this has not been a good day
I have decided that there is no project on earth, professional, open-source, or non-profit, that is at all professional, ever.
As of today, I have written no less than sixty and no more than seventy and change tests for the massive redesign that I have been working on off and on since December. We started system tests (pre-tests) in january. We start primary testing Monday.
As of Tuesday, they 1.) randomly changed the driver flow in a very key place, 2.) randomly changed up the titles and text and 3.) pdfs stopped working for no reason and tasks arent' being created. All of my tests--that took me months to write and rewrite and polish--have to be rewritten.
For the record, I have owned archives, worked on archives, worked on projects, both in fandom and professionally and as a side thing when I got bored. Today when they told me of the horror that is my life, I asked "were they drunk?" and meant it. There is no godmod in fandom who can hit this level of loss of sense.
Then I said, "They are doing it worse than LJ." I have never, ever felt such existential horror as realizing that livejournal's ongoing breaks with reality are less utterly insane than the vendors writing our code. My four spent half the day talking me down, and I have spent the day writing up epic fucking level novel-length defects for this, I am so not kidding, and testing hasn't even started yet.
And they are still better than the previous vendor, so I just--here is what I have learned. Privatization sucks. I have yet to see any benefit at all whatsoever from paying someone to fuck up or letting us hire in house and fucking it up ourselves. At least if it was in-house, there would be a shitload of accountability both professional and also, us showing up to hate them. Accountability as far as state contracts go is more "Did Perry think you were really cool?" which is so fucked up this hurts me.
I have literally spent quality time trying to get my other BFF's husband to take a job with them and take over the project.
There is no excuse and no reason and no possible justification. The tests we write are to protect and help the most fucking vulnerable populations in Texas, people who cannot and do not have the power or even the chance to fight for themselves, and this is tiny, it's such a tiny part of it and not just in the scheme of things but in anything, but it's huge when it works because it's one of the few things that does and let's not lie to ourselves, we are living a Randian utopia and the only thing I am getting satisfaction from is the fact they hit seventy and medicaid is gleaming on the horizon, they have a goddamn religious experience with the value of the safety net. Our net is not a great one, and honestly none of them are all that sturdy, but a whole bunch of shitty safety nets means there's a better than average chance you can get a fingerhold in one of them before you hit the ground, or at least break your fall enough so you can stand up again. It makes all of so much less than we are that this is the best we can hope for. Rome pulled off this shit better.
It does not help that it takes them facing vulnerability to admit it exists; I do not forgive that it is not and never will be about others but always about themselves. I do not on a fundamental level of my existence get how anyone can decide that another person's pain is just not worth even the pretext of caring on the basic survival level of food, clothing, shelter, medical care; I am not even rarified enough at this point to imagine they would understand feelings here, I'm asking remedial level ability to work with the human experience of living; I don't forgive that lack within them either. I have this horrible, uncomfortable feeling that these kinds of breaks is how you get fanatics, and people, I am happy being lazy, but a fire could motivate me to move, and the metaphorical equivalent seems to be getting a lot larger these days and inertia is goddamn dangerous when motion is involved.
So my week, not good. There is the possibility that I will be taking cities in the name of a working social safety net program, so I'm taking applications for followers. Must have a working empathy, a strong desire to do good, and a fanatical desire to burn every copy of Atlas Shrugs you come across. I'm open to further suggestions on method, but I think I got the goal down cold.
As of today, I have written no less than sixty and no more than seventy and change tests for the massive redesign that I have been working on off and on since December. We started system tests (pre-tests) in january. We start primary testing Monday.
As of Tuesday, they 1.) randomly changed the driver flow in a very key place, 2.) randomly changed up the titles and text and 3.) pdfs stopped working for no reason and tasks arent' being created. All of my tests--that took me months to write and rewrite and polish--have to be rewritten.
For the record, I have owned archives, worked on archives, worked on projects, both in fandom and professionally and as a side thing when I got bored. Today when they told me of the horror that is my life, I asked "were they drunk?" and meant it. There is no godmod in fandom who can hit this level of loss of sense.
Then I said, "They are doing it worse than LJ." I have never, ever felt such existential horror as realizing that livejournal's ongoing breaks with reality are less utterly insane than the vendors writing our code. My four spent half the day talking me down, and I have spent the day writing up epic fucking level novel-length defects for this, I am so not kidding, and testing hasn't even started yet.
And they are still better than the previous vendor, so I just--here is what I have learned. Privatization sucks. I have yet to see any benefit at all whatsoever from paying someone to fuck up or letting us hire in house and fucking it up ourselves. At least if it was in-house, there would be a shitload of accountability both professional and also, us showing up to hate them. Accountability as far as state contracts go is more "Did Perry think you were really cool?" which is so fucked up this hurts me.
I have literally spent quality time trying to get my other BFF's husband to take a job with them and take over the project.
There is no excuse and no reason and no possible justification. The tests we write are to protect and help the most fucking vulnerable populations in Texas, people who cannot and do not have the power or even the chance to fight for themselves, and this is tiny, it's such a tiny part of it and not just in the scheme of things but in anything, but it's huge when it works because it's one of the few things that does and let's not lie to ourselves, we are living a Randian utopia and the only thing I am getting satisfaction from is the fact they hit seventy and medicaid is gleaming on the horizon, they have a goddamn religious experience with the value of the safety net. Our net is not a great one, and honestly none of them are all that sturdy, but a whole bunch of shitty safety nets means there's a better than average chance you can get a fingerhold in one of them before you hit the ground, or at least break your fall enough so you can stand up again. It makes all of so much less than we are that this is the best we can hope for. Rome pulled off this shit better.
It does not help that it takes them facing vulnerability to admit it exists; I do not forgive that it is not and never will be about others but always about themselves. I do not on a fundamental level of my existence get how anyone can decide that another person's pain is just not worth even the pretext of caring on the basic survival level of food, clothing, shelter, medical care; I am not even rarified enough at this point to imagine they would understand feelings here, I'm asking remedial level ability to work with the human experience of living; I don't forgive that lack within them either. I have this horrible, uncomfortable feeling that these kinds of breaks is how you get fanatics, and people, I am happy being lazy, but a fire could motivate me to move, and the metaphorical equivalent seems to be getting a lot larger these days and inertia is goddamn dangerous when motion is involved.
So my week, not good. There is the possibility that I will be taking cities in the name of a working social safety net program, so I'm taking applications for followers. Must have a working empathy, a strong desire to do good, and a fanatical desire to burn every copy of Atlas Shrugs you come across. I'm open to further suggestions on method, but I think I got the goal down cold.