system Y in w/o testing or authorization", it's very unlikely your comments will effect the scope of the audit.

hahaha Here's a thought...If you're talkative and appear knowledgeable in an area being audited, an auditor(s) may seek your help w their testing.